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EMDSO Business Meeting Minutes 11/21/09
Meeting
convened by President Rick Schwentker at 7:20 PM at Pat McDonald’s
house in
Present
at the meeting was Dennis Borgman (New member), Pat McDonald, Gary
Powers,
Jerry Kelly, Rick Schwentker and
Jerry
said he has three more potential members for the club in Linda Fowlis, her
husband
John and Ann Gacich. We look forward to meeting them.
Rick
said that his emails to Sally Brock had been generating mailing errors and Ray agreed
that he had the same problems. Jerry said he had Sally’s phone number and
gave it to Ray who will call her to get her correct email address.
Treasury Report:
Treasurer
Pat McDonald reported $743.27 at the start of the evening but he received $24.00
from both Dennis and Ray for their yearly dues, so the total is now
$791.27. Pat also stated that we owe St. Clair Church the $20.00 from our
last meeting there. He had written the check but forgot to hand it to Joe
Bougeno. He still has the check and will give it to Joe Bougeno at the
next meeting.
Club Business Meetings:
Club
business meetings and Viewing sessions are held on the third Saturday of each
month at various locations.
Rick
said that family developments could sometimes inhibit his ability to attend all
of our scheduled monthly meetings. Ray said that he wouldn’t mind helping
him with coordinating and conducting meeting agendas. Rick asked Ray if
he would be interested in becoming vice president of EMDSO and Ray agreed.
A motion was made to elect Ray as VP and he was unanimously elected.
Meetings at
Rick
stated that to avoid confusion, from now on any scheduled meeting nights at the
30” telescope in
Meeting Times:
Discussion
was held on the length of our meeting and viewing times. Ray clarified
his recent email comments to the members by stating that our monthly business
meeting should be scheduled for two hours before our intended viewing session
and that the meetings would determine the direction for the club. He
further stated that not all people would be expected to attend the meetings if
they are only interested in observing the sky. Jerry argued that
scheduling the meetings two hours before the viewing session could limit the
number of people attending the meetings. Gary Powers asked what the
by-laws stated and Ray said he had never seen them. Jerry Kelly said he
had the by-laws and a form 501 C3, which was filed with the state at the clubs
inception, at his home. Rick asked the group to suspend the discussion on
the meeting time until we review the by-laws. Jerry will bring the by-laws
and a copy of the form 501 C3 to the December meeting.
Refurbishing Club
Scopes:
Jerry
will bring over one of the clubs reflector scopes to Ray’s home during the next
month so he can try to clean it up a bit.
ECC Observatory:
Mark
Eaton at ECC will be sending one of his people to the observatory to review the
electrical problems inside the unit. Jerry will also bring the shutter
spring back to the observatory so it can be reinstalled some time in the near
future.
Pat
stated that one of the support beams need to be reset. He has the jacks
to do this, but needs the time to schedule a work force and acceptable weather
to accomplish the task. Pat also indicated a need for some minor
electrical corrections that he will correct. Rick stated there was need
for some small rock at the top of the 30” site near the telescope. He did
not state when that rock would be added.
Conflict of scheduling
ECC Outreach Viewing Times:
A
previous meeting discussion indicated that the Outreach sessions at ECC is
scheduled on the darkest weekend evenings and group members have asked to have
them changed. Jerry Kelly sets these times and indicated that he felt the
present schedule provides the outreach people with good views of the early
stages of the moon and other objects in the sky. He feels there is no
conflict and that members wishing to view at a darker location were welcomed to
do so. At this point Jerry sees no reason to change his scheduling of the
ECC sessions; however, their may be fewer active members with scopes on those
evenings at the college if they choose to view at a darker location.
Website and
Communications:
Ray
stated that the meeting minutes were now on the website.
Dennis
Borgman brought up the possibility of the club signing up on YAHOO with an Open
Forum site for EMDSO members. This could be used as a communication media
to alert members of last minute changes to club plans. Rick brought up
that the club experimented with Microsoft Messenger last year. Ray
brought up the concern with having one more website to address for EMDSO
information. Dennis and Gary Power said we could put a link on the
website that would automatically bring up the YAHOO forum. Ray and Rick
agreed to run this past Joe Bougeno and report back at the next meeting.
Dennis said he could bring a laptop computer to the next meeting to
demonstrate the YAHOO Open Forum if our meeting location had an internet
connection. We agreed that either St. Clair Church or Ray’s house had
internet connection capability so the meeting would be at one of those
locations.
EMDSO Meeting/Viewing
for 2010:
The
group agreed that the third Saturday of each month continued to be a good time
for the monthly meeting/viewing session for 2010.
EMDSO LOGO contest:
Ray
submitted his design for the club LOGO. It includes the counties of
Franklin, St. Charles, Jefferson, St. Louis CO and
Logo samples shown below:
Meeting was adjourned at 8:02 PM. Some were going up to the 30” site for viewing while the sky was clear.
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