Highworth Astronomy club

[Steve Swancott]

Hello those of you who have read and replied to my posts before will know that I am a 14 and a keen amatur astronomer. And I Hve been disccusing with my teachers about setting up an astronomy club in highworth. They have agreed and one of my teachers is an astronomer himself and thinks the idea is briilliant.

Having dissucussed and planned we have a rough idea of what we want to acheive and how to do it and that it should be an early winter to late spring 'club'.

Generaly the question is can i have some of YOUR ideas on this topic

- 'How' it should be run

- Times, how long wold you would suggest it ran in the evening andhow often

- Indoor things?

- And my teacher suggested emailing universtitys to see if they could send someone to give talks on various topics now and then (sounds good...)

- anything else you can think of?

Thanks alot

Steve

[MikeD]

Good luck with this, I will keep an eye on this as I am also from Swindon.

Mike.

[rwilkey]

Hi Steve, well done, sounds like a great idea, I am also in Swindon and would like to offer you every encouragement in your project. Let us know how you get on.

[Steve Swancott]

Thank you very much, have you got any tips? or just go for it, i am partly doing it because the one currently in swindon you do have to pay for wheras it would be free and its for anybody really, thanks for the encourgement

[MikeD]

Thank you very much, have you got any tips?

- And my teacher suggested emailing universtitys to see if they could send someone to give talks on various topics now and then (sounds good...)

I would say don't focus too much on the talks, I personally would go to an astro club to talk to other like minded people rather than to sit and hear a lecture.

A talk maye once every three meetings.

- Times, how long wold you would suggest it ran in the evening andhow often

A 2 hour meeting once a month sounds about right to me.

These are my prefrences so they my not reflect what the majority would like, just some food for thought.

Mike.

[rwilkey]

Hi Steve, it does cost a bit to run the Swindon club, with fees like hiring the meeting room, paying expenses to the speakers (we pay travelling expenses only), our last speaker was from West Sussex and the next one is from Birmingham, so you can see that we have to pay for their fuel, and we also provide refreshments to our members. On top of this we do not usually charge for a youngster when accompanied by a paying adult (£3). So we have to spread the cost to keep the club going. Meeting in a school with the school's support is a great idea, no rental fees! I am sure there are lots of things you could do, such as viewing evenings etc, occasional speakers would also be good, the other thing is, what sort of equipment do you have available, and how many are interested so far? And how far have you got with your planning?

[bingevader]

I think the things you've already suggested are spot on.

Planning, as I'm sure your teacher has already told you is the key!

Once a month sounds plenty.

But I'd have a reasonably good idea of what you want to achieve in the time and some back up ideas in case what you plan isn't practical.

You wouldn't want to spent a night looking for DSOs on the night of a full moon!

Now, I'd say DO have a short talk or an indoor meeting.

Rather than trying to discuss what you are viewing outside go through it before hand.

Doesn't need to be long, but a bit of background on nebulae or galaxies or what ever you've planned before you go out will only add to the occasion.

You could all meet up again to discuss how it went.

Dare I say that you might like to run it like a society with a committee having various roles?

It would mean you could delegate roles and not have to do it all your self.

The best of luck!

I really hope it goes well, keep us informed.

Cheers

[Steve Swancott]

Hello Robin, Im very into astronomy its also what i want to do as a proofession. I currently have the SW 200P had it for about a year ir so as i had wanted a scope for a while but it was a bit pricy... Also my teacher has an 8 inch so scopes are no problem at all.

I think occassional speakers would be good it gives you see a different perspective in astronomy from different people. but i maybe twice or 3 times max?

The other thing i was ging to ask would twice a month be best in the winter time? as skies are best then and it may only be a winter-spring club? (not sure yet...)

planning wise i have a good (ish) idea of what i want to achieve but the senior manegement seem happy and they can keep a room unlocked for indoors aparently.

Any other questions / tips ?

thanks

steve

[rwilkey]

Hi Steve, that's a mighty telescope you and your teacher have there, the 200P is very close to my heart. I think a meeting once a month would be great, but you would need some sort of plan of action. Meeting twice a month is something that would have to be tried I think, perhaps experiment a bit, but a plan of action is the key here. I am sure Swindon Stargazers would be glad to support you in any way we can, including an occasional speaker.

The winter-spring meeting times are a good idea I think. As a club, we have to pay public liability insurance (through the FAS), I presume the school and your club would be covered for public liability through the local authority. Have you thought about a website when you are up and running, that might be a good idea to help get things going, we get a lot of our new members via this method?

[Steve Swancott]

Well I spoke to the head today. What we have decided id we will trial the club as a school based thing in the evening first depending on the interset received, then we will decide to open it to the public (which sounds good so it will become a school-comunity 'club')

Aparently the school occasssionaly contributes to a magizine in Highworth aswell so publicity and interset there will be recognised. the only thing that turned me off of a website (i did consider it) was that am i right in saying you do have to pay to own your own website?

As you know its still early days, however senior maegement is more than happy to suppport the club and is (as i said) posssibly considering opening to the public later on

Thanks

Steve

[rwilkey]

Hi Steve, that sounds like a good plan of action, see what the interest is and plan from there. On the question of websites, yes, there are companies that do free hosting, but they are not very good and unreliable and can take your website down without explanation so you lose all your data. Swindon Stargazers tried that and yes we lost all uploaded data. You cannot back-up free websites. The other thing is, is that you have to put up with adverts appearing all over the place on the website. So we have a hosted one now which costs £60 per year, quite cheap for what you get (10 gigs of webspace - more than enough, we use about 1% of this, so we offer hosting to our members if they want it - in the form of sub-domains). If we can advise in this direction please feel free to ask.

[Steve Swancott]

Maybe I will leave the website for now I will set up a separate email account for members I think and also I may be able to persuade the head to let me advertise on the school website as well (I don't know yet...?) Thanks for the advice

[rwilkey]

Hi Steve, that sounds like the best bet, especially as the club will be an internal one to start with, so good luck with that and let us know how you get on.

[x6gas]

This sounds fantastic - well done for getting this far.

I think you should start with meetings once a month during the main astronomy season which more or less coincides with the school year. If it gets popular then you can guage the opinion of those attending and perhaps increase the frequency of meetings.

I'd suggest some practical sessions - setting up to view Jupiter and Saturn, M42, etc but also with some indoor sessions and / or having some talks prepared in case the weather is poor (or maybe show videos of Wonders of the Universe - for which you may need copyright clearance, ask your school - and discuss the things that are presented in the programme).

Great to see if the local universities are willing to put up someone to speak on various topics...