Chuck: Youre way off base. Public outreach begins with educating the young, and Clark packs them in by the busload. Those kids will be stumbling into SLAS star parties for years to come, asking questions about collimation or whats the NGC for the double cluster so I can point my go-to telescope at it? The Eugene Levy and Sue French of tomorrow will most likely start out at in astronomy at a venue for the masses. The attitude of many advanced amateurs is to build a bunker in their own backyard or a locked building out in the boonies to keep out the masses. This is not public outreach. This is snobbery. I attended all the SLAS public star parties last year and it was largely the same 5 guys who carried load alone. Ive been to a special star party with Kim Hyatt where we fended off 1000 Mormon teenage girls. We could have used some help, Chuck. Guy handled a troop of girl scouts alone. Way to go Guy, a big Semper Fi to you. You only need one Marine. Yet Guy gets sneered at for a Beer, Bikini, and Roast pig approach to star parties. Hes not exclusive enough for some peoples taste. As for Clark Planetarium policy, you may have noticed that Nancy Workman is no longer Mayor of Salt Lake County. Thats because some of her staff felt entitled to freebees and she didnt have the brains to say no Thats the reality we have to live with today. When Doug Short was running around loose, he got into Hansen on the allegation that some one was padding the payroll with overtime claims. This was one more of the freebee entitlements that the taxpayer just wont stand for any more. Clark has to be squeaky clean and we have to respect that, regardless of our memories of the good old days. Have a nice day. DT __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250