Rob, I do not think we are going to scale back, we just want to find a balance. SPOC Star Parties require a lot of work behind the scenes, Bill, Mark, Patrick, and Bruce (to name a few) have put forth great efforts, their time constraints need to be considered. You make a good point that National Park parties don't suffer and Dan also makes the point that SLAS does not need to organize all star parties. Group camp outs began by people deciding to do it, Natural Bridges is a nice park for small numbers. That seems the appeal, small numbers. Non public events are most enjoyable to me, circumstances preclude me from most new moon venues. My point about costs is that, we don't seem to suffer from growing fuel costs (yet), I wonder how long this will continue. I think it is something that we should begin to watch, I think it probably will effect the "special" star parties first . I does effect where I will drive and I think it is a good idea to have SLAS venues within distance of TRAX lines. What if anything we can do about is a hard question, but getting people talking about it might lead to some answers. People have left because their expectations of what the club should do or not do. We try to accommodate what significant number of people want, projects have died because of lose of interest. I belong to SLAS and the AstroLeague to promote the hobby of astronomy not for what I can get out of it, although I have gotten much from being a member. Erik --- robtaylor3661@comcast.net wrote: From: "Robert Taylor" <robtaylor3661@comcast.net> To: <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Natural Bridges Saturday Night Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2008 17:26:51 -0600 Eric: I don't think there is a problem either. Plenty of non-club star gazing going on. I'm sorry that some of our points are delayed and overlapping, I only get the library version of the board posts not the individual postings. My choice for the last few years has to support activities and not be on the board or an officer, again due to professional commitments. I've noticed the drop in participation at that level and while we are still getting good people to serve on the board it would be nice to see more people in the process. I think we both came to the same conclusion (you probably long before me) about what types of star parties suffer from low participation, the next question is there anything that can be done about it? +++++++ Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2008 08:13:55 -0700 From: <zaurak@digis.net> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Natural Bridges Saturday Night To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Message-ID: <20080904081355.256C49CD@resin18.mta.everyone.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" I do not believe there is a problem, you can Star Gaze where and when you want. As an Astronomy Club it is bad when we advertise an event and no one or only a few show up. Willingness to participate is a factor, fortunately we have enough to support a robust schedule. We have had angry public when an event is scheduled and no one shows up. Rodger Fry has done an outstanding job with Special Star Parties and has accommodated most request. I hope next years board has someone as enthusiastic. Willingness to participate does seem to becoming a problem. We used to have a lot of people running for the SLAS Board with several people running for every office. Now we struggle to get one per office. SLAS members have a long history of National Park Star Parties., I see no reason why this can't continue. I even ran into John Dobson near Capital Reef in his RV asking for directions. Yes ladies, men do ask for directions. All I am saying is that SLAS has to be careful about having support for an event before scheduling. Members input is welcome, when deciding the schedule. I remember one year when I did 1-2 per week, most went well, but some I was the only person and I would end up with lines of 500 people. We would look at one thing for 3 hours, it was not enjoyable for anyone. Erik _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://gallery.utahastronomy.com Visit the Wiki: http://www.utahastronomy.com