Minutes.
Apologies: JR and DT
1. Welcome by the President – John Price
Ever since becoming President I have traditional made a small speech of welcome at the AGM. The first time was without warning and it was delivered straight from the heart. But subsequently, in anticipation of being asked again, I have always prepared something. So, what to speak about this time? I cannot say anything that cuts across the Committee and their reports so have assumed that I am free to say what I like as long as it meets this criterion and is reasonable appropriate and short. So this time I ask a question. What makes us all interested in astronomy? Well, personally, my reply has always been that my interest began when My Mother started buying the newly published Eagle Comic for her two young sons. The hero, always on the front cover, was Dan Dare “pilot of the future”. The story line predicted, optimistically, that there would be human colonies on the Moon and Mars by 1999! It was about 1950 at the time. This sparked my interest in spaceflight and astronomy that has flowed down the years to this day.
As I get older my focus is shifting more to the question of my place in the Universe and how I am part of a great journey of discovery. I believe that, at the deepest level, we are all on a quest to discovery our origins and that is why we are interested in astronomy. It is a great scientific and spiritual enterprise and, as a Society, we strive to be part of it by sharing our thoughts and working together.
Which brings us back down to earth! Welcome to the AGM.
2. Committee Members’ Reports 2023
Kevin Pretorius – Chairman, Programme Secretary.
As Chairman of the Society, I’m responsible for the overall organisation and running of the society – something I couldn’t possible achieve without the wide talents and enthusiastic support of the entire committee. I freely acknowledge all their contributions, and I owe every one of them, a debt of thanks.
I’ve chaired the quarterly committee meetings, I’ve coached and supported new members of the committee into their roles, and I’ve been engaged with any number of issues and developments that have presented themselves this year.
I was heavily involved with the subscription renewal process – the first full renewal we’ve completed through Member Mojo. I put in place the renewal process, generated the paperwork, organised volunteers to help users with the renewal process and to collect subscriptions. I worked closely with our new Membership Secretary and our Treasurer to ensure the process of renewals ran smoothly and provided advice on dealing with the more complex cases. I also monitored progress, providing periodic analyses to the rest of the committee.
I similarly supported our new Observing Coordinator to get started – with some ideas, advice and experience of assessing observing sites, some software to plan observing nights, and then again later in the year to meet with the warden at our preferred site, as we finalised the practical arrangements.
When we had our first junior member for a while, I dusted off our Child Protection Policy, checked our obligations, spoke with his parents, and welcomed him to the society.
In common with many other committee members, I helped out with the collection and storage of a generous bequest of telescope gear, when we needed to act with fairly little notice. I’ve recently reviewed/revised our loan arrangements in line with the now higher-end equipment in our inventory.
I monitor and respond to emails arriving in our enquiry mailbox, and I’m an admin and regular contributor to our Facebook group.
As Programme Secretary, I’ve welcomed and thanked all our speakers this year, given two short talks of my own (one at very short notice, to backfill), and I’ve also been responsible for ensuring that everything works on the night – the Wi-Fi, the Zoom meetings, the Sound, etc. And whilst there have been some occasional rough spots, overall, I think it’s working pretty well now.
I note that numbers attending our meetings are still down on pre-pandemic levels where we had perhaps 45 members on a typical night, this year that’s down to about 30, even though membership numbers are similar. We’d love to see more of you attending these meetings, which is important as an implicit display of interest and appreciation if a speaker has put in a lot of work into their talk, and has travelled a long distance to be here.
Some of you have remarked that we don’t have as many in-person talks as in previous years, which is true. The pandemic has acclimatised us all to online meetings and presentations and it’s becoming more common for small venues like ourselves to hold meetings via Zoom, particularly if the speaker would otherwise need to travel some distance to present.
But there’s an upside to this too, and that’s that enables me to draw upon a wider pool of speakers from up and down the country. After more than a decade in this role, I feel I’ve leaned heavily on the generosity of local institutions, so it’s somewhat liberating to be able to cast our net more widely.
I’m currently working on our programme of talks for next year – with talks on Special Relativity, mapping Supermassive Black Holes, the Comet Interceptor Mission, the Expansion of the Universe, and (hopefully – tbc) Gravitational Wave astronomy. For the more practically minded, we also have observing tips and tricks from John Axtell, A tour of the Stars of Autumn from Rory Fenner, and guidance on binocular astronomy from Steve Tonkin.
I’d welcome one or two more talks from our members – it can be half an hour, or the full session, as you please. If you’d like to share your expertise on a topic, or commit yourself to gaining it, I’d be pleased to hear from you.
And finally, yes I’m willing to continue in the roles of Chairman and Programme Secretary if you’ll have me.
Thank you.
Danny Thomas – Webmaster.
As per the last few years new posts on the website have been infrequent and in the last year the only news posts have been those that I generated. The ease of posting to Facebook has diverted content away from the website, but then we have not been in a position where we need to market the Society actively.
I believe a redesign of the website would be a good idea and a move away from a magazine/news format, to simplify and focus on information about the Society. I am happy to receive any ideas and help from anyone with WordPress experience would be welcome.
Outside of my duties as Webmaster, I have continued to be closely involved with the society’s contracts. After some discussions with Alice Holt to resume observing evenings, they declined to return to the contractual language we had previously agreed regarding insurance and liabilities.
This left our agreement with the MOD and Grainger for the observatory as the only operational contract to be maintained. However, more recently, I have been supporting discussions with Waverly Council for the use of Frensham Ponds for observing and I am happy to see this closed in time to run some test events in the 2023/24 observing season.
I have continued as Secretary and Webmaster for SAGAS (the Southern Area Group Astronomy Societies) where recent discussions have been focussed on insurance, copyright and other matters facing all 23 member societies. These discussions have proven to be very insightful and helpful to our own society, while SAGAS appears to be increasing in importance and value by enhancing the information and services of the Federation of Astronomical Societies.
In January I coordinated the collection and distribution of a large donation of equipment and accessories bequested by a former member. This took up quite some time in identifying parts and organising them into usable set ups. Although I was the main point of contact for the Solicitors my fellow committee members were very supportive in helping collect and transport some of the larger items.
Other commitments continue to impact the time I can spend on committee duties and my attendance at meetings. I will also be travelling for a period next year but much of the website and email maintenance can be done remotely. So, I am prepared to stand for re-election as webmaster in 2024.
David Hepper – Membership Secretary.
We have 79 active memberships, made up mostly of Adult (single) type, along with 3 Couples, 2 Families, 3 Juniors and 1 Student, so the total number of individuals is around 84.
There have been 9 new joiners in the year but, surprisingly, only a few have attended meetings at Aldershot.
The MemberMojo system is easy to use and does everything we need at low cost.
All members are paid-up, according to the system
Eric Grieve – Librarian and Instrument Coordinator.
Librarian and Instrument Coordinator
Members may request the loan of books or telescopes, on the FAS Website which has a direct link to me. Contact details: email: (telescopes@farnham-as.co.uk)
FAS Loan Equipment
This year the Society has once again been kindly gifted a number of Instruments. These include; a super Sky Quest 14 inch Truss Dobsonian with a 2 inch eyepiece set up and 60mm Solar Scope. The Solar scopes are still undergoing trials, but the remainder will become for loan shortly.
Remember, the Society already has: Binoculars, and Telescopes – both reflectors and refractors: ranging in size from 90mm to 250mm – all are available for loan by members. Photographs and full details of all these instruments are on the Societies’ website.
Whilst regrettably delayed, I will continue to look at our loan equipment holdings and the question of their storage needs. To that end, we sold the ‘Big Dobbie’ to a FAS member in October.
I anticipate the Society will be in a position to offer a number of instruments to members during 2024.
FAS Library
The FAS Library consists of some 160 titles. Regrettably the library remains little used, with just a few books out and NO new loan issues made in the year. I ask members to look again at the list of book titles, at the back of the meeting room, AND also available on the Societies website. See if there is not something of interest to you. If in doubt, ask!
I would prefer a new Member to take up this basic Librarian role as soon as possible. If you might be interested, please speak to me.
The Alexander Observatory
Visitors included a couple of scout/cub visits in January. Plus an unfortunate no show later.
There has been a lot of disruption, with road development, in Queens Ave throughout much of the year. We were therefore unable to arrange a Heritage Open day in September this year.
Andrew has already arranged a number Scout and Beaver Group visits this autumn/winter season 2023/24.
The Alexander Observatory Guidebook and Observers User Manual updates will now be completed next year. We also hope to fund a small print run of the 2024 Guidebook.
We are still in urgent need of additional helpers at the Alexander Observatory.
Why not come and learn how to operate and observe with this Historic 1891 8 inch Grubb Refractor and assist with the group visitors to the observatory. Become an Observatory key-holder, and you can enjoy personally observing with this telescope at anytime you choose! Anyone interested in supporting this lovely Instrument, please speak to me – then come and have the guided tour!
Not sure where it is, just Google: “Alexander Observatory”. Even Google Maps now give it its correct title.
The rechargeable battery lighting system is now installed, a great improvement. There are always interesting maintenance tasks with a 130 year old telescope!
Finally:
I have been honoured to hold the Society’s ‘Librarian and Instrument Coordinator’ role for nearly 20 years. Although I am willing to offer myself up for re-election for one more year; I will not however be available in 2025. I would wish to continue playing an active role within the Alexander Observatory.
Andrew Collins – Outreach Coordinator.
We have started to pick up the outreach programme again this year albeit slowly. The Alexander telescope is still the big draw as it is often the focal point of attention for groups. We had a group in January and one more recently. Eric is very supportive with his knowledge of the telescope, and we supplement viewing through the ‘old’ telescope with a modern scope outside. Normally we pick nights when the moon is well placed but at the start of November we were blessed with clear skies with Jupiter and Saturn well placed. Guaranteed to get a wow!
We also hosted a telescope observing session for a school in Farnham. This was well supported by members bring the scopes along and by the parents and children (probably drawn to the hot chocolate). In addition to outside viewing, we will also do presentation on astronomy to limit numbers round the scopes at any one time.
At the time of writing, we have one more events planned for November and three in January, including telescope visit. These involve a couple of scout groups and a larger event for a local school.
As always, any help that can be given is always appreciated. This can be by bringing a telescope, helping with a presentation or just being around the adults and children enthusing about your hobby. It can be rewarding and exciting.
Outreach Co-ordinator
To the extent that the society wishes to have outreach co-ordinator next year I put myself forward to serve again.
Nigel Thomas – Observing Coordinator.
As the longer-standing members will be aware, there was no Society-organised observing for some years. The Committee established it as a top priority for 2023, that Observing Evenings should be restarted.
For me, as Observing Co-ordinator, the year has been spent trying to secure a suitable site, that meets both the Society’s operational requirements and its legal and financial criteria. Finally, at a meeting of the Committee on 13th November, it was agreed that we should proceed with an arrangement negotiated with Waverley Borough Council, to hold Observing Evenings at Frensham Great Pond.
The calendar of potential Evenings for the period December 2023 to March 2024 was distributed on 25th November, together with information and instructions. The first event was scheduled to take place on the 9th December, assuming favourable weather.
Hopefully we shall see attendance by a good number of the members who have registered for observing.
As a matter of interest, the potential locations contacted include:
Bordon Country Market: politely declined by BCM as the site has a residential element;
Frensham Great Pond: Finally agreed with Waverley Council, who are very keen on the idea. Months passed as the liability situation was discussed and concerns communicated, but initially rejected by the Society due to potential financial liability in excess of the Public Liability Insurance cover (£5m). Eventually a comfort letter was obtained and its content approved by the Committee.
Hogmoor Inclosure: progressed with the Land Trust, who administer the property, to the stage of a detailed proposal being submitted, but now the Land Trust is unresponsive.
Lastly, I make an appeal for help in running these Observing Evenings. If you are interested in assisting with marshalling at one or more session, please do contact me.
Chris Reed – Secretary.
I have been the Society’s secretary since 2017, with the assistance of other committee members. The role mainly involves organising quarterly meetings, preparing agendas and writing minutes.
Additionally, I have been producing the society’s newsletter. This can be quite time consuming and to save time I have removed any news and observing items that are readily available on the internet or in magazines and concentrated on society news, members’ images, etc.
Any suggestions for improvements to the newsletters, hints and tips would be welcomed, just let me know at the monthly meetings or via secretary@farnham-as.co.uk.
The newsletter, Facebook group “Farnham Astronomical Society” and our web site www.farnham-as.co.uk allow the Society and its members to share information, so if you have a stunning image, an interesting fact or a technical tip please share it via the newsletter or Facebook. Perhaps you have a question which can be posted on Facebook where someone will supply an answer.
For personal reasons I would prefer not to continue as secretary and look forward to handing over the role to another member, though of course, I would provide any assistance required.
John Rees – Treasurer. (As at end November 2023)
- Headlines:
- Membership & Guest fees unchanged for 2024.
- Aldershot Cricket Club rental uplift
3. Election of Committee Members.
The members approved the election of Committee members.
- Chairman – Kevin Pretorius.
- Program – Kevin Pretorius.
- Webmaster – Danny Thomas.
- Membership Secretary – David Hepper.
- Librarian and Telescope Coordinator – Eric Grieve.
- Outreach Coordinator – Andrew Collins.
- Observing Coordinator – Nigel Thomas
As no members volunteered to take on the roles Secretary or Treasurer Kevin and Andrew have agreed to take on these additional roles on an interim basis.
- Secretary (acting) – Andrew Collins and Kevin Pretorius.
- Treasurer (acting) – Andrew Collins.
4. Proposals requiring member approval.
Membership approved
- Membership and guest fees are to remain unchanged for 2024
- The fee paid to Aldershot Cricket Club to be increased from £65 to £70 per meeting.