If club members pool their own money and no SLAS dues are used I doubt anyone would complain. It's when club dues get involved that problems arise. One concern I've heard is "Why should any of my dues be spent for something that I'm never going to use?" In the early days we ran into that refrain a lot when talking about building SPOC. But Siegfried and others deftly sidestepped that problem by raising enough donations that not a penny of SLAS dues has ever been spent on SPOC. Heck, even now there's a (small, I think) group of SLASers pushing the idea of SLAS getting rid of SPOC! Another concern is that we (the club) have never been able to agree on where to locate such a site. Take the current site, Lakeside, for example. It's a gorgeous site. Low horizons, dark skies and accessible year round. But even with a gravel or concrete pad for scopes, all it would take would be one unknowing astronomer (or some yokel out for a joy ride) to drive up wind of the site to ruin the whole evening. How many people are going to agree to put money into a site like that? And how's about legal? The U is currently trying to install a concrete pad out on the desert near Seabase. But work has been halted by Tooele County (same county as the Lakeside site) saying the proper permits were not applied for. So the organizers will have to work with not just the BLM but Tooele County and maybe even Hill AFB too. Which brings me to leadership. A project like this only succeeds if one or two people are willing to put the time and effort into organizing the effort, raising the money, coordinating workers, keeping the "guvment" happy and seeing it through. In the case of SPOC that was Siegfried and Bruce. SLAS's old Dark Sky Site Committee was never able to pull that off. Maybe some of those favoring this much scaled back project are willing. Time will tell. BTW, my personal leading concern has always been security. But if all we're talking about here is a bunch of gravel dumped on the ground I don't think we have to worry about security. Unless, of course, someone accidentally dumps it in a bulls-eye shaped pattern and the F-16s mistake it for a target. :) pw On 25 Jul 2007, at 14:17, Josephine Grahn wrote:
Out of curiosity, why would it be a huge fight to see if the club wanted to chip in to help achieve this? It seems to me that this club eagerly supports lots of things that not every member uses, because, as a group, we like to help everyone enjoy the hobby. It's not like we are talking thousands of dollars (or, if we are, I suspect it's out of the question anyway). I think talk like "oh, lets not bring anything up to do with dark sky viewing because we will fight" simply creates an attitude that there should be a fight. I support the observatory and add-ons to it, and I have never even been inside of it. I cannot imagine that Bruce or Roger or Erik or Bill or who-ever would get real upset about having a discussion on the idea of expending a couple hundred bucks to make one of the clubs closer dark sky areas a little nicer for the many members that enjoy that aspect of viewing too. (Well, okay, maybe Guy will, but that's just because he likes to stir the pot occasionally...:)).
Quoting Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com>:
Anyone wanna take the lead on this and do a little preliminary checking? (I can't check with the BLM beause I frquently cover the agency for the Deseret News and it could be construed as a conflict of interest.) Thanks, jb
On 25 Jul 2007, at 13:19, Joe Bauman wrote:
What if a few of us got permission from the BLM and chipped in some dollars? I'd be willing to donate something. jb
Provided SLAS and/or SLAS funds are not officially involved I can't imagine anyone complaining.
pw
p.s. Just don't let the BLM know we're the same group that wanted to do the "in"famous bowling ball experiment on their salt flats... <grin>