From rnapo at znet.com Mon Jan 1 20:09:47 2007 From: rnapo at znet.com (Rich N) Date: Mon Jan 1 20:10:07 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Pre-agenda agenda References: <003f01c71719$48a51c70$0300a8c0@robathome> <4573D7A5.7080202@aenet.net> <1157.67.116.242.55.1165245016.squirrel@webmail4.pair.com> <457545C9.9000803@aenet.net> <20061205183245.GA25716@shallowsky.com> <4575C0EB.3090003@resource-intl.com><45761A38.6070201@aenet.net><1119.67.116.242.55.1165376046.squirrel@webmail5.pair.com> <4576AFB4.30209@aenet.net> Message-ID: <000901c72e23$d84a0090$c4f61345@180edt> Hi guys, Here as a Pre-agenda agenda. "A living agenda" :-) I put ** to highlight "new" points to talk about. Please feel free to add more things you want to talk about. Happy New Year, Rich ------------------------------------------------------------ I) Meeting Called to Order II Review and Approve Last Meeting Minutes III) Typical Business A)Treasury Report (Gary) B) Membership Report (Rob) C) Loaner Scope Program Report (Mike) ** Direction and purpose of the Telescope Loaner Program D) Observational Astronomy Class Report (Rob) E) ATM Class (Mike) F) General Meeting Programs (Dave) G) Houge Park SP (Gary) H) School Star Party Report (Gordon) I) Observatory Committee (Craig) J) Calendar ? K) Next AANC Meeting IV) New Business... From bhavner at sbcglobal.net Tue Jan 2 17:34:38 2007 From: bhavner at sbcglobal.net (Bob & Brenda Havner) Date: Tue Jan 2 17:34:42 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Night Sky Cancelled Message-ID: <005201c72ed7$562b40b0$0202a8c0@Turtlerock> There will no longer be any copies of the Night Sky Magazine. Sky and Telescope has decided to stop its publication due to lack of interest (paying customers). Bob From mark.wagner at resource-intl.com Wed Jan 3 17:03:02 2007 From: mark.wagner at resource-intl.com (Mark Wagner) Date: Wed Jan 3 17:02:41 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Board Meeting Agenda? Message-ID: <459C5246.5000401@resource-intl.com> Hi, I saw Rich N put out an agenda for this Saturday's board meeting. Is that an official agenda? Just curious.... trying to decide if I want to attend. From rnapo at znet.com Wed Jan 3 17:16:13 2007 From: rnapo at znet.com (Rich N) Date: Wed Jan 3 17:16:22 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Board Meeting Agenda? References: <459C5246.5000401@resource-intl.com> Message-ID: <000b01c72f9d$ee045220$cbf61345@180edt> It was made as real as I could make it. I've not heard of issues of particular interest or new business. If someone would speak up if there are issues with regular business or some new business it would help. I only posted my pre agenda to the board list because before sending it to the general population I thought the board should see it first. Letting the local astro population the see the agenda should help get more people interested in the club. Also the SJAA should know what the board is working on. Rich > Hi, > > I saw Rich N put out an agenda for this Saturday's board meeting. Is > that an official agenda? Just curious.... trying to decide if I want to > attend. > _______________________________________________ > SJAABoard mailing list > SJAABoard@sjaa.net > http://www.sjaa.net/mailman/listinfo/sjaaboard > From pkohlmil at best.com Wed Jan 3 19:30:05 2007 From: pkohlmil at best.com (Paul Kohlmiller) Date: Wed Jan 3 19:30:31 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Ephemeris arrived Message-ID: <00a801c72fb0$a154b060$e3fe1120$@com> The Ephemeris arrived in Gilroy today - no barcodes. Paul K -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaaboard/attachments/20070103/b5df5181/attachment.html From robhawley at earthlink.net Wed Jan 3 21:07:09 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Wed Jan 3 21:07:26 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Pre-agenda agenda In-Reply-To: <000901c72e23$d84a0090$c4f61345@180edt> Message-ID: <000001c72fbe$3501f180$0300a8c0@robathome> I would like to see us segregate off the stuff that should be handled by email. For example, you can read my report on the mail list. I have nothing to add. The other people should really take a look at their sections. If they are just reporting status then that can be handled via email. Some of the items (e.g. the ATM class) typically involve just one or two board members and can be handled off line reporting only the results. The board should only be involved if there is an issue that needs to be resolved. That will allow us time to work on the new business issues. I am not sure why my name is next to the Observational Astro Class Rob Hawley From koopm at koopm.best.vwh.net Wed Jan 3 21:44:07 2007 From: koopm at koopm.best.vwh.net (Michael Koop) Date: Wed Jan 3 21:44:16 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Pre-agenda agenda In-Reply-To: <000001c72fbe$3501f180$0300a8c0@robathome> References: <000001c72fbe$3501f180$0300a8c0@robathome> Message-ID: <20070103224326.Y79037@koopm.best.vwh.net> I'm still at work. I might get a chance to work on the agenda later tonight. Mike On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Rob Hawley wrote: > I would like to see us segregate off the stuff that should be handled by > email. For example, you can read my report on the mail list. I have > nothing to add. > > The other people should really take a look at their sections. If they are > just reporting status then that can be handled via email. Some of the items > (e.g. the ATM class) typically involve just one or two board members and can > be handled off line reporting only the results. The board should only be > involved if there is an issue that needs to be resolved. That will allow us > time to work on the new business issues. > > I am not sure why my name is next to the Observational Astro Class > > > Rob Hawley > > > _______________________________________________ > SJAABoard mailing list > SJAABoard@sjaa.net > http://www.sjaa.net/mailman/listinfo/sjaaboard > From koopm at koopm.best.vwh.net Thu Jan 4 02:28:00 2007 From: koopm at koopm.best.vwh.net (Michael Koop) Date: Thu Jan 4 02:28:03 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Agenda for Board Meeting on Sat. January 6th Message-ID: <20070104032443.J46355@koopm.best.vwh.net> The agenda is available for print out here: http://koopm.best.vwh.net/SJAABoardMeetingJan07.pdf Please let me know of any corrections or additions to be made. Thanks. Mike From craigus at rocketmail.com Thu Jan 4 09:39:51 2007 From: craigus at rocketmail.com (Craig Scull) Date: Thu Jan 4 09:39:58 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Pre-agenda agenda (land donation) Message-ID: <20070104173951.63569.qmail@web54503.mail.yahoo.com> As for the possible land donation -- there are no updates to speak of. We are looking forward to another series of summer star parties, and I will make a note to myself to sketch out some dates with Bob. Weather permitting I am hoping to observe with Bob in the next observing cycle and visit the 12.5" F/7 SJAA loaner scope that he has kindly kept in his storage building at the site. Craig ----- Original Message ---- From: Rob Hawley To: Business list for SJAA board of directors and members Sent: Wednesday, January 3, 2007 9:07:09 PM Subject: RE: [SJAABoard] Pre-agenda agenda I would like to see us segregate off the stuff that should be handled by email. For example, you can read my report on the mail list. I have nothing to add. The other people should really take a look at their sections. If they are just reporting status then that can be handled via email. Some of the items (e.g. the ATM class) typically involve just one or two board members and can be handled off line reporting only the results. The board should only be involved if there is an issue that needs to be resolved. That will allow us time to work on the new business issues. I am not sure why my name is next to the Observational Astro Class Rob Hawley _______________________________________________ SJAABoard mailing list SJAABoard@sjaa.net http://www.sjaa.net/mailman/listinfo/sjaaboard From rnapo at znet.com Thu Jan 4 12:09:34 2007 From: rnapo at znet.com (Rich N) Date: Thu Jan 4 12:09:46 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Agenda for Board Meeting on Sat. January 6th References: <20070104032443.J46355@koopm.best.vwh.net> Message-ID: <000701c7303c$419e1a80$7ff61345@180edt> Hi Mike, How did you come up with the list of new business? Thanks, Rich > > The agenda is available for print out here: > http://koopm.best.vwh.net/SJAABoardMeetingJan07.pdf > > Please let me know of any corrections or additions to be made. > > Thanks. > > Mike > _______________________________________________ > SJAABoard mailing list > SJAABoard@sjaa.net > http://www.sjaa.net/mailman/listinfo/sjaaboard > From jvn at svpal.org Thu Jan 4 13:32:52 2007 From: jvn at svpal.org (Jim Van Nuland) Date: Thu Jan 4 13:37:17 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Re: School star party statistics, Jan.4, 2007 Message-ID: <459D7284.2D6D@svpal.org> Hi, All, Here are the tallies as of Jan.4 at noon, for the school star party program, 2006-7 school year. Events conducted in Aug: 1 Events conducted in Sep: 1 Events conducted in Oct: 6, plus 1 mostly cloudy event Events conducted in Nov: 5, plus 1 mostly cloudy, 1 rained on, 5 cancel. Events conducted in Dec: 1, plus 5 cancelled at noon. A lousy end to a year! I distinguish between cancelled (decision at noon is to scratch); verses cloudy, clouded out (we go to the school but the sky is bad). Coming attractions: Firm Provisional (explanation) Jan 8 0 Feb 4 1 (rain date) Mar 7 1 (rain date) Apr 1 1 (rain date) Nov 1 0 (next school year) Clear Skies! -- Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association JVN's web site From wb6yru at aenet.net Thu Jan 4 16:28:57 2007 From: wb6yru at aenet.net (Gary Mitchell) Date: Thu Jan 4 16:27:00 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Ephemeris arrived In-Reply-To: <00a801c72fb0$a154b060$e3fe1120$@com> References: <00a801c72fb0$a154b060$e3fe1120$@com> Message-ID: <459D9BC9.3070101@aenet.net> Paul Kohlmiller wrote: > The Ephemeris arrived in Gilroy today - no barcodes. > > Paul K Still nothing here (zip 95124). I expected some delay because of the Christmas mailing season and holidays, but it's been two weeks now. And we sealed them too. Gary From jvn at svpal.org Fri Jan 5 12:29:05 2007 From: jvn at svpal.org (Jim Van Nuland) Date: Fri Jan 5 12:52:18 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Ephemeris arrived Jan.5 Message-ID: <459EB511.3E8C@svpal.org> Hi, All, My Ephemeris arrived Friday Jan.5. No bar code. The seal was in place, but broken. -- Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association JVN's web site From wb6yru at aenet.net Sat Jan 6 01:55:23 2007 From: wb6yru at aenet.net (Gary Mitchell) Date: Sat Jan 6 01:53:42 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Ephemeris arrived Jan.5 In-Reply-To: <459EB511.3E8C@svpal.org> References: <459EB511.3E8C@svpal.org> Message-ID: <459F720B.2070204@aenet.net> Jim Van Nuland wrote: > Hi, All, > > My Ephemeris arrived Friday Jan.5. No bar code. The seal was in > place, but broken. > Same here, except the seal on mine was intact. (zip 95124). Gary From areopagus125 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 6 09:29:17 2007 From: areopagus125 at yahoo.com (David Smith) Date: Sat Jan 6 09:36:03 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Ephemeris arrived Jan.5 Message-ID: <20070106172918.68076.qmail@web38412.mail.mud.yahoo.com> My Ephemeris arrived Jan 5 with broken seal and no bar code. 95124. -- David ----- Original Message ---- From: Gary Mitchell To: jvn@svpal.org; Business list for SJAA board of directors and members Sent: Saturday, January 6, 2007 1:55:23 AM Subject: Re: [SJAABoard] Ephemeris arrived Jan.5 Jim Van Nuland wrote: > Hi, All, > > My Ephemeris arrived Friday Jan.5. No bar code. The seal was in > place, but broken. > Same here, except the seal on mine was intact. (zip 95124). Gary _______________________________________________ SJAABoard mailing list SJAABoard@sjaa.net http://www.sjaa.net/mailman/listinfo/sjaaboard __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From areopagus125 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 6 14:54:08 2007 From: areopagus125 at yahoo.com (David Smith) Date: Sat Jan 6 14:54:12 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Status report Message-ID: <20070106225408.30390.qmail@web38409.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I have a wedding to attend, so I won't be able to be at the board meeting this evening. I will be at the general meeting, though. Today's speaker is Bob Fies. He has been rehearsing his presentation this week. He will probably show up earlier than the 7:45 that I recommended. He needs the computer projector. Regarding the problem with John Dillon's cancellation for Feb 3 due to illness: I don't have a replacement speaker yet. Kenneth Frank said that since he and John have collaborated on the topic, he would be happy to deliver John's presentation. He will check with John to see if that is OK with him. March 3 speaker is Prof. James Graham of Berkeley, on the topic of planetary disk observations with the Keck using adaptive optics and Hubble. -- David __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From wb6yru at aenet.net Sat Jan 6 17:48:00 2007 From: wb6yru at aenet.net (Gary Mitchell) Date: Sat Jan 6 17:46:34 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] SJAA financial report for 2006 Message-ID: <45A05150.5080808@aenet.net> SJAA 2006 Financial Report Where?s the money coming from: 2005 2006 Difference ATM 360.00 75.00 -285.00 Auction , Buyer 7,745.80 5,778.50 -1,967.30 Auction, bidder fee 188.50 1.00 -187.50 Books 1,640.28 2,049.50 409.22 Dues -- members 5,034.00 5,529.99 495.99 Gift Received 36.00 1,023.00 987.00 Interest Inc 192.29 178.65 -13.64 Misc inc 1,416.26 2,242.00 825.74 S&T Subscriptions 5,617.34 4,949.95 -667.39 Swap 1,292.25 967.90 -324.35 ------------ ------------ ------------ SUBTOTAL 23,522.72 22,795.49 -727.23 Where?s the money going: 2005 2006 Difference Auction seller 6,690.05 4,641.00 -2,049.05 Book Purchases 1,757.84 1,603.00 -154.84 Bulk Mail 671.64 660.00 -11.64 Dues -- paid out 235.00 220.00 -15.00 fees 411.99 642.62 230.63 Gifts Given 200.00 100.00 -100.00 Insurance 1,140.00 1,140.00 0.00 Misc 309.20 2,405.33 2,096.13 Newsletter 2,313.78 2,563.54 249.76 Nonprofit fees 20.00 0.00 -20.00 S&T, Subscriptions 5,337.90 4,975.45 -362.45 Speaker fee 215.00 225.00 10.00 Telephone 186.80 221.99 35.19 Telescopes 9.73 93.05 83.32 ------------ ------------ ------------ SUBTOTAL 19,498.93 19,490.98 -7.95 2005 2006 Difference OVERALL TOTAL 4023.79 3304.51 -719.28 Cash Flow Notes: The incoming Auction Seller and outgoing Auction Buyer represents the cash flow during the day of the auction. At the end of the day there was no net outgoing money. 2005 2006 Difference Auction income 1055.75 1137.5 81.75 RASC and other books: 2005 2006 Difference Books, net -117.56 446.5 564.06 Fees paid. PayPal is the transaction fee for incoming membership and Calstar payments 2005 2006 Difference other 293.00 400.00 107.00 PayPal 118.99 242.62 123.63 Miscellaneous 2006: Most of the Misc. money is due to Calstar and the portable toilets for the Ayers star parties: Calstar out: 1789.61 Calstar in: 1958.00 ---------- 159.39 Port-a-potty out: 403.43 Port-a-potty in: 249.00 -------- -154.43 Sky & Telescope member subscriptions, net. This isn?t zero because payments received and subscriptions paid don?t break evenly across the annual boundary. 2005 2006 Difference S&T net 279.44 -25.5 -304.94 Accounts as of 12/31/2006, compared to 12/31/2005 2005 2006 Difference CD 1 5,063.82 5,076.34 12.52 CD 2 5,070.00 5,167.51 97.51 CD 3 - - - 5,000.00 - - - Checking 6,079.28 4,399.90 -1679.38 Observatory Fund 3,042.00 3,100.51 58.51 PayPal 201.13 0.00 -201.13 Savings 402.45 403.55 1.10 Petty Cash 57.15 71.83 14.68 ------------ ------------ ------------ TOTAL 19,915.83 23,219.64 3303.81 Gary Mitchell SJAA Treasurer From wb6yru at aenet.net Mon Jan 8 00:42:13 2007 From: wb6yru at aenet.net (Gary Mitchell) Date: Mon Jan 8 00:40:57 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] supplement to SJAA 2006 financial report Message-ID: <45A203E5.9080603@aenet.net> Supplement to 2006 financial report, cash flow section At the January 2006 board meeting, there were questions about certain items in the written 2006 financial report. This supplement is in response to those questions. Specifically: 1) Explain the profit shown regarding Calstar, it should be a loss. 2) How did we make a profit of $446.50 on book sales? I'll post an amended financial report shortly. In the mean time, does anyone have any other questions or notice anything else? 1) Calstar activity and the Misc. category The Calstar and port-a-potty details mentioned in the 2006 report were just to give the board an idea as to why the Miscellaneous cash flow amounts were on the order of $2000. The statement there said: "Most of the Misc. money is due to Calstar and the portable toilets for the Ayers star parties." The point being merely to identify the bulk of the amount in the Misc. category, not to be a full accounting of Calstar. Without those two items, the Misc. category would be 234.59. Since Calstar finances seems to be a hot-button topic, here's a full accounting for that activity: Calstar activity details checking account 6/10/06 Valley Catering Calstar travel cost of caterer fees -250.00 6/10/06 Valley Catering Calstar caterer deposit fees -300.00 8/21/06 through 10/5/06, meal payments received from 18 individuals, Misc inc 571.00 9/18/2006 - 10/5/2006, meal refunds to 2 individuals Misc -51.00 9/28/06 Rob Hawley Calstar meal payment Misc -1,724.00 9/28/06 Rob Hawley photocopies for Calstar Misc -23.61 10/7/06 Valley Catering deposit return fees 300.00 Total Calstar income by check 871.00 Total Calstar payments by check -2,348.61 Net Calstar checking -1,477.61 NOTE: That last checking item (deposit return) was not in the Misc. category of the 2006 report because I had only searched for the term "Calstar." Instead, that one ended up in the Fees category. Calstar activity details PayPal account Meal payments from 38 individuals via Paypal: 1,387.00 Paypal transaction fees -51.61 Net Paypal 1,335.39 Grand total for Calstar 2006: Checking: -1,477.61 PayPal: 1,335.39 Net -142.22 So, we did NOT make a profit on Calstar, SJAA ended up $142.22 in the hole. 2) Book profits seem too high This one turns out to be a little embarrassing... First of all, this is another case of reporting only the fiscal 2006 year and seeing overflow from the previous year. That is, some of the "profit" was due to sales of books during early 2006 from purchases made in 2005. Notice, the report shows a substantial loss during 2005. I didn't get too excited over the high apparent profit in 2006 for that reason. Turns out I should have. There were two mistakes, one minor, one major. Apparently a $86 PayPal purchase of books was mistakenly categorized as "Misc." instead of "book." That's the minor mistake. The other is kind of a whopper. Regarding the RASC books... Turns out I "sold" 65 books and 77 calendars which is quite an accomplishment, since I ordered 60 books and 75 calendars! I don't buy the loaves and the fishes explanation, so an investigation turned up a weakness in how I've been keeping track of cash sales. It also explains this extra hundred bucks I was having trouble identifying. If anyone wants the gory details, I'll provide it. For here, I'll just summarize: Total books sales 2006 2,135.50 Book purchases, 2006 -1,605.79 Net 529.71 Book sales during early 2006: 296.00 (from RASC books leftover from 2005) Net 2006 books, less 2005 books: 233.71 Bogus sales 5 RASC books, 2 RASC calendars: 105.00 Corrected net 2006 books: 128.71 Some of you may figure out that $128.71 is still a little high since our total possible profit on the RASC books and calendars is $106.75. We also sold a Messier Marathon (hardbound) book for $25, subtracting that makes the RASC profits $103.71. The total was reduced slightly due to PayPal fees and a small round off of postage costs, (some books were mailed). So, the world once again is spinning properly on its axis. :) Gary Mitchell From robhawley at earthlink.net Mon Jan 8 10:17:35 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Mon Jan 8 10:17:43 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] supplement to SJAA 2006 financial report In-Reply-To: <45A203E5.9080603@aenet.net> Message-ID: <004201c73351$463933f0$0300a8c0@robathome> There was also a discussion on the auction donation results you published. 2006 My rerunning of the auction produced a result of $1280.50 not including swap results You published corrected auction results in http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaaboard/2006-April/002904.html that agrees with my result for the auction. However you included a $5 donation to the club that was not related to the auction bring the reported result to 1285.50. 2005 My rerunning of the results produced a result of $1240.25. According to http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaaboard/2005-April/002469.html you state that Jim's record of the auction agrees with my result. Again you included $9 in the reported result that was not a part of the auction giving you a reported total of $1249.25 The new program produces a number of reports that will document what happened at the auction. It will also insure that everyone is properly checked out. I will provide you with a list of what everyone owes before checkout begins. You can use this list to confirm that all receipts have been processed. I would strongly advise you to keep any such cash donations separate from the auction proceeds to allow you to more easily balance your books. These donations will not be included in the donation statements we give bidders; however since the amounts are small they can legally be declared separately and do not need a written acknowledgement from us. Again these are donations not net income since we are not a business that makes a profit by conducting the auction. From craigus at rocketmail.com Mon Jan 8 20:43:24 2007 From: craigus at rocketmail.com (Craig Scull) Date: Mon Jan 8 20:43:29 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] December 2 , 2006 - Final SJAA Board Meeting Minutes Message-ID: <20070109044324.56595.qmail@web54512.mail.yahoo.com> Here are the final meeting minutes... ====================================================== December 2, 2006 - SJAA Board Meeting Minutes - Craig Scull ====================================================== November minutes were approved after a motion from Mike and seconded by Rob. No one abstained. ------------------------------------- Members present ------------------------------------- *-Mike Koop *-Rob Hawley *-Rich Neuschaefer *-Gary Mitchell *-Lee Hoglan *-Gordon Reade *-Craig Scull *-Dave Smith ------------------------------------- Treasurer's report ------------------------------------- ACCOUNTS AS OF 12/2/2006: CD 1 5,076.34 CD 2 5,167.51 CD 3 5,000.00 Checking 3,605.68 Observatory Fund 3,100.51 Pay Pal 146.76 Savings 403.55 Petty Cash 37.33 ------------ OVERALL TOTAL 22,537.68 Fall swap results: $414.90 swap donations ("voluntary commissions") $331.00 sales of club owned stuff. ------------------------------------- Membership report ------------------------------------- Again since this is the 2nd day of the month it is too early in the month to prepare a membership report. I will do it again as a part of generating the mailing labels about the 3rd week of December. Rob As of Nov 18 Paid: 287 Comp: 33 Expire: 17 New: 10 Total: 320 ------------------------------------- Loaner scope program ------------------------------------- No demand for loaner scopes. It was suggested that we upgrade or replace equipment, possibly in line with suggestions by the members, such as those who attend the observational astronomy class. Equipment that is not getting used should possibly be sold. ------------------------------------- Observational astronomy class ------------------------------------- The last class was well attended. This may be a good opportunity to remind our members that we have a loaner scope program. ------------------------------------- ATM Class ------------------------------------- Only Gary is working on a mirror right now. Tom is going to start work on a 10" ------------------------------------- General Meeting Programs ------------------------------------- Bob Fies will do upcoming talk on mirror aluminizing. Other speakers were referenced but not recorded in the notes. Let the secretary (me) know if you need them to be added to the notes. ------------------------------------- Star Parties Report ------------------------------------- Recent Houge Park parties were clouded out for the most part though people still showed up. There has been an ongoing problem with "paperwork" being required at school star parties in particular, in the form of signature or other information having to be provided by the volunteer astronomers. The problem breaks down into the following parts: 1) logistic problems of signing a form in the dark and associated nuisances of white lights, cell phone lights 2) some percentage (up to 25% at one site) of students who are more interested in getting their form signed than looking at objects 3) volunteers' educational conversation about astronomy/objects that is interrupted by students who want to get their form signed 4) the loss of "observing" time and frustration of interruptions due to all of the above Rob passed a motion that the current system is unworkable and that we would not participate in filling out forms. The motion was seconded by Gary. 5 Voted in favor. 3 Voted against. It was discussed that there may be a better alternatives to meeting the needs of the teachers, such as having astronomers hand out sheets with information about the objects they were showing, or providing a sticker. ------------------------------------- School star parties ------------------------------------- Here are the tallies as of Dec. 2, for the school star party program. It's been a very busy month scheduling events. Going to the schools is the easy part. Events conducted in Aug: 1 Events conducted in Sep: 1 Events conducted in Oct: 6, plus 1 mostly cloudy event Events conducted in Nov: 5, plus 1 mostly cloudy, 1 rained on, 5 cancel. In November, we went to two schools despite poor prospects. At one, we had light rain and did not set up. At the other, we had clouds for a while, then showed Albireo to perhaps 75. After all but one family had left, the sky opened up and we did a quick several objects. Coming attractions: Firm Provisional (explanation) Dec 6 0 (4 are re-schedules) Jan 8 0 Feb 4 1 (rain date) Mar 6 0 Apr 0 1 (rain date) Nov 1 0 (next school year) Jim Van Nuland ------------------------------------- Observatory committee ------------------------------------- No real updates to speak of right now. Craig went observing with Bob last week. Bob sent out a general invite to his friends to join him to see the Geminid meteor shower on Dec 13th. ------------------------------------- Fall swap Nov 5th ------------------------------------- The swap was very successful. Mike will look into piggybacking the swap onto the Advanced Imaging Conference. There was extensive discussion around two issues: 1) The possible loss of income as a result of asking people to specify their donation to be 10% or $50 cap whichever is less. At the end of the discussion we decided to let people specify their donation at 10% or a dollar amount cap they specify, whichever is less. 2) The possible need for people to change their donation at the end of the auction during the checkout process. We decided that it would be important to let people adjust the amount of their donation up or down as the case may be. ------------------------------------- Calendar ------------------------------------- Dec 7 -Th- ATM workshop at Houge Park. 7:30 pm Dec 15 -Fr- Houge Park star party. Sset 4:51 pm, 16% moon rise 3:24 am. Star party hours: 7:00 to 10:00 pm. Astronomy Class at Houge Park. 7:30 pm Dec 16 -Sa- Dark-Sky weekend. Sset 4:52 pm, 10% moon rise 4:37 am. Dec 23 -Sa- Dark-Sky weekend. Sset 4:55 pm, 16% moon sets 8:05 pm. Dec 29 -Fr- Houge Park star party. Sset 4:59 pm, 80% moon sets 3:28 am. Star party hours: 7:00 to 10:00 pm. Dec 30 -Sa- ATM workshop at Houge Park. 7:30 pm Jan 6 -Sa- General Meeting. Speaker is Bob Fies, talking about the process of aluminizing telescope mirrors. Board meeting at 6:00; General Meeting at 8:00 ------------------------------------- Houge Park Issues ------------------------------------- Mike submitted a form to the city with the club's schedule for the next 6 months Mike asked the city if the club could hire janitors to clean the floors, but no real response has come yet. Mike asked the city about painting the Houge park curbs and parking stops traffic white to improve public safety at the SJAA star parties, but did not receive permission to do this. ------------------------------------- Board Meeting Policy ------------------------------------- Board members are reminded that they are required to attend 10 of the 12 meetings per year, so up to 2 absences are "excused." Rob made a motion that meetings be held once per quarter, but no one voted. There was some discussion around how meeting a couple hours once a month in person was a much more manageable time commitment than being required to participate via email throughout the entire month. Some history around the board meetings was shared -- board meetings used to be on different nights of the week, at various people's houses. Since everyone was already attending the general meeting it was decided at some point that it would be simpler to hold the meeting before the 8pm general meeting, because all the board members were already showing up and would only need to show up a little earlier. It was also felt that the time before the meeting was the least intrusive, as compared to a different time such as the afternoon or mid day. To give members increased visibility into the club's operations, it was decided that Mike would send his meeting agendas out to the general mailer 48 hours prior to each board meeting. It was also decided that to make the best use of the board's discussion time all regular reports would be sent to the board remailer 48 hours prior to each board meeting. ------------------------------------- AANC Meeting ------------------------------------- Next meeting is Dec 3 at Chabot 9:30am. The next convention is set to be at the College of San Mateo on 9/29/07 ------------------------------------- Mercury Transit Event ------------------------------------- Very successful. There were 13 telescopes and media coverage from channel 4. More than 200 people attended. ------------------------------------- Spirit of the Holidays - Donations at Club Events ------------------------------------- Mark Wagner proposed putting a barrel out to let people non perishable food to donate. Some concerns were raised about the fact that this had nothing to do with astronomy and was yet another expense of time. The club will try this next year as an experiment to see what food is collected. This will require the event announcements to included verbiage about bringing non-perishable food to donate. For simplicity, Mike would drop this off at the Harvest food collection area at work. ------------------------------------- Press Interviews ------------------------------------- The press contacted some board members to get input on the failure of the Mars Observer. Board members were reminded that when contacted by the press SJAA policy does not allow them to give out the names of SJAA members. They can however direct the press to the web site which has the contact information of the other board members in case they want to try talking to other board members. ------------------------------------- Steve Nelson Docent Training Class Materials Request ------------------------------------- Steve requested $100 to cover the expenses of the docent training class he is holding at Evergreen Community College. This request was approved. The docent program Steve has conceptualized could increase the number of volunteers available to help educate the public at star parties. The meeting was adjourned at 7:55pm From craigus at rocketmail.com Mon Jan 8 20:47:00 2007 From: craigus at rocketmail.com (Craig Scull) Date: Mon Jan 8 20:47:03 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] December 2 , 2006 - Final SJAA Board Meeting Minutes (v2) Message-ID: <20070109044700.89838.qmail@web54507.mail.yahoo.com> This version may have easier to read line breaks... ====================================================== December 2, 2006 - SJAA Board Meeting Minutes - Craig Scull ====================================================== November minutes were approved after a motion from Mike and seconded by Rob. No one abstained. ------------------------------------- Members present ------------------------------------- *-Mike Koop *-Rob Hawley *-Rich Neuschaefer *-Gary Mitchell *-Lee Hoglan *-Gordon Reade *-Craig Scull *-Dave Smith ------------------------------------- Treasurer's report ------------------------------------- ACCOUNTS AS OF 12/2/2006: CD 1 5,076.34 CD 2 5,167.51 CD 3 5,000.00 Checking 3,605.68 Observatory Fund 3,100.51 Pay Pal 146.76 Savings 403.55 Petty Cash 37.33 ------------ OVERALL TOTAL 22,537.68 Fall swap results: $414.90 swap donations ("voluntary commissions") $331.00 sales of club owned stuff. ------------------------------------- Membership report ------------------------------------- Again since this is the 2nd day of the month it is too early in the month to prepare a membership report. I will do it again as a part of generating the mailing labels about the 3rd week of December. Rob As of Nov 18 Paid: 287 Comp: 33 Expire: 17 New: 10 Total: 320 ------------------------------------- Loaner scope program ------------------------------------- No demand for loaner scopes. It was suggested that we upgrade or replace equipment, possibly in line with suggestions by the members, such as those who attend the observational astronomy class. Equipment that is not getting used should possibly be sold. ------------------------------------- Observational astronomy class ------------------------------------- The last class was well attended. This may be a good opportunity to remind our members that we have a loaner scope program. ------------------------------------- ATM Class ------------------------------------- Only Gary is working on a mirror right now. Tom is going to start work on a 10" ------------------------------------- General Meeting Programs ------------------------------------- Bob Fies will do upcoming talk on mirror aluminizing. Other speakers were referenced but not recorded in the notes. Let the secretary (me) know if you need them to be added to the notes. ------------------------------------- Star Parties Report ------------------------------------- Recent Houge Park parties were clouded out for the most part though people still showed up. There has been an ongoing problem with "paperwork" being required at school star parties in particular, in the form of signature or other information having to be provided by the volunteer astronomers. The problem breaks down into the following parts: 1) logistic problems of signing a form in the dark and associated nuisances of white lights, cell phone lights 2) some percentage (up to 25% at one site) of students who are more interested in getting their form signed than looking at objects 3) volunteers' educational conversation about astronomy/objects that is interrupted by students who want to get their form signed 4) the loss of "observing" time and frustration of interruptions due to all of the above Rob passed a motion that the current system is unworkable and that we would not participate in filling out forms. The motion was seconded by Gary. 5 Voted in favor. 3 Voted against. It was discussed that there may be a better alternatives to meeting the needs of the teachers, such as having astronomers hand out sheets with information about the objects they were showing, or providing a sticker. ------------------------------------- School star parties ------------------------------------- Here are the tallies as of Dec. 2, for the school star party program. It's been a very busy month scheduling events. Going to the schools is the easy part. Events conducted in Aug: 1 Events conducted in Sep: 1 Events conducted in Oct: 6, plus 1 mostly cloudy event Events conducted in Nov: 5, plus 1 mostly cloudy, 1 rained on, 5 cancel. In November, we went to two schools despite poor prospects. At one, we had light rain and did not set up. At the other, we had clouds for a while, then showed Albireo to perhaps 75. After all but one family had left, the sky opened up and we did a quick several objects. Coming attractions: Firm Provisional (explanation) Dec 6 0 (4 are re-schedules) Jan 8 0 Feb 4 1 (rain date) Mar 6 0 Apr 0 1 (rain date) Nov 1 0 (next school year) Jim Van Nuland ------------------------------------- Observatory committee ------------------------------------- No real updates to speak of right now. Craig went observing with Bob last week. Bob sent out a general invite to his friends to join him to see the Geminid meteor shower on Dec 13th. ------------------------------------- Fall swap Nov 5th ------------------------------------- The swap was very successful. Mike will look into piggybacking the swap onto the Advanced Imaging Conference. There was extensive discussion around two issues: 1) The possible loss of income as a result of asking people to specify their donation to be 10% or $50 cap whichever is less. At the end of the discussion we decided to let people specify their donation at 10% or a dollar amount cap they specify, whichever is less. 2) The possible need for people to change their donation at the end of the auction during the checkout process. We decided that it would be important to let people adjust the amount of their donation up or down as the case may be. ------------------------------------- Calendar ------------------------------------- Dec 7 -Th- ATM workshop at Houge Park. 7:30 pm Dec 15 -Fr- Houge Park star party. Sset 4:51 pm, 16% moon rise 3:24 am. Star party hours: 7:00 to 10:00 pm. Astronomy Class at Houge Park. 7:30 pm Dec 16 -Sa- Dark-Sky weekend. Sset 4:52 pm, 10% moon rise 4:37 am. Dec 23 -Sa- Dark-Sky weekend. Sset 4:55 pm, 16% moon sets 8:05 pm. Dec 29 -Fr- Houge Park star party. Sset 4:59 pm, 80% moon sets 3:28 am. Star party hours: 7:00 to 10:00 pm. Dec 30 -Sa- ATM workshop at Houge Park. 7:30 pm Jan 6 -Sa- General Meeting. Speaker is Bob Fies, talking about the process of aluminizing telescope mirrors. Board meeting at 6:00; General Meeting at 8:00 ------------------------------------- Houge Park Issues ------------------------------------- Mike submitted a form to the city with the club's schedule for the next 6 months Mike asked the city if the club could hire janitors to clean the floors, but no real response has come yet. Mike asked the city about painting the Houge park curbs and parking stops traffic white to improve public safety at the SJAA star parties, but did not receive permission to do this. ------------------------------------- Board Meeting Policy ------------------------------------- Board members are reminded that they are required to attend 10 of the 12 meetings per year, so up to 2 absences are "excused." Rob made a motion that meetings be held once per quarter, but no one voted. There was some discussion around how meeting a couple hours once a month in person was a much more manageable time commitment than being required to participate via email throughout the entire month. Some history around the board meetings was shared -- board meetings used to be on different nights of the week, at various people's houses. Since everyone was already attending the general meeting it was decided at some point that it would be simpler to hold the meeting before the 8pm general meeting, because all the board members were already showing up and would only need to show up a little earlier. It was also felt that the time before the meeting was the least intrusive, as compared to a different time such as the afternoon or mid day. To give members increased visibility into the club's operations, it was decided that Mike would send his meeting agendas out to the general mailer 48 hours prior to each board meeting. It was also decided that to make the best use of the board's discussion time all regular reports would be sent to the board remailer 48 hours prior to each board meeting. ------------------------------------- AANC Meeting ------------------------------------- Next meeting is Dec 3 at Chabot 9:30am. The next convention is set to be at the College of San Mateo on 9/29/07 ------------------------------------- Mercury Transit Event ------------------------------------- Very successful. There were 13 telescopes and media coverage from channel 4. More than 200 people attended. ------------------------------------- Spirit of the Holidays - Donations at Club Events ------------------------------------- Mark Wagner proposed putting a barrel out to let people non perishable food to donate. Some concerns were raised about the fact that this had nothing to do with astronomy and was yet another expense of time. The club will try this next year as an experiment to see what food is collected. This will require the event announcements to included verbiage about bringing non-perishable food to donate. For simplicity, Mike would drop this off at the Harvest food collection area at work. ------------------------------------- Press Interviews ------------------------------------- The press contacted some board members to get input on the failure of the Mars Observer. Board members were reminded that when contacted by the press SJAA policy does not allow them to give out the names of SJAA members. They can however direct the press to the web site which has the contact information of the other board members in case they want to try talking to other board members. ------------------------------------- Steve Nelson Docent Training Class Materials Request ------------------------------------- Steve requested $100 to cover the expenses of the docent training class he is holding at Evergreen Community College. This request was approved. The docent program Steve has conceptualized could increase the number of volunteers available to help educate the public at star parties. The meeting was adjourned at 7:55pm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaaboard/attachments/20070108/9c19486d/attachment-0001.html From wb6yru at aenet.net Tue Jan 9 03:02:06 2007 From: wb6yru at aenet.net (Gary Mitchell) Date: Tue Jan 9 03:00:05 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] supplement to SJAA 2006 financial report In-Reply-To: <004201c73351$463933f0$0300a8c0@robathome> References: <004201c73351$463933f0$0300a8c0@robathome> Message-ID: <45A3762E.2000304@aenet.net> Rob Hawley wrote: > There was also a discussion on the auction donation results you published. > > 2006 > My rerunning of the auction produced a result of $1280.50 not including swap > results > > > You published corrected auction results in > http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaaboard/2006-April/002904.html > > that agrees with my result for the auction. However you included a $5 > donation to the club that was not related to the auction bring the reported > result to 1285.50. Well, if that $5 was received during the auction, as part of the auction, one could argue it should be included. If it was made directly to the treasurer, it wouldn't necessarily show up in the auction program data. Anyway, is this about my year-end statement or that April message of mine? You may notice that a lesser amount was reported in the year end statement (1137.50). I'd have to do a detailed analysis, but in quickly going over things, I think that was due to how data was entered into Quicken. For example, those leftover 2005 RASC books we sold at the auction I logged as book sales, not auction sales. But those were included in the auction program as normal auction items. It's important to keep in mind that when I generate these year-end statements, I just click on a few selections and Quicken spits out the report. Those cash flow items are only intended to give a broad indication as to where money goes or comes from. If people are going to nitpick the details, I have to go back and tease out the relevant data and create a much more detailed report--which is rather time consuming. The detailed report I just sent out about Calstar alone took an order of magnitude longer than the entire year-end report. It took a large part of the weekend to analyze that book sales thing. > 2005 > > My rerunning of the results produced a result of $1240.25. > > According to http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaaboard/2005-April/002469.html > you state that Jim's record of the auction agrees with my result. Again you > included $9 in the reported result that was not a part of the auction giving > you a reported total of $1249.25 Again, this is about donations received during the auction. Those can include bidder number fees (a throwback from when we used to collect $1 from each bidder). Sometimes an old-timer will give us a buck (for the bidder number) just to help out the club. I'd call that part of the auction, since it probably wouldn't have happened without the auction. However, it's a judgment call. All we're talking about here is which column should particular items go in. The bottom line doesn't change. > The new program produces a number of reports that will document what > happened at the auction. It will also insure that everyone is properly > checked out. I will provide you with a list of what everyone owes before > checkout begins. You can use this list to confirm that all receipts have > been processed. > > I would strongly advise you to keep any such cash donations separate from > the auction proceeds to allow you to more easily balance your books. It's not a question of balancing the books, it's more a question of which category they get put in. What category something gets called only changes the cash flow report. The bottom line doesn't change, unless there was an error. My problem (during the auction) is getting everything recorded properly. > These > donations will not be included in the donation statements we give bidders; Maybe they should be. The receipt is something the IRS might see. As far as the IRS is concerned, it's all donations. > however since the amounts are small they can legally be declared separately > and do not need a written acknowledgement from us. > > Again these are donations not net income since we are not a business that > makes a profit by conducting the auction. Don't worry about that, that's just semantics. In Quicken, money we receive tends to get labeled "income." For us, a "donation" is a specific category of its own. On receipts or any IRS forms, we wouldn't necessarily use the category names in Quicken. Gary From robhawley at earthlink.net Tue Jan 9 09:17:12 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Tue Jan 9 09:17:17 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] supplement to SJAA 2006 financial report In-Reply-To: <45A3762E.2000304@aenet.net> Message-ID: <003201c73412$01006fd0$0300a8c0@robathome> > Anyway, is this about my year-end statement or that April message of > mine? The April statement was complete. From your April statement I can track both to the bidding results and to what you reported as result of the auction. It is commendable that you produced a year end statement. If you break out results as you did for some items, then it would be worth spending the time to make sure you have the full background for what you are reporting. For example, if you are now reporting different results than in April then why. If you are time limited then even the first page can yield a useful picture of the club finances. Rob Hawley From wb6yru at aenet.net Tue Jan 9 16:56:32 2007 From: wb6yru at aenet.net (Gary Mitchell) Date: Tue Jan 9 16:54:27 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] supplement to SJAA 2006 financial report In-Reply-To: <003201c73412$01006fd0$0300a8c0@robathome> References: <003201c73412$01006fd0$0300a8c0@robathome> Message-ID: <45A439C0.90907@aenet.net> Rob Hawley wrote: >>Anyway, is this about my year-end statement or that April message of >>mine? > > > The April statement was complete. From your April statement I can track > both to the bidding results and to what you reported as result of the > auction. > > It is commendable that you produced a year end statement. If you break out > results as you did for some items, then it would be worth spending the time > to make sure you have the full background for what you are reporting. For > example, if you are now reporting different results than in April then why. Well, the point there was just to add a little more detail to some of cash flow items. I was trying to anticipate certain questions, such as: what is in "Misc" that should put it over $2000? Do I take it you think I shouldn't do that unless I'm prepared to provide a complete and detailed accounting of whatever I mention? > If you are time limited then even the first page can yield a useful picture > of the club finances. It's not so much a question of not having the time, but how much work should I go through? The year-end statement was intended to be a summary, but it doesn't have to be. How much of the gory details does the board want? Gary From robhawley at earthlink.net Wed Jan 10 09:19:41 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Wed Jan 10 09:19:49 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Who prints the labels Message-ID: <000101c734db$83e19630$0300a8c0@robathome> At the last board meeting we decided to have Accuprint print the labels. We should only do this if we are planning to use them for say 6 months. It is not reasonable to turn this process off and on each month. An alternative is that I could print them and mail them to someone. That prospect does not excite me, but we could do it. I need an answer by Friday morning. Rob Hawley From wb6yru at aenet.net Wed Jan 10 15:35:12 2007 From: wb6yru at aenet.net (Gary Mitchell) Date: Wed Jan 10 15:32:57 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Who prints the labels In-Reply-To: <000101c734db$83e19630$0300a8c0@robathome> References: <000101c734db$83e19630$0300a8c0@robathome> Message-ID: <45A57830.1060908@aenet.net> Rob Hawley wrote: > At the last board meeting we decided to have Accuprint print the labels. We > should only do this if we are planning to use them for say 6 months. It is > not reasonable to turn this process off and on each month. > > An alternative is that I could print them and mail them to someone. That > prospect does not excite me, but we could do it. > > I need an answer by Friday morning. > If you send the text to me, I'll gladly do it. I don't agree at all with Mike that my 600 dpi laser printer produces inferior results to that of Accuprint's printers. Not to mention paying Accuprint's high price. For those who are interested, my printer is a HP Laserjet 6MP. Gary From robhawley at earthlink.net Wed Jan 10 18:41:32 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Wed Jan 10 18:41:32 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Membership counts for Jan 07 Message-ID: <001301c7352a$01660430$0300a8c0@robathome> Happy New Year. As well as giving the monthly report I can give some annual figures for 2006 58 members joined in 2006. That contrasts with 64 in 2005 We entered 2006 with 298 paid and 30 complementary members. We now have 286 paid and 33 complementary. So during the year we dropped by 12 paid members. What month do memberships Expire? Nov-06 4 Dec-06 6 Jan-07 9 Feb-07 20 Mar-07 23 Apr-07 11 May-07 24 Jun-07 57 Jul-07 22 Aug-07 27 Sep-07 19 Oct-07 18 Nov-07 19 Dec-07 16 Jan-08 12 Feb-08 6 more than 13 months 3 complementary 33 expiring 10 paid(current) 286 email delivery 31 Labels Generated 294 S&T Members 158 New Members since last meeting 4 current + complementary 319 **************************************************************************** What year did members join? I am only tracking the last 6 years 2007 4 2006 58 2005 36 2004 30 2003 30 2002 16 2001 9 < 2001 103 total 286 **************************************************************************** Who did not renew? We continue to take the largest hit after the first year, but a significant number of long time members also did not renew. 2006 0 2005 27 2004 14 2003 10 2002 4 2001 0 < 2001 17 total 72 Rob Hawley From craigus at rocketmail.com Wed Jan 10 22:57:04 2007 From: craigus at rocketmail.com (Craig Scull) Date: Wed Jan 10 22:57:11 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Janurary 5 , 2007 - Draft SJAA Board Meeting Minutes Message-ID: <20070111065705.9073.qmail@web54507.mail.yahoo.com> Draft meeting minutes follow... Additions/corrections are welcomed as always... silence implies agreement ====================================================== January 5, 2007 - SJAA Board Meeting Minutes - Craig Scull ====================================================== December minutes were approved by a motion from Mike and seconded by Rich. No one abstained. ------------------------------------- Members present ------------------------------------- *-Mike Koop *-Rob Hawley *-Rich Neuschaefer *-Gary Mitchell *-Lee Hoglan *-Gordon Reade *-Craig Scull *-Dave Smith (absent, but excused) ------------------------------------- Treasurer's report ------------------------------------- ACCOUNTS AS OF 12/31/2006: CD 1 5,076.34 CD 2 5,167.51 CD 3 5,000.00 Checking 4,399.90 Observatory Fund 3,100.51 Pay Pal 0.00 Savings 403.55 Petty Cash 71.83 ------------ OVERALL TOTAL 23,219.64 Mike requested reimbursement for a $20 wireless mouse pointer for use by the speakers at the general meeting. Gary made a motion to pay Mike the $20 reimbursement for the mouse pointer. The motion was seconded by Gordon and passed unanimously. No one abstained. ------------------------------------- Membership report ------------------------------------- As of Jan 1 We now have 286 paid and 33 complementary, Total 319 ------------------------------------- Loaner scope program ------------------------------------- 120mm Orion refractor was donated along with a nice set of eyepieces, a case, and an acceptable tripod. There was also some discussion about the direction of the program. This was initiated from a debate about whether or not a travelscope should be purchased for the program based on the request of a few members. A Uti travelscope was considered for purchase, but this was ultimately rejected because it was not seen as a robust telescope that could survive travel and it did not seem like a beginners telescope either. A travel telescope is a difficult bill to fill because of damage from airplane baggage handlers. For example, on a recent trip to Costa Rica, 3 of 3 telescopes arrived damaged. An Orion telescope with digital setting circles was recommended as having utility for beginners. It was also recommended that we sell off a few of the unused commercial loaner telescopes on Astromart or eBay and the homemade telescopes could be sold at the auction. Mike will create a "sell list" for next month's meeting. ------------------------------------- ATM Class ------------------------------------- Gary continues work on his mirror. Mike is working on master blanks for starting class again. The class has been scheduled for the next 6 months. ------------------------------------- Houge Park ------------------------------------- Prior night's star party was well reasonably attended. Sky was good despite a bright moon in the sky. Regarding the park's status - A vote will be held by the park's department in February as to the future of the park, and it is expected that the status quo will continue. ------------------------------------- School star parties ------------------------------------- Here are the tallies as of Jan.4 at noon, for the school star party program, 2006-7 school year. Events conducted in Aug: 1 Events conducted in Sep: 1 Events conducted in Oct: 6, plus 1 mostly cloudy event Events conducted in Nov: 5, plus 1 mostly cloudy, 1 rained on, 5 cancel. Events conducted in Dec: 1, plus 5 cancelled at noon. A lousy end to a year! I distinguish between cancelled (decision at noon is to scratch); verses cloudy, clouded out (we go to the school but the sky is bad). Coming attractions: Firm Provisional (explanation) Jan 8 0 Feb 4 1 (rain date) Mar 7 1 (rain date) Apr 1 1 (rain date) Nov 1 0 (next school year) Jim Van Nuland The school star party program could use more volunteer telescopes. Gordon is going to advertise the school star parties in the Ephemeris and club web site to promote awareness to see if that sparks more people to volunteer (especially those who are local to the star party being held). ------------------------------------- Observatory committee ------------------------------------- We are waiting for a confirmation from Bob for a set of friday/saturday star parties in May, June, and August like the series we did last year. Rob wants to retract his name from the presentation and materials on the web site because he no longer supports the land donation. Craig will assume ownership for these materials. Rob's main concern is that the club does not have the resources to maintain and improve a property, if it were donated. There was some discussion about searching for alternate sites that might have even better qualities, but it was also acknowledged that no land is perfect and that the Ayers property is no different. Given the experience of other members on the board, a search could begin for alternate sites, but we are not optimistic that we would wind up in a better situation and we would also have a mortgage to finance on top of land improvements. ------------------------------------- Calendar ------------------------------------- 6 -Sa- General Meeting. Our speaker is Bob Fies, talking about the process of aluminizing telescope mirrors. Board meeting at 6:00; General Meeting at 8:00 11 -Th- ATM workshop at Houge Park. 7:30 pm 12 -Fr- Houge Park star party. Sset 5:11 pm, 34% moon rise 2:21 am. Star party hours: 7:00 to 10:00 pm. 12 -Fr- Astronomy Class at Houge Park. 7:30 pm 13 -Sa- Dark-Sky weekend. Sset 5:12 pm, 25% moon rise 3:22 am. 20 -Sa- Dark-Sky weekend. Sset 5:19 pm, 6% moon sets 7:20 pm. 26 -Fr- Houge Park star party. Sset 5:26 pm, 64% moon sets 2:32 am. Star party hours: 7:00 to 10:00 pm. 27 -Sa- ATM workshop at Houge Park. 7:30 pm ------------------------------------- Ephemeris distribution ------------------------------------- December 20th newsletters have not all been received yet. We suspect these were set aside because of labels not meeting their requirements. ------------------------------------- Star party forms ------------------------------------- There was discussion about whether the "no forms" policy passed in the last meeting applied to all school parties or only school star parties. The conclusion at the meeting was that Gary would write a motion for the board to vote on that specified a set of rules for the school star parties. This would be presented to schools who sign up for star parties, and would contain suggestions for how to ensure the star parties run smoothly without interruptions, such as to not involve the club's astronomy volunteers in "paper work" and that if such "paper work" were deemed necessary it could be handled by a student volunteer in an area away from the telescopes so as to cause minimal disruption to the viewing experience of others. One concern raised was how teachers could respond to such a policy given that we are in the middle of the school year right now. ------------------------------------- Gregory award for outstanding contribution in amateur astronomy ------------------------------------- This award has been forgotten about and not given out in the last 5 years. There isn't a good mechanism for choosing people or a reminder for that matter. A suggestion was made to form a committee from the prior recipients who would then nominate future recipients. Should the award be given only once per the guideline, or could it be re-awarded to a particularly deserving member after a certain amount of time has passed? Discussion on this was tabled until the next meeting. ------------------------------------- Elections ------------------------------------- Mike will not be running for reelection as president. There is also an open board seat. The meeting was adjourned at 7:55pm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaaboard/attachments/20070110/fe22c569/attachment.html From pkohlmil at best.com Thu Jan 11 09:31:26 2007 From: pkohlmil at best.com (Paul Kohlmiller) Date: Thu Jan 11 09:31:58 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] February Ephemeris Message-ID: <004101c735a6$59a690c0$0800a8c0@PKHPXPP> Dear FM Proofers, the February edition of the SJAA Ephemeris is available for proof reading at http://ephemeris.sjaa.net/0702/EphFeb07.pdf This edition will go to the printer's on Sunday evening. Note that the article on the election for the board of directors was put together with some help from JVN. Let me know if it needs something. Gary, I removed one small paragraph from your article just for size considerations. Mark Wagner, I ended up using less than half of what you made available on the web. Hope the result is okay with you. Rob and Craig, all links from the SJAA main page regarding the possible land donation have been removed. Paul and Mary Kohlmiller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaaboard/attachments/20070111/36536b28/attachment-0001.html From robhawley at earthlink.net Thu Jan 11 09:45:59 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Thu Jan 11 09:45:56 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] February Ephemeris In-Reply-To: <004101c735a6$59a690c0$0800a8c0@PKHPXPP> References: <004101c735a6$59a690c0$0800a8c0@PKHPXPP> Message-ID: <000601c735a8$5afee2e0$0300a8c0@robathome> The list of who is to be reelected is backwards. Lee and Rich were just elected to the board in 2006. I know I am up for re-election. I see the piece I submitted on the deductibility of dues did not make it. Please try again for March. Rob Hawley From mark.wagner at resource-intl.com Thu Jan 11 09:57:41 2007 From: mark.wagner at resource-intl.com (Mark Wagner) Date: Thu Jan 11 09:56:59 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] February Ephemeris In-Reply-To: <004101c735a6$59a690c0$0800a8c0@PKHPXPP> References: <004101c735a6$59a690c0$0800a8c0@PKHPXPP> Message-ID: <45A67A95.3060502@resource-intl.com> > Paul Kohlmiller wrote: >> Mark Wagner, I ended up using less than half of what you made >> available on the web. Hope the result is okay with you. Hi Paul As I said, you are welcome to use any or all of what I send it, at your discretion. I suggest that somehow the opening paragraph make clear that what is in the Ephemeris are only *selected* entries from a much larger observing list, located at the URL. The last entry does not have the correct description. It should read: * Large - a degree, visible in finder, wedge shaped. *Thank you for including the observing list in the FM, I was growing concerned that readers would think that the SJAA consisted only of "shallow" types. Some of us in fact, are deep. ;-) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaaboard/attachments/20070111/8d389dec/attachment.html From jvn at svpal.org Thu Jan 11 11:32:16 2007 From: jvn at svpal.org (Jim Van Nuland) Date: Thu Jan 11 11:33:47 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] February Ephemeris References: <004101c735a6$59a690c0$0800a8c0@PKHPXPP> <000601c735a8$5afee2e0$0300a8c0@robathome> Message-ID: <45A690C0.376C@svpal.org> Rob Hawley wrote: > > The list of who is to be re-elected is backwards. 'Taint! > Lee and Rich > were just elected to the board in 2006. No -- they replaced Crum and myself; each had a year to go, which has now gone. They were included in the election, but that was a procedural error: the Board should have appointed them to fill the vacancies. And I should have stood on the table and yelled loudly. Instead I quietly put them into the correct slots in my Master List. This is the best-guarded document in SJAA, meaning that I carefully guard its content. I started it back in 1977 when the situation was so bad that we had to call a special board meeting to decide who was on the board and adjust the terms to make them match the By-Laws. Others up for election: Scull and O'Shaughnessy. The board must appoint someone to Bill's term, and that person would immediately (same day) be up for re-election. I'll sit still for simply electing an extra person, since that's what would happen anyway. > I know I am up for re-election. Nope. With a year to go: Mitchell, Smith, Koop, Hawley. Rob, you replaced Nelson in May 2004, and he had just been re-elected, so your term was up in 2006 and you were re-elected. Okay, NOW I'll go see what is in the Ephemeris. . (downloading) . . (slow connection) . (start Acrobat) . Paul has it correct. All that he might add is "An even number of directors are elected in an even-numbered year; a odd number of directors are elected in an odd-numbered year." But that's implied by the fact that it's an odd year, and there are a number of odd directors being re-elected. :-) Clear Skies (and terms!) -- Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association JVN's web site From koopm at koopm.best.vwh.net Thu Jan 11 18:22:38 2007 From: koopm at koopm.best.vwh.net (Michael Koop) Date: Thu Jan 11 18:22:47 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Ephemeris Rx on Tue. Jan9th / Mail Labels Message-ID: <20070111155017.X7786@koopm.best.vwh.net> So it took the post office 20 days to deliver the Ephem. to me in 95129. Usually it takes only two to three days from the day I dropped it off. I could understand the Christmas crunch, but something happen which delayed it more than normal. To the best of my knowledge, not one Ephem. was machined. I know that some of the "clear" seals we corrupted (broken) before we took them to the post office. It is possible when they tried to machine them, the broken seals prevented processing, which meant that our mail got put into the non-machinable stack that is worked whenever they get to it. JVN and I assembled the Oakland box. I can confidently say that all seals were intact when we strapped the box. Those pieces were also not machined. I was beginning to suspect the problem was the only other difference, which was that Gary did the labels. Maybe there was a subtle change which we were not seeing. On Wednesday, I took the Ephem. I received to the post office and asked if it was machinable and what the problem was. They did not see any problem with it and felt that the label was OK. They also recommended that the return address be a smaller font than the delivery address. This is probably not a problem since the return address is far outside the yellow template showing where the delivery address should be. For the upcoming month's mailing, Gary will again print the labels. We will use the white seals, making sure that ALL newsletters are sealed correctly. Hopefully we will again see the Ephem. machined, getting us faster service. Mike From robhawley at earthlink.net Thu Jan 11 19:57:58 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Thu Jan 11 19:57:39 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] February Ephemeris In-Reply-To: <45A690C0.376C@svpal.org> References: <004101c735a6$59a690c0$0800a8c0@PKHPXPP><000601c735a8$5afee2e0$0300a8c0@robathome> <45A690C0.376C@svpal.org> Message-ID: <002101c735fd$d909e1d0$0300a8c0@robathome> We need to maintain a better paper trail. I looked at the past meeting minutes and was not able to find any record of who was elected when. I certainly do not remember being reelected last year. The list of who is up for re-election needs to be transferred to the club Secretary. Rob Hawley From robhawley at earthlink.net Thu Jan 11 19:59:43 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Thu Jan 11 19:59:20 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Ephemeris Rx on Tue. Jan9th / Mail Labels In-Reply-To: <20070111155017.X7786@koopm.best.vwh.net> References: <20070111155017.X7786@koopm.best.vwh.net> Message-ID: <002201c735fe$1822d610$0300a8c0@robathome> If you can give me an estimate of when you expect to take the Ephemeris to the PO then I can plug in the right date. If correct it will eliminate having to edit the PDF. If not, then we are no worse off. Rob Hawley From jvn at svpal.org Fri Jan 12 01:05:58 2007 From: jvn at svpal.org (Jim Van Nuland) Date: Fri Jan 12 01:33:07 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] February Ephemeris Message-ID: <45A74F76.6045@svpal.org> Rob Hawley wrote: > > We need to maintain a better paper trail. I looked at the past meeting > minutes and was not able to find any record of who was elected when. It's in the Ephemeris, not the minutes, that is the publication of record. See April 2005 when Crum, JVN, O'Shaughnessy, C&E Scull, and Reade were re-elected or elected. > I certainly do not remember being re-elected last year. See March 2006 where Mitchell, Smith, Koop, and Hawley were re-elected. So there. > The list of who is up for re-election needs to be transferred > to the club Secretary. I believe I sent it -- about 45 kbyte document named OFFICERS.RTF . After the coming elections (Feb and Mar meetings) I'll update my document and re-send it. Clear Skies! -- Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association JVN's web site From wb6yru at aenet.net Fri Jan 12 18:15:15 2007 From: wb6yru at aenet.net (Gary Mitchell) Date: Fri Jan 12 18:13:05 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] February Ephemeris In-Reply-To: <45A74F76.6045@svpal.org> References: <45A74F76.6045@svpal.org> Message-ID: <45A840B3.3040008@aenet.net> Jim Van Nuland wrote: > Rob Hawley wrote: > >>We need to maintain a better paper trail. I looked at the past meeting >>minutes and was not able to find any record of who was elected when. > > > It's in the Ephemeris, not the minutes, that is the publication > of record. Actually, this is a very good point. Election results absolutely should be in the minutes. It's the same as recording important motions and votes--because that's just what it is--the membership voting in new directors. The minutes are the official record of what happened at any meeting. The Ephemeris is a newsletter, not a record keeping mechanism. Technically, if a vote is not in the minutes, one should be able to safely conclude it didn't happen. The newsletter editor can put whatever he wants in the Ephemeris. He isn't at all responsible for making sure it contains an accurate record of meeting goings on. Gary From jvn at svpal.org Fri Jan 12 18:26:19 2007 From: jvn at svpal.org (Jim Van Nuland) Date: Fri Jan 12 18:29:14 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] February Ephemeris References: <45A74F76.6045@svpal.org> <45A840B3.3040008@aenet.net> Message-ID: <45A8434B.7F80@svpal.org> Gary Mitchell wrote: > > Jim Van Nuland wrote: > > Rob Hawley wrote: > > > >>We need to maintain a better paper trail. I looked at the past > >> meeting minutes and was not able to find any record of who was > >> elected when. > > > > > > It's in the Ephemeris, not the minutes, that is the publication > > of record. > > Actually, this is a very good point. Election results absolutely > should be in the minutes. It's the same as recording important > motions and votes--because that's just what it is--the membership > voting in new directors. Agreed. It is necessary but not sufficient. > The minutes are the official record of what happened at any meeting. > The Ephemeris is a newsletter, not a record keeping mechanism. > Technically, if a vote is not in the minutes, one should be able to > safely conclude it didn't happen. The newsletter editor can put > whatever he wants in the Ephemeris. He isn't at all responsible for > making sure it contains an accurate record of meeting goings on. He isn't, but the Secretary is, and the editor must print it. That's how it got into the Ephemeris, including the 2006 report that does not carry a by-line. Given that the members are not sent copies of the Minutes, it is mandatory that the elections are reported in the Ephemeris. It's not simply a nice chatty little newsletter; it's the SJAA's official publication. Clear? -- Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association JVN's web site From wb6yru at aenet.net Sat Jan 13 03:27:45 2007 From: wb6yru at aenet.net (Gary Mitchell) Date: Sat Jan 13 03:25:42 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] February Ephemeris In-Reply-To: <45A8434B.7F80@svpal.org> References: <45A74F76.6045@svpal.org> <45A840B3.3040008@aenet.net> <45A8434B.7F80@svpal.org> Message-ID: <45A8C231.60205@aenet.net> Jim Van Nuland wrote: > Gary Mitchell wrote: > The newsletter editor can put >>whatever he wants in the Ephemeris. He isn't at all responsible for >>making sure it contains an accurate record of meeting goings on. > > > He isn't, but the Secretary is, and the editor must print it. What do you mean the editor must print it? Meeting minutes are not a regular feature of the Ephemeris. > That's how it got into the Ephemeris, including the 2006 report that > does not carry a by-line. Given that the members are not sent copies of > the Minutes, it is mandatory that the elections are reported in the > Ephemeris. It's not simply a nice chatty little newsletter; it's the > SJAA's official publication. > > Clear? What about other motions the board votes on? I'm not aware of any requirement that the newsletter carry any of it. That's not to say that it shouldn't... Look, all I'm saying is that the Ephemeris isn't the place to go to research what happened at past meetings, that's the job of the minutes. And if the minutes don't do that, then we've got a problem that needs fixing. Rob reported that he couldn't find out the election results in the past minutes. If we can get the needed info from the newsletter, wonderful, but that's just a Band-Aid over a gaping wound. Gary From mark.wagner at resource-intl.com Sat Jan 13 09:23:58 2007 From: mark.wagner at resource-intl.com (Mark Wagner) Date: Sat Jan 13 12:45:04 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] February Ephemeris In-Reply-To: <45A8C231.60205@aenet.net> References: <45A74F76.6045@svpal.org> <45A840B3.3040008@aenet.net> <45A8434B.7F80@svpal.org> <45A8C231.60205@aenet.net> Message-ID: <1302.75.24.95.64.1168709038.squirrel@webmail7.pair.com> Gary Mitchell wrote: > Rob reported that he couldn't find out the election results in the > past minutes. Gary, I don't think the vote for directors takes place during a board meeting, it occurs during a general (annual?) meeting. Therefore, the results will not be part of any board meeting minutes. I tried looking this up on the SJAA.net web-site this morning, but that site appears to be down. Mark From jvn at svpal.org Sat Jan 13 14:20:17 2007 From: jvn at svpal.org (Jim Van Nuland) Date: Sat Jan 13 14:51:09 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] February Ephemeris References: <45A74F76.6045@svpal.org> <45A840B3.3040008@aenet.net> <45A8434B.7F80@svpal.org> <45A8C231.60205@aenet.net> Message-ID: <45A95B21.7C2F@svpal.org> Gary Mitchell wrote: > > Jim Van Nuland wrote: > > Gary Mitchell wrote: > > > He isn't, but the Secretary is, and the editor must print it. > > What do you mean the editor must print it? Meeting minutes are > not a regular feature of the Ephemeris. I mean that the editor does not have discretion as to whether to run the election report, once it is properly submitted, usually by the Secretary. AND, it is part of the secretary's job to submit the report, or see that it is properly submitted (complete and timely). Mark Wagner: You are correct that the vote for Directors takes place at the Annual Meeting, not at a board meeting. Minutes must be taken of all business that is conducted at Annual Meetings, including the vote for Directors. Gary wrote: > What about other motions the board votes on? I'm not aware of any > requirement that the newsletter carry any of it. That's not to say > that it shouldn't... I'm saying that there is a legal requirement that the membership is promptly informed of changes in the officers and directors. And I'm saying that the Ephemeris is SJAA, Inc.'s official channel for such informing. Most if not all the votes will somehow go into the newsletter -- for instance, dates of meetings get there indirectly in the form of the calendar. The decision to have Cal-Star appears in the form of an article describing that activity. Etc. > Look, all I'm saying is that the Ephemeris isn't the place to go > to research what happened at past meetings, that's the job of the > minutes. And if the minutes don't do that, then we've got a problem > that needs fixing. You are quite correct that the Minutes MUST contain the election results. I know of no requirement that minutes get published, only that they are made available to members upon proper request. I *do* know of a legal requirement that the members are informed. I read it someplace. > Rob reported that he couldn't find out the election results in the > past minutes. It appears that the Board approved some Minutes that did not contain the election results, or Rob didn't go back far enough, or missed it among the other minutia. > If we can get the needed info from the newsletter, > wonderful, but that's just a Band-Aid over a gaping wound. As I said above, its a requirement. If it also acts as a Band-Aid, then the wound needs to be dressed, the gap needs be sutured, and this sentence needs it's metaphor un-mixed. -- Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association JVN's web site From wb6yru at aenet.net Sun Jan 14 00:09:00 2007 From: wb6yru at aenet.net (Gary Mitchell) Date: Sun Jan 14 00:06:41 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] February Ephemeris In-Reply-To: <1302.75.24.95.64.1168709038.squirrel@webmail7.pair.com> References: <45A74F76.6045@svpal.org> <45A840B3.3040008@aenet.net> <45A8434B.7F80@svpal.org> <45A8C231.60205@aenet.net> <1302.75.24.95.64.1168709038.squirrel@webmail7.pair.com> Message-ID: <45A9E51C.2070406@aenet.net> Mark Wagner wrote: > Gary Mitchell wrote: > > >>Rob reported that he couldn't find out the election results in the >>past minutes. > > > Gary, > > I don't think the vote for directors takes place during a board meeting, > it occurs during a general (annual?) meeting. Therefore, the results will > not be part of any board meeting minutes. I never said they should be. Minutes are supposed to be taken during the general meeting too, you know. In this case, those would be the minutes in question. Gary From pkohlmil at best.com Sun Jan 14 17:17:07 2007 From: pkohlmil at best.com (Paul Kohlmiller) Date: Sun Jan 14 17:17:29 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Updates to the Feb. Ephemeris Message-ID: <000401c73842$e08380a0$a18a81e0$@com> A few changes were made to the February Ephemeris. 1. The article by Rob Hawley about tax deductibility is on page 7 replacing part of the usual loaner scope status. 2. More info about the Feb. 9 astro class was added. 3. Several small edits were made to Gary's Pluto article. 4. A couple of URLs gave strange results but they seem to be okay now. 5. A couple of corrections to Mark's deep sky list. 6. The font size on the return address was decreased by 2 points The small article about the elections was NOT changed. Any other changes needed, please send them soon. I'll send this to the printer first thing Monday morning. PK -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaaboard/attachments/20070114/07a55d17/attachment.html From robhawley at earthlink.net Mon Jan 15 10:38:20 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Mon Jan 15 10:38:21 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Some legalese regarding required reporting Message-ID: <009601c738d4$54e9d020$0300a8c0@robathome> Jim and Gary have joined a debate that I started over how election results are to be reported. I decided to look up what the corporate bylaws required. Here are some other nuggets. We are required to send all members a notice of the February Annual Meeting (Article 13, section 4). The section broadly defines "give notice" and was clearly written before email became ubiquitous. Since we do not send the Ephemeris to all members (e.g. me), we probably have to email those on the Electronic Delivery list. I will take care of this. We are not required to publish the minutes of either director's meeting or the annual meeting, but we have to make them available on written request (Article 7, section 4). We also have to be prepared to furnish a list of the members on request. There is no requirement for the two current proactive methods of publishing the minutes (the board list and the Ephemeris), but that insures the information is easily available. We are required to make an annual report like Gary did (Article 7, section 6). Since our budget is less than $25,000 then the report only has to be furnished to the board and to any member submitting a written request. I don't have a copy of Gary's report, but it needs to contain the following (which I believe the first page did) (a) The assets and liabilities, including the trust funds, of the corporation as of the end of the fiscal year; (b) The principal changes in assets and liabilities, including trust funds, during the fiscal year; (c) The revenue or receipts of the corporation, both unrestricted and restricted to particular purposes, for the fiscal year; (d) The expenses or disbursements of the corporation, for both general and restricted purposes, during the fiscal year; (e) Any information required by Section 7 of this Article. (Relates to conflicts of interest). Please note the following: "The annual report shall be accompanied by any report thereon of independent accountants, or, if there is no such report, the certificate of an authorized officer of the corporation that such statements were prepared without audit from the books and records of the corporation." Article 4, Section 9 pretty much specifics this certification be done by the treasurer. Gary please ensure that what you produced meets all of these points, contains the necessary certification (which means it needs to be 100% correct), and that a copy can be made available, if requested. I suggest that copies of your report be available at the annual meeting. Rob Hawley From jvn at svpal.org Mon Jan 15 11:31:16 2007 From: jvn at svpal.org (Jim Van Nuland) Date: Mon Jan 15 11:34:49 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Insurance paperwork needed immediately Message-ID: <45ABD684.28EF@svpal.org> Hi, All, I need someone to fax some insurance information to a school principal sometime today -- presumably the declarations page or whatever one-page summary shows that SJAA has liability insurance. It should be sent to: Dave Beymer, Principal Fax# 408-323-1034 Since time is so short, send it directly to the school; the event is tomorrow (Jan.16). Later, I may need a copy or scan that I can send from here. I'm terrified that this panic may spread to other schools, and perhaps be the death of the school star party program. This is the first time the question has come up. I fear it will not be the last. There is only one other event in which there is any paperwork: the Chinese Moon Festival. held in Overfelt Gardens Park. I send a signed Application to Participate, which has a hold-harmless clause. It does not require any evidence of insurance. -- Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association JVN's web site > Hi Mr. Van Nuland, > I'm Dave Beymer, Graystone Principal. I am sorry to throw a wrench in the > gears, but, unfortunately I do have to worry about liability. Sheri has > told me what a great presentation your group puts on and I hope we can > find a way for our kids to participate. Would it be possible for you to > fax us a copy of your group's liability insurance or other paperwork > showing insurance covering the star gazing presentation by tomorrow > morning? I am so sorry that I did not make this request sooner. But, > again, the liability issue is something that has to considered. If we are > not able to make a go of it by tomorrow night, I certainly hope that we > will be able to participate in the future. Next time I promise to be more > on top of the situation. Please feel free to email me with questions or > concerns. > > Sincerely, > Dave Beymer, Principal > Fax# 408-323-1034 From koopm at koopm.best.vwh.net Mon Jan 15 14:15:07 2007 From: koopm at koopm.best.vwh.net (Michael Koop) Date: Mon Jan 15 14:15:19 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Insurance paperwork needed immediately In-Reply-To: <45ABD684.28EF@svpal.org> References: <45ABD684.28EF@svpal.org> Message-ID: <20070115145303.W53761@koopm.best.vwh.net> I faxed page 12 of the document over to the number requested. It shows the following: COMMERCIAL GENERAL LIABILITY COVERAGE PART DECLARATIONS PRODUCER: Anixter & Oser II 205 San Marin Drive Novato, CA 94945 POLICY NUMBER: 2006-15498-NPO RENEWAL OF NUMBER: 2005-15498 -NPO NAME OF INSURED AND MAILING ADDRESS: San Jose Astronomical Association P.O. Box 28243 San Jose, CA 95159 POLICY PERIOD: FROM 08/11/2006 TO 08/11/2007 AT 12:01 A.M. STANDARD TIME AT YOUR MAILING ADDRESS SHOWN ABOVE BUSINESS DESCRIPTION: Provides astronomical related info. to the public IN RETURN FOR THE PAYMENT OF THE PREMIUM, AND SUBJECT TO ALL THE TERMS OF THIS POLICY, WE AGREE WITH YOU TO PROVIDE THE COVERAGE AS STATED IN THIS POLICY. LIMITS OF COVERAGE: GENERAL AGGREGATE LIMIT (OTHER THAN PRODUCTS/OPERATIONS)...$2,000,000 PRODUCTS - COMPLETED OPERATIONS AGGREGATE LIMIT............$2,000,000 PERSONAL AND ADVERTISING INJURY LIMIT......................$1,000,000 EACH OCCURRENCE LIMIT......................................$1,000,000 DAMAGE TO PREMISES RENTED TO YOU.............................$100,000 MEDICAL EXPENSE LIMIT ........................................$10,000 I have posted the 84 page document to the web. Since it contains proprietary information, I will provide the link on request. Mike > Hi, All, > > I need someone to fax some insurance information to a school principal > sometime today -- presumably the declarations page or whatever one-page > summary shows that SJAA has liability insurance. It should be sent to: > > Dave Beymer, Principal > Fax# 408-323-1034 > > Since time is so short, send it directly to the school; the event is > tomorrow (Jan.16). Later, I may need a copy or scan that I can send > from here. > > I'm terrified that this panic may spread to other schools, and perhaps > be the death of the school star party program. This is the first time > the question has come up. I fear it will not be the last. > > There is only one other event in which there is any paperwork: the > Chinese Moon Festival. held in Overfelt Gardens Park. I send a signed > Application to Participate, which has a hold-harmless clause. It does > not require any evidence of insurance. > > -- > Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association > JVN's web site > > > >> Hi Mr. Van Nuland, >> I'm Dave Beymer, Graystone Principal. I am sorry to throw a wrench in the >> gears, but, unfortunately I do have to worry about liability. Sheri has >> told me what a great presentation your group puts on and I hope we can >> find a way for our kids to participate. Would it be possible for you to >> fax us a copy of your group's liability insurance or other paperwork >> showing insurance covering the star gazing presentation by tomorrow >> morning? I am so sorry that I did not make this request sooner. But, >> again, the liability issue is something that has to considered. If we are >> not able to make a go of it by tomorrow night, I certainly hope that we >> will be able to participate in the future. Next time I promise to be more >> on top of the situation. Please feel free to email me with questions or >> concerns. >> >> Sincerely, >> Dave Beymer, Principal >> Fax# 408-323-1034 > > _______________________________________________ > SJAABoard mailing list > SJAABoard@sjaa.net > http://www.sjaa.net/mailman/listinfo/sjaaboard > From craigus at rocketmail.com Mon Jan 15 20:20:03 2007 From: craigus at rocketmail.com (Craig Scull) Date: Mon Jan 15 20:20:15 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Some legalese regarding required reporting Message-ID: <20070116042003.58683.qmail@web54511.mail.yahoo.com> >We are not required to publish the minutes of either director's meeting or the annual meeting, but we have to make them available on written request Rob, I don't know what "annual meeting" refers to. Is that anything we need to be concerned about? thanks Craig ----- Original Message ---- From: Rob Hawley To: Sjaaboard Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 10:38:20 AM Subject: [SJAABoard] Some legalese regarding required reporting Jim and Gary have joined a debate that I started over how election results are to be reported. I decided to look up what the corporate bylaws required. Here are some other nuggets. We are required to send all members a notice of the February Annual Meeting (Article 13, section 4). The section broadly defines "give notice" and was clearly written before email became ubiquitous. Since we do not send the Ephemeris to all members (e.g. me), we probably have to email those on the Electronic Delivery list. I will take care of this. We are not required to publish the minutes of either director's meeting or the annual meeting, but we have to make them available on written request (Article 7, section 4). We also have to be prepared to furnish a list of the members on request. There is no requirement for the two current proactive methods of publishing the minutes (the board list and the Ephemeris), but that insures the information is easily available. We are required to make an annual report like Gary did (Article 7, section 6). Since our budget is less than $25,000 then the report only has to be furnished to the board and to any member submitting a written request. I don't have a copy of Gary's report, but it needs to contain the following (which I believe the first page did) (a) The assets and liabilities, including the trust funds, of the corporation as of the end of the fiscal year; (b) The principal changes in assets and liabilities, including trust funds, during the fiscal year; (c) The revenue or receipts of the corporation, both unrestricted and restricted to particular purposes, for the fiscal year; (d) The expenses or disbursements of the corporation, for both general and restricted purposes, during the fiscal year; (e) Any information required by Section 7 of this Article. (Relates to conflicts of interest). Please note the following: "The annual report shall be accompanied by any report thereon of independent accountants, or, if there is no such report, the certificate of an authorized officer of the corporation that such statements were prepared without audit from the books and records of the corporation." Article 4, Section 9 pretty much specifics this certification be done by the treasurer. Gary please ensure that what you produced meets all of these points, contains the necessary certification (which means it needs to be 100% correct), and that a copy can be made available, if requested. I suggest that copies of your report be available at the annual meeting. Rob Hawley _______________________________________________ SJAABoard mailing list SJAABoard@sjaa.net http://www.sjaa.net/mailman/listinfo/sjaaboard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaaboard/attachments/20070115/fd3ecc0e/attachment.html From craigus at rocketmail.com Mon Jan 15 20:27:38 2007 From: craigus at rocketmail.com (Craig Scull) Date: Mon Jan 15 20:27:43 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Some legalese regarding required reporting Message-ID: <20070116042738.57900.qmail@web54514.mail.yahoo.com> OK, let me correct myself and also answer the question about the election. Firstly, the Annual meeting is the February general meeting (at least it was last year) - so I shouldn't have asked the question a moment ago. As for the election results last year - Here is an extraction of the notes from the February 11, 2006 meeting minutes At the mid point of their 2 year terms, Dana Crom and Jim Van Nuland decided not to continue serving on the board. -------------- Election -------------- The 2 board seat vacancies were filled by Lee Hoglan and Rich Neuschaefer who were elected unanimously with no abstentions by the members present. An election was also held to re-elect the board members whose terms had expired. All board members were re-elected unanimously with no abstentions by the members present. Craig ----- Original Message ---- From: Craig Scull To: Business list for SJAA board of directors and members Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 8:20:03 PM Subject: Re: [SJAABoard] Some legalese regarding required reporting >We are not required to publish the minutes of either director's meeting or the annual meeting, but we have to make them available on written request Rob, I don't know what "annual meeting" refers to. Is that anything we need to be concerned about? thanks Craig ----- Original Message ---- From: Rob Hawley To: Sjaaboard Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 10:38:20 AM Subject: [SJAABoard] Some legalese regarding required reporting Jim and Gary have joined a debate that I started over how election results are to be reported. I decided to look up what the corporate bylaws required. Here are some other nuggets. We are required to send all members a notice of the February Annual Meeting (Article 13, section 4). The section broadly defines "give notice" and was clearly written before email became ubiquitous. Since we do not send the Ephemeris to all members (e.g. me), we probably have to email those on the Electronic Delivery list. I will take care of this. We are not required to publish the minutes of either director's meeting or the annual meeting, but we have to make them available on written request (Article 7, section 4). We also have to be prepared to furnish a list of the members on request. There is no requirement for the two current proactive methods of publishing the minutes (the board list and the Ephemeris), but that insures the information is easily available. We are required to make an annual report like Gary did (Article 7, section 6). Since our budget is less than $25,000 then the report only has to be furnished to the board and to any member submitting a written request. I don't have a copy of Gary's report, but it needs to contain the following (which I believe the first page did) (a) The assets and liabilities, including the trust funds, of the corporation as of the end of the fiscal year; (b) The principal changes in assets and liabilities, including trust funds, during the fiscal year; (c) The revenue or receipts of the corporation, both unrestricted and restricted to particular purposes, for the fiscal year; (d) The expenses or disbursements of the corporation, for both general and restricted purposes, during the fiscal year; (e) Any information required by Section 7 of this Article. (Relates to conflicts of interest). Please note the following: "The annual report shall be accompanied by any report thereon of independent accountants, or, if there is no such report, the certificate of an authorized officer of the corporation that such statements were prepared without audit from the books and records of the corporation." Article 4, Section 9 pretty much specifics this certification be done by the treasurer. Gary please ensure that what you produced meets all of these points, contains the necessary certification (which means it needs to be 100% correct), and that a copy can be made available, if requested. I suggest that copies of your report be available at the annual meeting. Rob Hawley _______________________________________________ SJAABoard mailing list SJAABoard@sjaa.net http://www.sjaa.net/mailman/listinfo/sjaaboard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaaboard/attachments/20070115/82622c0b/attachment.html From robhawley at earthlink.net Mon Jan 15 22:09:54 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Mon Jan 15 22:09:54 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Some legalese regarding required reporting In-Reply-To: <20070116042738.57900.qmail@web54514.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20070116042738.57900.qmail@web54514.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00ae01c73934$f1227b80$0300a8c0@robathome> Since the February meeting is the Annual Meeting we should probably take notes during the business portion of it. I like the current practice of publishing the notes on the board list because that way we always know where they are. It also allows us to easily meet our requirement for providing copies on request. Rob Hawley ________________________________________ From jvn at svpal.org Mon Jan 15 22:55:23 2007 From: jvn at svpal.org (Jim Van Nuland) Date: Mon Jan 15 22:55:52 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Some legalese regarding required reporting References: <20070116042738.57900.qmail@web54514.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45AC76DB.61D@svpal.org> Craig Scull wrote: > > OK, let me correct myself and also answer the question about the > election. Firstly, the Annual meeting is the February general meeting > (at least it was last year) It's in the by-laws: February is designated as the Annual Meeting. The others are called general meetings. Clear Skies! -- Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association JVN's web site From wb6yru at aenet.net Tue Jan 16 02:09:40 2007 From: wb6yru at aenet.net (Gary Mitchell) Date: Tue Jan 16 02:07:20 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Insurance paperwork needed immediately In-Reply-To: <45ABD684.28EF@svpal.org> References: <45ABD684.28EF@svpal.org> Message-ID: <45ACA464.1020409@aenet.net> Jim Van Nuland wrote: > Hi, All, > > I need someone to fax some insurance information to a school principal > sometime today -- presumably the declarations page or whatever one-page > summary shows that SJAA has liability insurance. It should be sent to: > > Dave Beymer, Principal > Fax# 408-323-1034 The treasurer has that. There is this one page, but I'm not sure if that's going to do it... looks like three pages. I'll send it right now. Gary > Since time is so short, send it directly to the school; the event is > tomorrow (Jan.16). Later, I may need a copy or scan that I can send > from here. > > I'm terrified that this panic may spread to other schools, and perhaps > be the death of the school star party program. This is the first time > the question has come up. I fear it will not be the last. > > There is only one other event in which there is any paperwork: the > Chinese Moon Festival. held in Overfelt Gardens Park. I send a signed > Application to Participate, which has a hold-harmless clause. It does > not require any evidence of insurance. > From wb6yru at aenet.net Tue Jan 16 03:34:12 2007 From: wb6yru at aenet.net (Gary Mitchell) Date: Tue Jan 16 03:31:46 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Some legalese regarding required reporting In-Reply-To: <20070116042738.57900.qmail@web54514.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20070116042738.57900.qmail@web54514.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45ACB834.7080004@aenet.net> Craig Scull wrote: > OK, let me correct myself and also answer the question about the election. Firstly, the Annual meeting is the February general meeting (at least it was last year) - so I shouldn't have asked the question a moment ago. > > As for the election results last year - Here is an extraction of the notes from the February 11, 2006 meeting minutes > > > > > > > At > the mid point of their 2 year terms, Dana Crom and Jim Van Nuland decided not > to continue serving on the board. > > > > -------------- > > > Election > > > -------------- > > > The > 2 board seat vacancies were filled by Lee Hoglan and Rich Neuschaefer who were > elected unanimously with no abstentions by the members present. An election was > also held to re-elect the board members whose terms had expired. All board > members were re-elected unanimously with no abstentions by the members present. > > > Craig In the future, please remember that this is too vague. You need to be specific... you have to "name names!" :) Gary From wb6yru at aenet.net Tue Jan 16 03:36:46 2007 From: wb6yru at aenet.net (Gary Mitchell) Date: Tue Jan 16 03:34:21 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Some legalese regarding required reporting In-Reply-To: <009601c738d4$54e9d020$0300a8c0@robathome> References: <009601c738d4$54e9d020$0300a8c0@robathome> Message-ID: <45ACB8CE.9060409@aenet.net> Rob Hawley wrote: > Jim and Gary have joined a debate that I started over how election results > are to be reported. I decided to look up what the corporate bylaws > required. Here are some other nuggets. > > > We are required to send all members a notice of the February Annual Meeting > (Article 13, section 4). The section broadly defines "give notice" and was > clearly written before email became ubiquitous. Since we do not send the > Ephemeris to all members (e.g. me), we probably have to email those on the > Electronic Delivery list. I will take care of this. > > We are not required to publish the minutes of either director's meeting or > the annual meeting, but we have to make them available on written request > (Article 7, section 4). We also have to be prepared to furnish a list of > the members on request. There is no requirement for the two current > proactive methods of publishing the minutes (the board list and the > Ephemeris), but that insures the information is easily available. > > We are required to make an annual report like Gary did (Article 7, section > 6). Since our budget is less than $25,000 then the report only has to be > furnished to the board and to any member submitting a written request. I > don't have a copy of Gary's report, but it needs to contain the following > (which I believe the first page did) You should have seen a copy here on the remailer. I then sent out the suppliment/correction. I haven't heard anything back so far. > (a) The assets and liabilities, including the trust funds, of the > corporation as of the end of the fiscal year; I don't have a copy of the "hardware" assets (property). Yes, I know the treasurer is supposed to. I have tried to get the details of the loaner scopes from Mike, but never received anything. Last time I looked, the data on the web site is several years out of date. I mentioned that to Mike too, but he doesn't have time to update it. I should be notified when any of our equipment is sold or new stuff acquired, but am not. Until I have a complete property list, I suppose that doesn't really matter a whole lot. > (b) The principal changes in assets and liabilities, including trust > funds, during the fiscal year; > > (c) The revenue or receipts of the corporation, both unrestricted > and restricted to particular purposes, for the fiscal year; > > (d) The expenses or disbursements of the corporation, for both > general and restricted purposes, during the fiscal year; > > (e) Any information required by Section 7 of this Article. (Relates > to conflicts of interest). > > Please note the following: "The annual report shall be accompanied by any > report thereon of independent accountants, or, if there is no such report, > the certificate of an authorized officer of the corporation that such > statements were prepared without audit from the books and records of the > corporation." Article 4, Section 9 pretty much specifics this certification > be done by the treasurer. > > Gary please ensure that what you produced meets all of these points, > contains the necessary certification (which means it needs to be 100% > correct), and that a copy can be made available, if requested. I suggest > that copies of your report be available at the annual meeting. Well, I'm not a CPA, but as near as I can tell my last report fulfills the requirements (once the corrections are made and I mention the report is un-audited). Does anyone disagree? Gary From robhawley at earthlink.net Wed Jan 17 08:58:08 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Wed Jan 17 08:58:18 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Please remove Shingletown Star Party from the SJAA schedule Message-ID: <00d701c73a58$aaabfe40$0300a8c0@robathome> The locals at Shingletown have taken over SSP this year booting out the long time TAC and TAC-SAC organizers http://observers.org/tac.mailing.list/2007/Jan/0416.html TAC has created an alternative star party at Lassen. Given the circumstances I do not want SJAA to appear to be endorsing the actions of the local organizing committee. Please remove Shingletown from the SJAA calendar. I am personally going to Lassen with the TAC folks. Rob Hawley From north at znet.com Wed Jan 17 09:17:16 2007 From: north at znet.com (Dave North) Date: Wed Jan 17 09:17:22 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Please remove Shingletown Star Party from the SJAA schedule In-Reply-To: <00d701c73a58$aaabfe40$0300a8c0@robathome> References: <00d701c73a58$aaabfe40$0300a8c0@robathome> Message-ID: <39a91ffd4f9f35ba3ea67cecd56cb101@znet.com> On Jan 17, 2007, at 8:58 AM, Rob Hawley wrote: > I do not want SJAA to appear to be endorsing the actions of the local > organizing committee. While I'm sure everyone's concerned about what you want, it might also be worth mentioning that the appearance of SJAA sponsorship may have insurance implications that I'm fairly certain the rest of the board might find of interest. That's probably not something almost anyone in the club wants. Dave North From robhawley at earthlink.net Wed Jan 17 09:28:57 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Wed Jan 17 09:28:53 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Please remove Shingletown Star Party from the SJAAschedule In-Reply-To: <39a91ffd4f9f35ba3ea67cecd56cb101@znet.com> References: <00d701c73a58$aaabfe40$0300a8c0@robathome> <39a91ffd4f9f35ba3ea67cecd56cb101@znet.com> Message-ID: <00e201c73a5c$f8afedf0$0300a8c0@robathome> As the person who is currently the most sensitive to insurance issues I am not concerned. Simply putting someone else's star party on your schedule is not sponsorship. Rob Hawley From mark.wagner at resource-intl.com Wed Jan 17 09:33:56 2007 From: mark.wagner at resource-intl.com (Mark Wagner) Date: Wed Jan 17 09:31:49 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Please remove Shingletown Star Party from the SJAA schedule In-Reply-To: <39a91ffd4f9f35ba3ea67cecd56cb101@znet.com> References: <00d701c73a58$aaabfe40$0300a8c0@robathome> <39a91ffd4f9f35ba3ea67cecd56cb101@znet.com> Message-ID: <45AE5E04.9000601@resource-intl.com> Dave North wrote: > While I'm sure everyone's concerned about what you want, it might also > be worth mentioning that the appearance of SJAA sponsorship Hi Dave, I didn't read Rob's posting like that. It only appeared he was requesting removal of SJAA information about SSP. Mark From robhawley at earthlink.net Wed Jan 17 15:49:52 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Wed Jan 17 15:49:48 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Road Closures at CalStar Message-ID: <000201c73a92$2ee40480$0300a8c0@robathome> I just reconfirmed the dates with the park. I will be putting up the new website by Monday. The park had no problem with the road closures. We use an area of the park that is not normally open anyway. They offered to help us if we needed it. Rob Hawley From jvn at svpal.org Wed Jan 17 19:56:21 2007 From: jvn at svpal.org (Jim Van Nuland) Date: Wed Jan 17 20:04:12 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Please remove Shingletown Star Party from the SJAA schedule References: <00d701c73a58$aaabfe40$0300a8c0@robathome> Message-ID: <45AEEFE5.570F@svpal.org> Rob Hawley wrote: > Please remove Shingletown from the SJAA > calendar. Done. I put the Lassen event in its place. -- Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association JVN's web site From jvn at svpal.org Wed Jan 17 21:23:47 2007 From: jvn at svpal.org (Jim Van Nuland) Date: Wed Jan 17 21:25:05 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Annual Meeting of Group 70, Jan.31, 2007 Message-ID: <45AF0463.41BA@svpal.org> Hi, All, I have the announcement of Group 70's Annual Meeting, and the ballot for their directors and officers. It'd be nice if the letter was also on their web site, but no. The meeting is at 6:00 pm on January 31, at the Last Chance Restaurant, 3400 De La Cruz Blvd., Santa Clara. Phone 408-988-2768. Progress during 2006: completion of the mirror cell. Budget status: G-70 has stock donations which require a 2 for 1 matching. We need monetary donations big or small, to continue the build of the rest of the hardware. Board of Directors candidates (vote for 3) Bill Morgan, Ernie Piini, Mart Thein. Offices and candidates: President; Dan Zuras. V-P: Mark Thein. Secretary: Ernie Piini. Treasurer: John Cincotta. Have I general agreement from the Board to mark the ballot and mail it in, voting for the slate? Or we can write in names. Or would someone like to attend the meeting? Hmm, in any case, the ballot is to be returned by Jan.27, so I better mail it. Let me know. -- Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association JVN's web site From wb6yru at aenet.net Wed Jan 17 23:14:01 2007 From: wb6yru at aenet.net (Gary Mitchell) Date: Wed Jan 17 23:11:32 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Annual Meeting of Group 70, Jan.31, 2007 In-Reply-To: <45AF0463.41BA@svpal.org> References: <45AF0463.41BA@svpal.org> Message-ID: <45AF1E39.8050404@aenet.net> Jim Van Nuland wrote: > Hi, All, > > I have the announcement of Group 70's Annual Meeting, and the ballot > for their directors and officers. It'd be nice if the letter was also > on their web site, but no. > > The meeting is at 6:00 pm on January 31, at the Last Chance > Restaurant, 3400 De La Cruz Blvd., Santa Clara. Phone 408-988-2768. > > Progress during 2006: completion of the mirror cell. > > Budget status: G-70 has stock donations which require a 2 for 1 > matching. We need monetary donations big or small, to continue the > build of the rest of the hardware. > > Board of Directors candidates (vote for 3) Bill Morgan, Ernie Piini, > Mart Thein. > > Offices and candidates: President; Dan Zuras. V-P: Mark Thein. > Secretary: Ernie Piini. Treasurer: John Cincotta. > > Have I general agreement from the Board to mark the ballot and mail it > in, voting for the slate? Or we can write in names. > > Or would someone like to attend the meeting? Hmm, in any case, the > ballot is to be returned by Jan.27, so I better mail it. Let me know. > It's OK with me to vote for the slate. Jim, was this sent to you personally? If so, it should be changed to the club address. Our last dues payment to Group 70 was March 9 2006. Have we received any kind of renewal notice? I plan to go to the meeting (I'm a Group 70 member myself, personally) and could give them SJAA's 2007 renewal at the same time... unless someone has an objection. Gary From jvn at svpal.org Thu Jan 18 02:56:32 2007 From: jvn at svpal.org (Jim Van Nuland) Date: Thu Jan 18 02:58:41 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Annual Meeting of Group 70, Jan.31, 2007 References: <45AF0463.41BA@svpal.org> <45AF1E39.8050404@aenet.net> Message-ID: <45AF5260.4691@svpal.org> Gary Mitchell wrote: > > It's OK with me to vote for the slate. > > Jim, was this sent to you personally? If so, it should be changed > to the club address. I'm not myself a member, so it must be addressed to SJAA (I'd discarded the envelope). Yes, it should be changed. Give the new address to Ernie Piini -- he'll surely be at the meeting. > Our last dues payment to Group 70 was March 9 2006. Have we received > any kind of renewal notice? Not so far. I don't remember if we get a renewal notice. > I plan to go to the meeting (I'm a Group 70 member myself, personally) > and could give them SJAA's 2007 renewal at the same time... unless > someone has an objection. Okay by me, but I'm no longer eligible to vote on it. Boardies?? Clear Skies! -- Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association JVN's web site From robhawley at earthlink.net Thu Jan 18 07:45:13 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Thu Jan 18 07:45:11 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Annual Meeting of Group 70, Jan.31, 2007 In-Reply-To: <45AF5260.4691@svpal.org> References: <45AF0463.41BA@svpal.org> <45AF1E39.8050404@aenet.net> <45AF5260.4691@svpal.org> Message-ID: <002201c73b17$a4e0f000$0300a8c0@robathome> We have received nothing at the PO Box as of yesterday. I have no objection to someone attending the event. I do care if they go presenting themselves as representing SJAA board. If someone wants listen and report what happens then that might be useful (or not). Rob Hawley From koopm at koopm.best.vwh.net Thu Jan 18 11:35:12 2007 From: koopm at koopm.best.vwh.net (Michael Koop) Date: Thu Jan 18 11:35:26 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Ephemeris Labeling Party Tonight Message-ID: <20070118123157.S76667@koopm.best.vwh.net> I just picked up the Ephemeris. We will be meeting at 8:30 PM on Thurs. Jan 18 over at Houge Park to label and seal the Eph with the white seals. Gary, please confirm you will be there with the labels. Mike From rnapo at znet.com Thu Jan 18 12:26:41 2007 From: rnapo at znet.com (Rich N) Date: Thu Jan 18 12:26:52 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Ephemeris Labeling Party Tonight References: <20070118123157.S76667@koopm.best.vwh.net> Message-ID: <000b01c73b3e$f75d0c70$c2f71345@180edt> Ok. Thanks for the note. See ya at Houge, Rich >I just picked up the Ephemeris. > We will be meeting at 8:30 PM on Thurs. Jan 18 > over at Houge Park to label and > seal the Eph with the white seals. > Gary, please confirm you will be there with the labels. > > Mike > _______________________________________________ > SJAABoard mailing list > SJAABoard@sjaa.net > http://www.sjaa.net/mailman/listinfo/sjaaboard > From wb6yru at aenet.net Thu Jan 18 15:51:38 2007 From: wb6yru at aenet.net (Gary Mitchell) Date: Thu Jan 18 15:49:09 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Ephemeris Labeling Party Tonight In-Reply-To: <20070118123157.S76667@koopm.best.vwh.net> References: <20070118123157.S76667@koopm.best.vwh.net> Message-ID: <45B0080A.40808@aenet.net> Michael Koop wrote: > I just picked up the Ephemeris. > We will be meeting at 8:30 PM on Thurs. Jan 18 > over at Houge Park to label and > seal the Eph with the white seals. > Gary, please confirm you will be there with the labels. I'll be there, with the labels. Gary From jvn at svpal.org Thu Jan 18 18:37:42 2007 From: jvn at svpal.org (Jim Van Nuland) Date: Thu Jan 18 19:10:33 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Ephemeris Labeling Party Tonight References: <20070118123157.S76667@koopm.best.vwh.net> Message-ID: <45B02EF6.7F64@svpal.org> Michael Koop wrote: > > I just picked up the Ephemeris. > We will be meeting at 8:30 PM on Thurs. Jan 18 > over at Houge Park I'm planning to be there. -- Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association JVN's web site From robhawley at earthlink.net Wed Jan 24 11:04:58 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Wed Jan 24 11:04:59 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Willing to do pre_Marathon talk on March 9 Message-ID: <006201c73fea$8b72eb50$0300a8c0@robathome> I would be willing to do a pre Messier Marathon talk on March 9. This would be more advanced than the normal beginner talk. The current schedule skips the normal 3rd quarter class in March and has a 1st quarter class later in the month. Rob Hawley From jvn at svpal.org Wed Jan 24 12:52:57 2007 From: jvn at svpal.org (Jim Van Nuland) Date: Wed Jan 24 12:54:05 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Willing to do pre_Marathon talk on March 9 References: <006201c73fea$8b72eb50$0300a8c0@robathome> Message-ID: <45B7C729.52ED@svpal.org> Rob Hawley wrote: > > I would be willing to do a pre Messier Marathon talk on March 9. This > would be more advanced than the normal beginner talk. A good idea, but it's not uncommon that bother Friday and Saturday have a Messier Marathon. TAC might schedule Friday at Coe, if SJAA does not. > The current schedule skips the normal 3rd quarter class in March and > has a 1st quarter class later in the month. The intent is to have the moon speaker at the class, then go out to observe the moon. Other month's classes are generally placed on the non-moon evenings. Why moon in March? The 1Q moon is highest in March (compare with September). Recall that the 1Q moon is near the place where the sun will be in three months. Clear Moons! -- Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association JVN's web site From wb6yru at aenet.net Fri Jan 26 02:37:16 2007 From: wb6yru at aenet.net (Gary Mitchell) Date: Fri Jan 26 02:34:31 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Ephemeris Message-ID: <45B9D9DC.7000207@aenet.net> Are we still keeping track of delivery? If so, mine showed up Thursday, no bar code, zip 95124. Gary From jvn at svpal.org Fri Jan 26 17:47:58 2007 From: jvn at svpal.org (Jim Van Nuland) Date: Fri Jan 26 18:21:07 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Ephemeris References: <45B9D9DC.7000207@aenet.net> Message-ID: <45BAAF4E.3B14@svpal.org> Gary Mitchell wrote: > > Are we still keeping track of delivery? If so, mine showed up > Thursday, no bar code, zip 95124. Same date and zip for me. Two seals, both intact. -- Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association JVN's web site From pkohlmil at best.com Fri Jan 26 19:10:04 2007 From: pkohlmil at best.com (Paul Kohlmiller) Date: Fri Jan 26 19:10:27 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Ephemeris In-Reply-To: <45BAAF4E.3B14@svpal.org> References: <45B9D9DC.7000207@aenet.net> <45BAAF4E.3B14@svpal.org> Message-ID: <007901c741c0$a49912d0$edcb3870$@com> I was out of town but the Ephemeris arrived by "at least" Thursday in the 95020 zip (Gilroy). Sealed, no bar codes. Paul K -----Original Message----- From: sjaaboard-bounces@sjaa.net [mailto:sjaaboard-bounces@sjaa.net] On Behalf Of Jim Van Nuland Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 5:48 PM To: Business list for SJAA board of directors and members Subject: Re: [SJAABoard] Ephemeris Gary Mitchell wrote: > > Are we still keeping track of delivery? If so, mine showed up > Thursday, no bar code, zip 95124. Same date and zip for me. Two seals, both intact. -- Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association JVN's web site _______________________________________________ SJAABoard mailing list SJAABoard@sjaa.net http://www.sjaa.net/mailman/listinfo/sjaaboard From jvn at svpal.org Mon Jan 29 21:19:16 2007 From: jvn at svpal.org (Jim Van Nuland) Date: Mon Jan 29 22:40:00 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Auction Announcement to AANC list Message-ID: <45BED554.32A4@svpal.org> Hi, All, The Auction should be announced in the March and April newsletters of all the clubs; some deadlines are as early as the 10th. Who has the master text, starting "It's spring, and time for the annual migration...."? Or, it could be picked up from last year's on-line Ephemeris. It should go out in the next week or less, to the AANC Contacts list, . It would be adequate to send it to the Editors list, but the above includes the editors, and gets to more of each clubs' movers and shakers. Clear Skies! -- Jim Van Nuland, San Jose (California) Astronomical Association JVN's web site From craigus at rocketmail.com Tue Jan 30 22:23:41 2007 From: craigus at rocketmail.com (Craig Scull) Date: Tue Jan 30 22:23:47 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Re-election: Lee, Craig. Rich Message-ID: <91111.40644.qm@web54514.mail.yahoo.com> On the SJAA web site it says: "the following directors are up for re?election this year and it is not known at this time if they will run again or not: Rich Neuschaefer Lee Hoglan Craig Scull" I will run. Craig -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaaboard/attachments/20070130/0966514d/attachment.html From rnapo at znet.com Wed Jan 31 00:57:58 2007 From: rnapo at znet.com (Rich N) Date: Wed Jan 31 00:58:17 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Re-election: Lee, Craig. Rich References: <91111.40644.qm@web54514.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000f01c74515$e8de6ff0$36f61345@180edt> Hi Craig, I will run. Thanks, Rich On the SJAA web site it says: "the following directors are up for re-election this year and it is not known at this time if they will run again or not: Rich Neuschaefer Lee Hoglan Craig Scull" I will run. Craig ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ SJAABoard mailing list SJAABoard@sjaa.net http://www.sjaa.net/mailman/listinfo/sjaaboard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaaboard/attachments/20070131/e4f1ace1/attachment.html From LeeBizz at aol.com Wed Jan 31 10:34:50 2007 From: LeeBizz at aol.com (LeeBizz@aol.com) Date: Wed Jan 31 10:35:14 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Re-election: Lee, Craig. Rich Message-ID: Count me in. Lee -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaaboard/attachments/20070131/ea497894/attachment.html From robhawley at earthlink.net Wed Jan 31 15:27:35 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Wed Jan 31 15:27:42 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Re-election: Lee, Craig. Rich In-Reply-To: <91111.40644.qm@web54514.mail.yahoo.com> References: <91111.40644.qm@web54514.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000101c7458f$64113e40$0300a8c0@robathome> So to summarize we are only filling the one vacant board position. We already have one person that has expressed an interest in running. Rob Hawley From pkohlmil at best.com Wed Jan 31 15:41:34 2007 From: pkohlmil at best.com (Paul Kohlmiller) Date: Wed Jan 31 15:41:51 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Re-election: Lee, Craig. Rich In-Reply-To: <000101c7458f$64113e40$0300a8c0@robathome> References: <91111.40644.qm@web54514.mail.yahoo.com> <000101c7458f$64113e40$0300a8c0@robathome> Message-ID: <00b201c74591$584a3060$08de9120$@com> I removed the clause in that one sentence on the web site that said we don't know if Lee, Craig and Rich are running again. PK -----Original Message----- From: sjaaboard-bounces@sjaa.net [mailto:sjaaboard-bounces@sjaa.net] On Behalf Of Rob Hawley Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 3:28 PM To: 'Business list for SJAA board of directors and members' Subject: RE: [SJAABoard] Re-election: Lee, Craig. Rich So to summarize we are only filling the one vacant board position. We already have one person that has expressed an interest in running. Rob Hawley _______________________________________________ SJAABoard mailing list SJAABoard@sjaa.net http://www.sjaa.net/mailman/listinfo/sjaaboard From robhawley at earthlink.net Wed Jan 31 16:03:26 2007 From: robhawley at earthlink.net (Rob Hawley) Date: Wed Jan 31 16:03:36 2007 Subject: [SJAABoard] Going to let CASS certification expire Message-ID: <000001c74594$66061720$0300a8c0@robathome> The CASS certification for our mail addresses will expire before the next labels are printed. Certification is not required for the class of mail we use. Since the last two mailings did not get a barcode, I am inclined to just let it expire. Rob Hawley