[SJAAboard] June 30 , 2007 - Final SJAA Board Meeting Minutes

Sat Jul 28 22:30:14 MDT 2007

Here are the final meeting minutes... note the correction under Board Vacancy

======================================================
June 30, 2007 - SJAA Board Meeting Minutes
- Craig Scull
======================================================

Rob made a motion to approve the May meeting minutes
with one correction- it should be recorded that he
voted against the motion to approve the April
minutes. Craig
will send out a revised copy of the May minutes to
include this correction. The motion was seconded by
Craig and approved by unanimous vote. There were no
abstentions or oppositions.

-------------------------------------
Members present
-------------------------------------
SJAA Board Members
*-Rob Hawley
*-Rich Neuschaefer
*-Lee Hoglan
*-Craig Scull
*-Gary Mitchell
*-Steve Nelson (unexcused)
*-Dave Smith
*-Gordon Reade

SJAA Members
*-Rob Johnson
Rob J is organizing a star party at Pinnacles in
early Nov or late Oct and would like to extend an
invitation for SJAA members to attend. Rob J will send
Craig more information about this event as it becomes
available.

-------------------------------------
Coverage for upcoming events
-------------------------------------
Upcoming Events
5 -Th- Mirror-making workshop at Houge Park. 7:30 pm
Gary

6 -Fr- Astronomy Class at Houge Park. 7:30 pm
Rob

6 -Fr- Houge Park star party.
Rob

20 -Fr- Houge Park star party.
Rob

21 -Sa- Public star party at Coyote Lake Park.
Rob

21 -Sa- Mirror-making workshop at Houge Park. 7:30 pm
Gary

28 -Sa- General Meeting. Bryant Grigsby
Rob

-------------------------------------
Board Vacancy
-------------------------------------
Rob made a motion to that board position previously
filled by Mike Koop become open so it can be filled.
The motion was seconded by Lee and approved by
unanimous vote. There were no abstentions or
oppositions.

Robert Armstrong expressed interest in filling the
open board position. Since he will not be present at
tonight's meeting we will wait until the meeting next
month to vote and give any other members a chance to
volunteer for the opening. The board would like Robert
to join, but it is the club membership that votes and
approved this.

[correction: Article 3 Section 17 of Bylaws, after a
 Director resigns "Vacancies on the Board may be
 filled by approval of the Board" S. Nelson July 21]

-------------------------------------
Ephemeris Mailing
-------------------------------------
The scheduling of the ephemeris has been a problem in
the past because there was too little notice (only
hours) to have the labeling party.

Gordon volunteered to fill in for Mike's duties for
the Ephemeris.

Workflow is as follows:
-Paul sends the ephemeris to the printer. 
-The printer finishes printing the ephemeris
-Gordon picks up the ephemeris copies from the
printer (around 17th of the month)
-Gordon notifies people that he has the copies and
suggests when the labeling party should be. He plans
to give around 3 days notice (note that Rob cannot
make thursdays) for when this will be.
-The labeling party happens (usually around 7 or 8pm)
-Rob takes the sealed ephemeris envelopes to be
mailed at the Lundy post office

-------------------------------------
Hoagie Park
-------------------------------------
Rob paid $80 to the park for the general use of the
Hoagie park facility.
$80 = $50 damage deposit + $30 application fee

We're not sure why the park asked for a $50 deposit.
Normally our deposit rolls over from the prior cycle.
Rob is going to call the person at the Camden
Community Center to find out if we will get last
year's deposit back or if it will be credited for this
year.

The park says that we cannot have swap events because
it's a flea market and these may not be held on their
property. The park has no problems with auctions, but
does require us to pay $145 for the event. 

Rob is going to talk to the park to find out what
changes would be necessary to the swap meet in order
to make it acceptable to the park. Rob will also
enquire about the possibility of additional payment
options, such as a fixed percentage of the proceeds.

Rob will create the 2008 schedule for the park of
dates which Mike previously had done.

-------------------------------------
Disposition of stored material
-------------------------------------
Project Astro would be willing to accept all of the
60mm refractors (6 total) from the loaner telescope
program. Rob Hawley made a motion to donate the small
(60mm) telescopes in storage at his house to project
astro. The remainder of the poor quality scopes will
be donated to Goodwill or scrapped. The motion was
seconded by Craig and approved by unanimous vote.
There were no abstentions or oppositions.

Rob made a motion that Gary Mitchell is authorized to
sell any surplus mirror making materials to the Chabot
mirror making class (Rich Ozer) for whatever he deems
to be a fair price. The motion was seconded by Dave
Smith and approved by unanimous vote. There were no
abstentions or oppositions. 

Rob made a motion that he would scrap any of the
stored components that have no commercial value and
are not of future use to the club. Rob will bring
these to Hoagie next friday for inspection so there is
a second opinion about this. The motion was seconded
by Craig and approved by unanimous vote. There were no
abstentions or oppositions. 

Gary made a motion that Rob be authorized, if needed,
to procure a commercial storage space large enough to
hold all of the mirror making components and club
property at his home that he is unable to store. The
motion was seconded by Rob and approved by unanimous
vote. There were no abstentions or oppositions. 

-------------------------------------
Loaner Program
-------------------------------------
There will be a call to all of the non-members to
bring in the loaner telescopes they are storing within
the next 2 months.

Gary will contact Richard Ozer of the Chabot ATM
program to let them know we have a used 13.1 Coulter
F/4.5 OTA and mount available to them. The OTA has no
primary mirror or mirror cell. Lee is currently
storing the OTA and Rich has the mount.

-------------------------------------
Rehosting on BlueHost
-------------------------------------
Paul (not present) has expressed strong support for
the proposal to migrate the club's site to BlueHost.
Also, BlueHost would support any needs that Jim would
have if he wanted to migrate his content there.

Rob made a motion to move the club's web site and
mail lists from Morris Jones' private server to
BlueHost.com next week if possible. This involves
having the club reimburse Rob $166.80 ($6.95 a month x
24) for the first 24 months of service. They will also
reimburse Rob for any fees related to changing the DNS
registration (about $25) if necessary. Craig seconded
the motion and it was approved by unanimous vote.
There were no abstentions or oppositions.

-------------------------------------
AANC Representation Needed
-------------------------------------
Deferred until the next meeting since Steve is not
present. We think Steve might be interested in this
position.

-------------------------------------
SJAA Signs
-------------------------------------
Deferred until the next meeting since Steve is not
present. 

-------------------------------------
CalStar
-------------------------------------
Charlie Wicks has redesigned the CalStar web site. It
looks great. We will also ask him if he would like to
work on the SJAA main web site and Craig expressed an
interest in reviewing any work before it gets
committed to code.

-------------------------------------
Evaluation of Boxes from Rob's House
-------------------------------------
Deferred until Friday when Rob will bring some
materials for us to review.

-------------------------------------
General Meeting Programs
-------------------------------------
Programs are filled for the rest of the year. Lee
will speak in December on night myopia for 30 minutes.

-------------------------------------
Observational Astronomy Class Report
-------------------------------------
Rob is looking for topic suggestions. He normally
does a what's up in the sky talk and would like to
branch out into other topics.

-------------------------------------
Treasurer's report - Gary Mitchell
-------------------------------------
Accounts:
CD 1            5251.66 *
CD 2            5167.51 *
CD 3            5000.00 *
CD 4            5000.00 *
Checking        2971.06
Observatory Fund    3100.51 *
PayPal             19.12
Savings             343.49 *
Petty Cash         111.24
    ------------
OVERALL TOTAL        26964.59

* No change since last month.

One CD is about to mature. For now on, one will
mature each quarter.

The treasurer is suppose to keep a property list. 
Until now, that was very difficult to do.  It will
take time, but a property list will be made.

-------------------------------------
Loaner Scope Program Report
-------------------------------------
On hold.

-------------------------------------
Observatory Committee
-------------------------------------
Nothing to report. Craig still planning to go with
Lee to visit the location where his observatory has
been.

-------------------------------------
School Star Parties
-------------------------------------
Dormant, but there is a public star party in August
at Yosemite.

-------------------------------------
ATM Class
-------------------------------------
There is currently no teacher. Gary is the only
student who attends and occasionally someone shows up
and he doesn't know what to tell them. Gary made a
motion to stop publicizing the ATM class in the
Ephemeris for the near future, perhaps until next
year. Rob seconded this. The motion passed
unanimously. There were no abstentions or oppositions.

-------------------------------------
Membership report - Rob Hawley
-------------------------------------
The report date is 6/30 for the purpose of reporting
who is a
current member, but includes my 7/2 processing of the
mail.

Note the 14 expirations for Jun 07.  Some of these
people responded to my 7/2 "Expired" message by
paying.  Others responded that they are moving out of
the area and letting their subscription lapse.

--What Month do memberships expire--

Report Date    6/30/2007

May-07    7

Jun-07    14
Jul-07    16
Aug-07    24
Sep-07    17
Oct-07    18
Nov-07    18
Dec-07    16
Jan-08    16
Feb-08    17
Mar-08    20
Apr-08    12
May-08    18
Jun-08    50
Jul-08    9
more than 13 months    11
complementary    34

expiring    7
paid(current)    276

email delivery    38
Labels Generated    279

S&T Members    167
New Members since last meeting    10
current + complementary    310

--Membership Retention--

    paid only        
    Members at end of year    Members retained    
2007                    22    
2006         58            49    84%
2005         64            30    47%
2004         68**            21    31%
2003         61**            26    43%
2002         26**            15    58%
< 2002    148**             113    76%

    ** based on 12/04        
total        276    

At this point the majority of the 14 not yet renewed
members are from the < 2002 group.  2004 contributes
most of the rest.  As I said some of these renewed so
these numbers are subject to change.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:48.