Monthly Archives: March 2020

Swap Meet Postponed and Other Updates

In normal years, the SJAA Swap Meet is held in the spring and again in the fall. This is a great social outlet, but unfortunately, due to all that’s happening with the pandemic this year, the SJAA leadership had to make the difficult decision to postpone it. It may reappear later in the sprint or summer, but depending on how things go, like a comet in an irregular orbit, it might not show up again until the fall. Please keep an eye on the SJAA Meetup site for up-to-date information regarding all SJAA events.

In other news, the SJAA tech team is looking for methods to preserve talks and presentations from board and general meetings. They are also in the process of finding ways to provide video conferencing to replace having meetings at Houge Park which the City of San Jose has closed. Again, keep an eye on the Meetup for the latest, and best practices indicate you should RSVP to any Meetup event so that you can get notifications (via Meetup email) when an event is changed or has updated info from the organizer.

Posted in Articles


2020 Board and Officer Elections

Each February and March sees board elections and officer elections, respectively. Here are the results of the 2020 elections.

For the board of directors, four director seats were up for elections. All four incumbents ran for those seats and were re-elected: Sandy Mohan (board seat 2), Wolf Witt (seat 4), Glenn Newell (seat 8) and Rob Jaworski (seat 6). Congratulations to them all, and more importantly, a hearty Thank You to them for their service.

Things were a bit more exciting at the March officer elections. As you may know, officers are elected to one-year terms and all of them, with one exception, have no limit to the number of terms that can be served by one individual. That exception is the President role, which has a term limit of just two years.

First, let us give Swami Nigam a round of recognition for his service as President for the past two years. Though he has stayed busy with his work and family life, he somehow still made time for leading our organization. Replacing him is Gerry Joyce, who most recently served as Vice President.

Two of the remaining three officer positions also had a change: Ken Miura is now the Vice President, and Emi Nikolov took over the reigns as the organization’s Secretary. Rounding out the fourth position is incumbent Rob Jaworski, who remains the club’s Treasurer.

Another shout out to our past, current and new Directors and Officers! Now in our 66th year, we couldn’t keep on going without volunteers who step up to keep the club going and continuing its mission of bringing astronomy and science to the people!

Posted in Anouncements, Articles


SJAA and the Pandemic

coronavirus meteor

San Jose Astronomical Association is closely monitoring the coronavirus/COVID-19 situation in Santa Clara county. In accordance with advisement from Santa Clara County Health Department we may be canceling some events in the next few weeks, as appropriate – especially those that involve close contact and shared surface on telescopes. Please check the SJAA Meetup group to determine if an event has been canceled before heading out to the event. The board will periodically review the status of the outbreak and the guidance from the Santa Clara county to determine the impact upon upcoming events.

Posted in Anouncements