Astronomy Societies - your view

[Tiny]

It's a human thing that any group of persons tend to have cliques in them. Most find that many members won't take on responsibility and so it falls on the few. They get entrenched and feel as they are the doers others should not be critical.

At village level this means newcomers who try to start things are thought to be encroching on others territory - to the newcomers there is obviously a clique who exclude them and are critical of their actions.

Given this it is very difficult to run any society or group of little old man with totally no friction. And if there is friction blessed be the peacemaker. For the alternative read 'The Prince' by Machiavelli.

[AstroTiger]

The problem i find with many astronomy societies, and why i am not a member of any is that they are too wine and cheese in their way.

Here we go with a great astronomy meeting SPEAKERS INCLUDE!!!

and your wondering why you gave up your evening after a hard days work to come and listen to some dinosaur relic of this amazing science harp on.

The simple fact is, the BAA needs to wake up to where astronomy is going.

They seem to sit in their ivory towers casting votes on the irrelevant with meetings in odd times that noone can attend.

If they are feeling the pinch, its cos they are not moving with the times.

I too was BAA member for sometime, i paid my £30 something a year for a quarterly jounral and some handbook with meaningless numbers in it. Meetings were always at odd times or in obscure places.

Fact BAA and societies like that should sponsor more events, like star parties.

I realise i am probably not making friends in saying this, but sorry, i will not argue that black is white when its black.

Astronomy is changing, i think Kelling, Kelider, and SGL are demonstrating this.

I feel the SPA, BAA and FRAS need to move with the times, or lose

Just my opinion

[Guest]

As noted before you can leave the RAS out of the general situation w.r.t. the other national socities. It is not setup for amateurs and does not cater for them. It is the professional body and should be looked at as such. Amateurs joining it do so for different reasons. You also need to look at the star party season. There are in reality only about 5 weekends a year when the moon is out of the way and the weather is sufficently inclement to allow camping so although more can be setup in different parts of the country there are not many more weekends that can be used for serious star gazing. Social maybe something different. All you have to do is look t the kind of weather that Kelling can have in the Spring and Keilder gets in the Autumn to see that.

Owen

P.S. the BAA joutnal is bimonthly not quarterly

[Ben Ritchie]

To be fair to the organizations being discussed here, the majority of contributions on this topic are from a self-selecting group of people (myself included) who prefer the internet-forum style of Astronomy community. Given the value that we derive from it, it's not so surprising that the 'older' socities don't seem to offer much.

However, going by people i've nattered to over the years there appear to be plenty more who don't like the forum thing at all - possibly including some or many of the large number of 'lurkers' who appear to read SGL/UKAI without ever posting - and also a significant number who probably consider us in less polite terms, viz. the all-too-common sneering comments about "just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's true", "yet another M42", etc. that appear in the magazines and society journals. So I suspect that those groups probably feel better served by societies, the BAA etc. than we as a group do.

[centroid]

I guess it 'boils down' to "you make your choice, and you pay your money". Albeit, here on the forums, courtesy of the relevant Admin, we as members don't have to pay.

As I said early on in this 'thread', for me, I derived no benefit from being a member of the SPA, and despite having considered the BAA, on more than one occassion, I found that it offered no real benefit, for me personally.

However, each to his own, and there are clearly many people that do derive positive benefits from being members of these societies.

For local societies, I believe, and this is purely my personal view, that those that have been in existence for say 30+ plus years, are very set in their ways, don't readily accept change, and technological advance. Things like GOTO are often considered a 'step too far'.

Now I'm not saying that the newcomer to the hobby, shouldn't learn to find his or her way around the night sky. Indeed, I consider it an essential part of the 'learning curve'. Conversely, technlogy is there to be used.

It seems that the newer local astro societies, being launched in a technological age, are coming at the whole idea from the perspective of the 21st century amateur astronomer. As such, I believe they will prosper, whereas as those societies that don't embrace this, will be left with a core membership, comprised of the 'old school', for want of a better description.

As the 'old school' members fade away, as one day we all will, then so perhaps will these old societies.

Dave

[Zhiang]

, I had been to every meeting for months and the chairman still used to stop me on the way in and ask if I was a member, this out of about 20 regular attendees.

Hi, (I'm new here)

You're not the only one - I'd been a member of my (then) local society for a dozen years when one of the committee asked if I was a new member!

Zhiang

[Doc]

Last week Rob (Red dwalf) and myself attented our first Astro Society meet it was IDAS which stands for Ilkeston District Astronomical Society. It was very informal, seem to be a nice bunch of lads and quite chatty. Strange thing is not one of the people I spoke to knew about SGL.

I will attend a few more and see what happens. I just wish I was closer to ADUR, as this seems a perfect place for me.

[daz]

I missed this thread back in March, but would like to add a comment from the societies perspective....

It is all very well criticising the committee for not doing this, that or the other, but if you want to effect change then it is partly down to the membership to do it. The committee is only there to run things on your behalf.

It can be very frustrating to spend time organising speakers meetings, workshops, trips, etc, and get absolutely no feedback whatsoever on what people like or dislike. You end up flying blind and hoping that what the committee does will be well received.

That said, the role of the committee IS changing, I think, and (with my chairmans hat on) it is down to "us" to press the membership for what changes they want to see, what they want to hear and do.

Sorry for resurrecting a thread....

[brianb]

The simple fact is, the BAA needs to wake up to where astronomy is going.

They seem to sit in their ivory towers casting votes on the irrelevant with meetings in odd times that noone can attend.

If they are feeling the pinch, its cos they are not moving with the times.

The numbers aren't with you; there are more attendees at an evening talk than there would be at an observing event - by far - even if the sky is clear.

The BAA is rather more than a local society; they're big enough (but only just IMO) to have sufficient active members to do useful research, and with communications being what they are these days, face-to-face isn't a big issue. Sure, beginners are far more likely to find what they need in smaller, local, more observationally based groupings, but the majority of the ones that work aren't formalised as societies. These things form, work for a few years, eventually attract too many people & either morph into social clubs or disintegrate in "political" squabbling. 'Twas always so.

Been a member of the BAA since 1971, attended one meeting & one weekend event. Big deal, I think I've still had value for money from them.