Originally Posted by mental4astro
To start, I speak as a committee member of a registered astro club, as a health professional and an astro devotee. What is being discussed here is something that all astro clubs/societies are grappling with, and it is hurting every one of them.
One needs to see things in terms of these events being a business. You must. These events are expensive to conduct - insurance, safety measures (traffic and pedestrian flows, fire and other emergencies & evacuations), cleaning, council fees (if needed), food & rubbish, toilets, preparation of property (mowing, brush clearing, repairs, etc). All of this needs to be addressed and paid for. Then there is the revenue that must be calculated to cover these expenses and leave some money in the coffee tin at the end (not as profit but as cashflow for the club). There is a huge amount of man hours needed to organise such events, the man hours to conduct them and wind up.
And now we have the added complication of a pandemic that has thrown up a huge risk factor and the complications of managing crowds - THIS is the biggest single issue here, the risk that an outbreak can bring, the additional costs of health and safety, the much reduced revenue from fewer people being able to attend. AND, if the whole blooming thing has be be cancelled with days warning or mid-event. EVERYONE will be screaming for their money to be refunded and the club/society is exposed to a financial catastrophe.
You must also consider that the majority of people who attend these astro events are older people. This factor alone raises the level of risk to totally new levels.
We cannot be selfish right now. I LOVE doing outreach and also do (did) sidewalk astronomy to get an outreach fix. But we have had to stop it all. Namely because there is no way of appropriately disinfecting our equipment between each and every person who looks through our scopes. An alcohol wipe lazily smeared over an eyepiece is NOT enough, and people touch a lot more than just the eyepiece. Don't be fooled to think that an alcohol wipe is any form of effective infection control measure with our telescopes.
With my own Club we have been discussing where to from now. The consensus being we just cannot open up to how we had things pre-Covid until enough of the population has been vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. This is not a cockamamy kneejerk decision, but one reached by members who are doctors, health technicians, engineers, and (lord help us) lawyers.
Start doing astro events prematurely and without thinking things through also runs the risk of stuffing things up for everyone in astro if the crap hits the fan with insurance!!!
Conducting outreach and open night events for just about all astro clubs and societies is their main source of income apart from membership subscriptions. Every club and society has taken a major hit. We are talking to each other as well, and sharing our pain. This whole pandemic thing really sucks, and we must be patient.
Please think very carefully about what you want to do. The issues at play are far more complex and the consequences more far reaching than you may think. Sorry to say, but you must think about astro events like you are running a nursing home to put it bluntly. That is the level of risk you must be thinking about.
Alex.
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