Board members:
Alan Gould, Barbara Arrighi, Dave Harris, Dirk Lammerts, Ed Pieret, Liede Marie Haitsma, John Dillon, Ken Frank, Len Nelson, Mike Koop, Mike Portuesi, Rich Neuschaefer, Richard Ozer, Vivian White, Walt Heiges.

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C.

MOUNT DIABLO ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

MDAS- Outreach/Jim Head is going strong each month; library display/Liede-Marie Haitsma has been set-up in Brentwood; tabling was take place on April 19th at Mitchell Canyon on Mount Diablo; and June 14th at Borges Ranch on the Mount Diablo foothills of off Castle Rock Park.
MDOA- Work continues on the Warming Room.

Liede-Marie Haitsma

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D. SFAA

SFAA Recent and Upcoming events - Dirk Lammerts
January, 2008
- Annual Awards Dinner at Delancey Street Restaurant (across the street from the Giant’s ballpark). Awards handed out in the categories: astrophotography, writing, and astronomy art
- Public City Star Party at Land’s End/San Francisco
February 2008
- Lunar Eclipse event at Randall Museum, coinciding with SFAA general membership meeting. A large crowd of SFAA members and the general public enjoyed live views of the lunar eclipse. A crew from KQED’s QUEST science program filmed the event, which will be aired on KQED Channel 9 on Tuesday, April 29th at 7:30pm. This was followed by two talks on “Moonology” given by SFAA members John Dillon and Michael Portuesi
- Members only viewing night on Mt. Tamalpais
- Public City Star Party at Land’s End/San Francisco
March 2008
- General Membership meeting at the Randall Museum with lecture given by Dan Machholz on “Celebration of the Messier Marathon”
- Messier Marathon at members only viewing night on Mt. Tamalpais
- Public City Star Party with highly interactive and entertaining lecture by Vivian White on “Exploring the Solar System” at the Randall Museum
- SFAA Newsletter features the first article by SFAA member Jim Cottle (“Looking 40 Years Back Toward the Moon”) in a series of articles celebrating the journey to the Moon 40 years ago. Additional articles over the next 15 months will chronicle the steps of the Apollo missions leading up the Moon landing July 20th, 1969
April 2008
- General Membership meeting at the Randall Museum with a lecture given by Nick Kanas on “Star Maps:  History, Artistry and Cartography”
- Public city Star Party at Land’s End/San Francisco
May 2008
- General membership meeting at the Randall Museum, with Andrew Westphal speaking about "Stardust: The First Solid Sample Return Mission from Beyond the Moon"
- Members only viewing nights to be held at Mt. Tamalpais twice this month - one at the beginning of the month, the other at the end of the month, officially counting as the June Mt. Tam event
- Public City Star Party to be held at Land’s End/San Francisco
- First 2008 Mt. Tamalpais Public City star party to be held. Lecture by Philip Duffy on “Climate Change: Observational Evidence, the Role of Humans and Societal Impacts”
June 2008
- General membership meeting at the Randall Museum, with Janet Luhmann speaking about “Space Weather”
- SFAA night at Fremont Peak on June 6th/7th
- Public City Star Party and lecture to be held during the daytime at the Randall Museum, solar observing, sundial making and celebration of the summer solstice

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E. HERCULES STARGAZERS

From: David Harris
Subject: Hercules Stargazers Report
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:33:11

Stargaze April 5, 2008 -- Since the sky was a thin overcast with small clearings, only Mark and Dave showed up at first, around 8 p.m. However, with two 10" Dobs and a 10x30 IS binocular we managed to view Saturn and Titan, the Orion Nebula (great through the OIII filter), Mars, the Pleiades, the Hyades, plus several bright stars including Sirius, Capella and Betelgeuse. Around 9 p.m., a first-time visitor, Mike from Hercules arrived, and we all then re-viewed the above objects plus the Winter Hexagon, M37, M81 and M82, and the Big Dipper and Leo. We realized the sky would not allow us to see any further objects, so we packed up the scopes around 10 p.m., but before leaving Mark and Dave made suggestions to Mike about his 5" Newtonian, and discussed eyepieces, finders, and aperture. Mike took our latest recycled program flyer, light pollution hand-out, and a "Getting Started in Astronomy" brochure from Sky and Telescope, and then we all left around 10:40 p.m.

Next Stargaze -- May 10, Astronomy Day, possibly with a school group.
After that -- May 31, June 28, July 26.

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F.

LAWRENCE HALL OF SCIENCE
Holt Planetarium http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/planetarium/

As of March 2008, we are decommisioning our venerable Goto Mercury star projector and installing a SkySkan definiti Fulldome video system.
Schedule
March 15 - June 15, 2008
Saturday and Sunday, plus Holidays (May 26).
1:00 p.m. - Journey to the Moon (ages 4-7)
2:15 p.m. - Moons of the Solar System (6 yrs and up)
3:30 p.m. - Constellations Tonight (6 yrs and up)
Also daily shows 3/24/2008-4/04/2008.
Saturday Night Stargazing — on the LHS Plaza
1st and 3rd clear Saturday of every month throughout the year— Weather Permitting —
8 – 10 p.m. September 15 through March 31
9 – 11 p.m. April 1 through September 14

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G.

From Doug Brown

To AANC Board-

Recognizing AANC's desire for greater involvement in co-sponsoring this year's Star-B-Que--as discussed in the last AANC board meeting--the FPOA Board would like to start coordinating this year's event with you.  We'd like to know what outreach activities you'd like to include in the agenda and how AANC might contribute to putting on the event.  Let's add this as an agenda topic for the next AANC board meeting.  Meanwhile, I'll propose/ask the following.

As usual, FPOA will coordinate the program; arrange for meat, drinks, coolers, condiments, and grills; provide and set up the PA system and AV system; put on the observing program; and clean up.  Some of the areas we'd like to jointly plan or request AANC assistance with include:

1. How much time will you need to cover what topics during the program in the amphitheater?
2. Have you any suggestions for an engaging speaker?
3. Can you offer names of people to help with: raffle, setup, organizing activities for kids, photography, running the astronomical-gastronomical contest, cleanup or other assistance?
4. Is there anything else you would like to do in the way of outreach?

Thanks,
Doug

 

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H.

From: "Rich Neuschaefer"
To: aanc-board
Subject: Insurance for AANC member clubs
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:39:55

Dear AANC Board:

Rob Hawley, SJAA President, and I were talking about the AANC a few days ago. He asked if the AANC would be interested in trying to get club liability insurance as a group (AANC member clubs)?
Currently, the SJAA is buying club liability insurance as an individual club.
Even though we have an excellent safety record, finding a carrier can be difficult and the cost is quite high because we are just one club.

Rob was thinking that if we were buying insurance as a part of a group of clubs that it may reduce the cost of the premium as well as making it easier to find a carrier.
I think this would be a real a real benefit of belonging to the AANC.
If it's not too late maybe this issue can be put on the April meeting agenda?

Sincerely,
Richard Neuschaefer
SJAA Vice President
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From: "Rich Neuschaefer"
To: aanc-board
Subject: Insurance for AANC member clubs
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:05:38

Could we at least get a show of hands at our April meeting to see many of the AANC member clubs would be interested in buying insurance as a group?
Rich

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>Christopher's question
Given the litigious state we live in I would strongly recommend that any organization that deals with the public have a general liability policy. If you have title to land I double that recommendation. Unless you have employees I would skip the director's insurance the agent will also push. That only covers you when dealing with your non-existent employees.

>Regarding the idea of mine that Rich is passing along
SJAA has a general liability policy and we are very happy with the carrier. It provides reasonable coverage for all of the activities of the club. The policy is well written. I have used the policy to allay the fears of some schools we deal with.

Our business is so small that the policy always contains an "other charges" to bring it up to the minimum policy cost. A larger group can generally get a better rate. We would need to do that in a manner that did not turn AANC into an insurance reseller or turn us all into Lloyd's "names" for our sister clubs.

There is a large element of brainstorming to this. This entire idea may not be workable. However, if we can save all of the clubs a couple of hundred dollars and not burden AANC it seems worthy of a phone call.

Rob Hawley President SJAA

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It can kind of work that way. Basically, there are two types of insurance... general liability policies for group events, and property insurance to protect club assets. The latter tends to be quite expensive and is well beyond the scope of anything the AANC can do.

General liability is used to insure the individuals participating in a group event, any claim against those individuals, and any action by those individuals that results in the destruction of property.

In order for the owners of an observing site to be covered, they merely need to be named as "additional insured" under the policy. This is standard procedure with any type of "special event" or club insurance.

RO

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The FPOA Business Liability policy categorizes us into the risk class, ""MUSEUM: NON PROFIT, WITH BUILDING COVERAGE".  So, we're definitely not lumped in with the bicycle, ski and wind surfing clubs.

Someone raised the topic of Directors and Officers insurance.  I'll point out that while employment coverage is usually included,  a D&O policy covers more than just that.  You need D&O because claims will be made against the company, AND against the directors of the company. Since a director can be held personally responsible for acts of the company, many directors and officers (I'm a case in point) will demand to be protected rather than put their personal assets at stake. Keep in mind that for a typical astronomy 501(c)(3) corporation any of our directors and officers probably have deeper pockets than the corporation.

Another common insurance type is Errors and Omissions Liability.  It covers you if your client holds you responsible for errors, or the failure of your work to perform as promised in a contract.  This would probably not apply to most of us.

FPOA has been using Truex Insurance as our agent for at least a decade.  2291 W. March Ln., PO Box 7276, Stockton, CA 95267-0276 (209) 478-5023.  We get our insurance--both Liability and D&O--through The Hartford, which has an Alternative Market Placement program that shops out unusual coverage to other underwriters--somewhat like a broker--but puts their name on the policy.  A resource to consider is the Nonprofits' Insurance Alliance of California, PO Box 8507, Santa Cruz, CA 95061-8507 (800) 359-6422, http://www.niac.org

Thanks,
Doug Brown

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I.

 

 

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J.