The big news around this time in the OCA
year is the election of the new Board of Trustees. As you
may have noticed, there have been a few changes from last
year. One of the biggest changes, of course, is that Liam
Kennedy is stepping down from the presidency, and will be
a Trustee-At-Large for the coming year. He is still our webmaster,
and still in charge of such important items as the weather
station, the WeatherCam and the Anza broadband project. He’s
still very active in the Outreach program, the AstroImagers
SIG, and in planning for AstroImage 2003, among many other
club-related activities. You will undoubtedly continue to
see a lot of him even if he’s no longer our very own President
Kennedy.
I feel very lucky to have two past presidents
among the Trustees this year. Russell Sipe, who preceded Liam
as president, returns as a Trustee. Russell continues to give
us the benefit of his considerable experience and a ring-side
seat for the continuing saga of Star Cruiser. I particularly
appreciate his ability to nudge Board meetings along when
we get bogged down, a skill that helps keep the meetings moving
toward (we hope) a reasonable adjourning time.
Bob Buchheim, Tony Obra, Tim Hogle and Gary
Schones were all Trustees last year and continue to serve
in 2003. Dave Radosevich, who has done all of the great work
on the Kuhn over the past few months, also joins the board
this year. Charlie Oostdyk returns as Treasurer, and Bruce
Crowe as Secretary. We are very pleased to welcome Joel Harris,
once again, as Vice President.
Another big change on the Board this year
is that we will be losing Carol Copp as a Trustee. We truly
appreciate the many years she served on the Board. I’ve had
the pleasure of serving with her for the last two years, and
appreciate the historical perspective and intelligence she’s
brought to our discussions. I’ll miss the wryly humorous side-comments
she would often share with me when I was sitting next to her
during our meetings. I hope this break from Board responsibilities
will give her more time for observing and other activities.
If it should happen that she still wants to spend time with
us at the meetings, we’ll be delighted to see her!
Stephen Eubanks is also leaving the board
as Trustee, but I am happy to report that he will continue
in his position as Anza House Coordinator, so we will continue
to work closely with him and to benefit from his energy and
insight.
It’s such a pleasure to share good news.
At the January Board meeting, Dave Radosevich reported that
all of the major work on the Kuhn is now done. After fine-tuning
the system and collimating the optics, there is a good chance
that it will be operating at the next star party. I hope,
if you are at Anza for the star party, you come up to the
observatory and get a chance to see for yourself how much
brighter the image is in the eyepiece with the new mirror
coatings, how much quieter the Kuhn is, and how much more
smoothly it runs.
As you may know, you have to be a Star Member
and be trained on the operation of the observatory as well
as the operation of the Kuhn in order to be qualified to run
it. Yet, in the past, we had only one trainer. We’re planning
to train a group of existing Star Members on the new system.
These volunteers will be able to train additional Star Members.
Upon completion, we expect to retrain existing Star Members
on the new system. Subsequent training of new Star Members
can be done quickly, so that, once the Kuhn is ready for general
use, it really can be used.
This is a great club, and it is my honor
to serve as its president. Thank you for entrusting me with
this position. You can be sure I will do my best to live up
to the high standards set by my predecessors. Fortunately,
a lot of them are still around to help me do that!
May the coming year be happy, productive
and interesting for all of us!
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