[Sjaa-board] SJAA Board Meeting Minutes - January 7, 2012

[Rob Jaworski]

SJAA Board Mtg

07 Jan 2012

Attending: Lee Hoglan, Rich Neuschaefer, Rob Jaworski, Robert Armstrong, Greg Claytor, Kevin Roberts, Rod Norden, Michael Packer
Excused absence: Mark Wagner

Guests/Members attending: Dave Ittner, Teruo Utsumi, several others

Called to order at 6:44PM.

Previous meeting minutes approved unanimously.

Treasurer Report: Report is distributed; motion made, seconded and passed unanimously to renew the SJAA membership in the International Dark Sky Association and the Monterey Institute for Research in Astronomy.

General Programs: June is now booked with a speaker, Dr. Peter Nugent, whose topic will be about supernova 2011fe.  Teruo had a suggestion about bringing in teachers who benefited from SJAA school star parties, and the consensus was that the Slide and Equipment night in September may be a better venue for that.

Membership Report: Total members is 273, down 2 from the previous month, but there have been a good number of new members signing up.  All new and renewing members were approved unanimously by vote.

Publicity Report: Using all the same channels for communication.  Meetup continues to do well with an expanding membership in the group.

School Star Party Report: Jim sent the report to the board list; the school star partiers continue to be active and busy.

Loaner Report: Telescopes keep going and coming back; all's well.

Upcoming Events: Next Friday, Greg opens and closes and Rod will hold class.  For the agenda next time, we will fill the opening and closing shifts through the rest of 2012.

Solar Mount Update: Rich continues to investigate and reports that a GM is about $1500 while an Orion mount is about $1000 with discount, a significant price difference. Rich will follow up with both vendors to determine lead times as the Lunt will arrive in 4-6 weeks from now.

Insurance Followup: Dave will be meeting with an insurance broker soon and needs to know if our current policy covers damage or theft of the loaners. No, we are self insured on the gear, and our insurance is only for liability.

Mentoring: Dave is ready to go and will be sending material to get information on the website.

Solar Program: Michael is ready to start setting dates and announcing. Robert cautioned that if we hold an event at Houge, we really need to let the city know. All agreed that Mark should contact the city and let them know the dates of the program, which will be one weekend day a month for about two hours. Michael is developing the schedule and will provide it to Mark and the rest of the board.

Meeting adjourned at 7:22PM.