The meeting took place on Thursday, April 30th at 84 East Restaurant and lasted from 5:30 p.m. until approximately 7:15 p.m.
In attendance: Jim Reier, Frank Roldan, Peter Burkey, George Miller
Old Business Items
1) Treasury Report: Account balance as of April 30th is $956.71.
2) Next General Meeting on May 8th SAAA will celebrate our 20th Anniversary at this meeting. Jim and Peter will work together to dig-up old email addresses to invite former club members. Peter will look for a videotape of a news spotlight of our Mars observing session from August, 2003. We will order a sheet-cake from Meijer’s Bakery with the SAAA logo.
3) Astronomy Day on May 2nd/ Tulip Time Fireworks On Friday May 1st Our Astronomy Day celebration will be postponed, due to Tulip Time conflicts on May 2-9.
4) IYA2009 International Year of Astronomy The board discussed these ways to celebrate IYA2009 in the community:
- Peter will check into our hosting an outreach program with the Holland Museum.
- Frank has researched several of the Ottawa County parks for suitable night viewing spots.
- Jim will wait until after Memorial Day to contact the State Parks to setup viewing sessions at Holland SP, Van Buren SP near South Haven, and possibly Warren Dunes SP in Bridgman.
- We should also keep the Outdoor Discovery Center and DeGraaf Nature Center on our list of potential astronomy workshops using NSN toolkit resources.
New Business Items
1) New members Michael Radakovitz and Douglas Sutherland have joined the SAAA, and their annual dues payments were transferred from Jim to Peter.
2) Planetarium status Jim reported that the main projector bulb in the Planetarium seems to be burnt-out. He contacted Dave Zimmer of Ottawa Public Schools, but did not received a reply. Update – at the May 8th meeting, we found the projector bulb was loose. Stars in the celestrial sphere are now working!
George Miller -Secretary
