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Sep 08

August 2010

SAAA Board Minutes – August 2010

The August meeting took place on Thursday, August 5th at The Beechwood Inn.
In attendance: Jim Reier, Frank Roldan, Peter Burkey, Russ Hills and Mike Sissing (New Holland Tech).

Old Business Items

1) Treasury Report:

Account balance as of June 9th 	            $656.91
State of Michigan/Annual Non-Profit Fee     -$20.00
Account balance as of Aug 5th:              $636.91

2) Submitted paychecks to treasury for member dues from Carson Manooth $20, Arvin Heilman $5, and reimbursement check from Park Township for our astronomy program in May for $58.

3) IRS 990 e-Postcard for tax year 2009 was filed and approved on July 16, 2010.

4) Upcoming Events:

August 6th Van Buren State Park: 8:30 PM star gazing at the camp ground starting at sunset.

September 10th SAAA General Meeting: West Ottawa Planetarium at 7:00 PM

October 16th Astronomy Day: 2 until 11 PM in Downtown Holland. SAAA will setup on the corner of 8th and College and display telescopes, NSN tool kits, and distribute educational materials. Star gazing after sunset.

5) The Park Township program for the fall has been postponed until winter (sometime in February). The club needs time to evaluate NSN toolkits and develop new program materials.

6) The astronomy program for migrant students is cancelled. The program request came too late to schedule the planetarium and arrange volunteer resources in-time. We will try again next year.

New Business Items

1) Jim Reier to submit building request forms to WOPS for club meetings in the 2010/2011 school year.

2) New members: Arvin Heilman joined the SAAA in August.

3) Changes to member roster: Please add Arvin Heilman and remove Raj Hemanth and Mike Radakovitz.

4) Mailing list: Jim Reier proposed replacing Yahoo!Groups with FreeLists.org. Like Yahoo!Groups, there is no cost for FreeLists and they do not place content (advertisements, etc.) in group emails. Administration is straight forward and easy to setup and maintain. Supports attachments up to 5MB in size.

5) Jim Reier proposed partnering with Hemlock Crossing or Outdoor Discovery Center to add astronomy programs to their nature programs, and to possibly build an observatory on-site. Both nature centers are accessible year round providing observing opportunities akin for ALPO or other serious amateur astronomy observing programs.

6) Frank Roldan updated his progress on funding to purchase a Digitalis portable planetarium. Frank plans to contact area schools and businesses to see if there is interest to support our fund.

7) Holland New Tech: Mike Sissing of Holland New Tech was invited to join our board meeting. Mike contacted the SAAA seeking answers on astronomy tools for his classroom and requested an observing session for his students in October. Mike is seeking help from knowledgeable members who would be willing to evaluate student astronomy presentations in the fall. The SAAA is committed to helping Mike and his students and offered much support. Mike is busy preparing for the new school year, but said he was meeting with school officials to review his project proposals and would contact us with details in the coming weeks.

8 ) Russ Hills produced a superb power point presentation on Constellations that will be a valuable resource for our public outreach programs. His power point includes voice narration with an astronomical musical score in the background. Russ expressed desires to devlop additional presentations on other feature topics.

Jim Reier – President
August 31, 2010