--- Chuck Hards <chuckhards@yahoo.com> wrote: <snip>
When I was a star-party regular (and plan to be again one day), pleasing the general public wasn't the main point behind the club holding them. <snip> If "star party" now means "educational outreach for the general public", is the type of participant I outlined above not welcome anymore? Or are there two distinct types of star-party now?
My impression is that there are two types of star parties now. SLAS prints up several thousand public star party calendars a year. For a few of the warm summer public parties that I have attended, the SPOC parking lot overflows and it is packed with kids and parents. When the weather is bad, these tend to be lower keyed assembly of celestially like-minded individuals. The more frequent private star parties are an equal if not more predominate part of the club. Private star parties are either announced for SPOC on the calendar or are more typically are "the meet and peak at the Gravel Pit" affairs. The public star parties are a public outreach effort. As I understand it, it was part of the quid pro quo for the private financing of SPOC's construction. In the winter SLAS meetings, there was some discussion of the aging of the club membership and the need to attract new younger members. That was context within which improving the public star parties was discussed, and within which, Lowell has been holding the last series of meetings since January at different locations, e.g. - the U of U, SL Community College - and advocating partnerships with the planetarium. As I understand it, the intent was outreach to attract newer and younger members. But the bulk of real club activity is still the type of like-minded individuals getting together that you described above. The two are not mutually exclusive. By way of full disclosure, I have not extensively participated in the private or the public star parties. Mostly I have attended the monthly general meetings and taken training. I have only recently gotten my gear together to the point where I can do the star parties, and hope to be a more frequent attendee this season. Now if the weather would cooperate. -:) - Canopus56 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com