Robert, You support club activities well, and you have my (and I am sure others) appreciation, we do always seem to have people that step up. You don't have to be on the Board to make significant contributions. Unfortunately, many active members of the past are no longer very active, in some cases from differing expectations. Expectations have been very hard to manage, among club members especially, unless everything is made clear. In the past we have tried more star parties and support did faulter, it was from this feedback that we temper our scheduling. I would hope future boards seek club members feedback and opinions as much as Lowell and Bob have. We need to be careful about what becomes a SLAS event, some people have tried to make "non-official" into "official" events and, in some cases, friction with the Park Service ensued along with hurt feelings because they did not get support they desired. As I recall Bryce started as a "small" event as did the Grand Canyon Star Parties. As you suspected, from my view, as a past board member, it is the "special" star parties that are the challenge to get support for. Your comments are good, perhaps Natural Bridges could become a more regular informal event, to be more than that probably won't come from SLAS. I would also add that many board members (past and future) do not subscribe to this group, so I would not assume comments here to be known by the SLAS Board or the majority of the general membership. Perhaps, Patrick knows how much of SLAS subscribes. I for one have always invited other campers to share my telescope views and I hope others do as well. Erik --- robtaylor3661@comcast.net wrote: From: "Robert Taylor" <robtaylor3661@comcast.net> To: <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Natural Bridges Saturday Night Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2008 11:59:17 -0600 I understand and it is a problem if no one shows up to a party where they are expecting a lot of scopes. But expectations can be managed and I think that if we actually look at what parties are not well attended I think we will find a pattern. I don't think the big Park Service parties fall into this category, the smaller and more remote week-day parties are probably more suspect here but I'm not sure, I don't see any feed back on the star parties. Currently we don't have a good mechanism to share that information with the club members at large. I try to help when I can by reporting on star parties or scheduled observing I go to on this board, others do the same but it's not a formal system, it's very informal and therefore inconsistent. However if we do have a club scheduled star party it might be a good idea to get a report on the outcome and report back to the entire club on it. Just a suggestion. That's one of the reasons I posted a couple things on Natural Bridges. I too have done star parties where I was the sole representative of SLAS, more than once. This past week-end was an example although to be fair the weather really didn't look good and I had nothing else to do that night. Roger has done a great job on these this year and his name is almost always on the list to attend these. If each of us in the club can support just one or two of these non-SPOC or non-Harmon's star parties each season we can cover all that needs to be covered. +++++++++++++ Message: 3 Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2008 08:13:55 -0700 From: <zaurak@digis.net> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Natural Bridges Saturday Night To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Message-ID: <20080904081355.256C49CD@resin18.mta.everyone.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" I do not believe there is a problem, you can Star Gaze where and when you want. As an Astronomy Club it is bad when we advertise an event and no one or only a few show up. Willingness to participate is a factor, fortunately we have enough to support a robust schedule. We have had angry public when an event is scheduled and no one shows up. Rodger Fry has done an outstanding job with Special Star Parties and has accommodated most request. I hope next years board has someone as enthusiastic. Willingness to participate does seem to becoming a problem. We used to have a lot of people running for the SLAS Board with several people running for every office. Now we struggle to get one per office. SLAS members have a long history of National Park Star Parties., I see no reason why this can't continue. I even ran into John Dobson near Capital Reef in his RV asking for directions. Yes ladies, men do ask for directions. All I am saying is that SLAS has to be careful about having support for an event before scheduling. Members input is welcome, when deciding the schedule. I remember one year when I did 1-2 per week, most went well, but some I was the only person and I would end up with lines of 500 people. We would look at one thing for 3 hours, it was not enjoyable for anyone. Erik _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://gallery.utahastronomy.com Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com