Oct 04

Committee Meeting 4 Oct 2021

Minutes

Open actions from meeting on 10th May 2021

  1. Membership secretary leaving

Currently the committee has 6 members out of a possible 9, with vacancies for a Membership Secretary and an Observing Coordinator, additionally Lynne Watson needs assistance with the catering. Also, it has been suggested that members could volunteer to “shadow” committee members to provide more “resilience” and ease the burden on committee members.

Action: No volunteers so far. Publish committee and catering vacancies on Facebook, email and in next Newsletter – KP,CR

Open actions from meeting on 5th July 2021

  1. Speaker programme

Action: Invite Graham Bryant to at October meeting – KP – Complete

  1. Refreshments at ACC (see 1 above)
  2. PLI (Public Liability Insurance) issues

PLI insurance provided through FAS (Federation of Astronomical Societies) is very generic. It covers members of the public attending society events but possibly not society members at events.

Action: Monitor FAS strategy also investigate alternative policies – DT/JR

Topics for discussion

  1. Health and Safety

No incidents reported.

  1. ACC meetings
  • 14th September meeting – 5 or 6 people attended ACC, 26 via Zoom
    • Social distancing improved
    • Internet used about 500mb with 1.3mb download and 0.3mb upload
    • Audio at ACC improved
  • Continue with both ACC and Zoom for this year

Action: Investigate audio improvements – DT

Action: Investigate using MiFi 4G router – DT/AC

Action: Encourage more ACC attendance – KP

Action: Encourage more speakers at ACC – KP

  1. The future of FAS scope holdings – EG

FAS stock of loan telescopes mostly languishing in committee members garages and rarely loaned to members. Do we:

  1. Look at reducing them by raffling, etc. to members?
  2. Reject future bequests to FAS of similar scopes?

Robinson estate is still in dispute so the telescope cannot currently be released – DT

Markys’s friend has donated a scope, collection to be organised by Markys and DT

 Action: Postponed until November meeting

Any Other Business

  1. Next meeting 1st November?
  2. Restart observing at Alice Holt

Action: Initial contact made with Alice Holt re observing, permission may take a week or two – DT