[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Astro clubs regularly have scopes being offered to them as donations. It can be a real problem for these organisations for several reasons. It creates asset issues, where to store them, who holds them if there is no one place to keep them, how to keep track of them, maintaining them, etc. In other words, your problem is dumped on these clubs. I say this as the president of an astro club. In the worst case, these donations just "disappear" because of human nature...

You can approach a club and ask if they would like a scope donation, but don't be upset if they say "no thanks", something my own club often does.

Schools are the worst places to offer a scope to. Very often they are accepted but the acceptance is done without any consideration on their part of what is actually required. Because unless there is someone with an initial interest in astro who knows about the night sky AND telescopes AND is prepared to drive the enthusiasm in the school, the scope will just sit in a dark corner and rot. And if there is someone, as soon as they leave the school the scope then sits in a dark corner and rots. Many schools already have a telescope, but it never sees star light because there is no one who knows how to use it and the scope scares the heebie geebies out of everyone of the staff. GEM mounted scopes are the worst, but dobs too, if not for the scope itself but the sky! (it is extraordinary how the night sky intimidates people who don't know anything about it). In all honesty, I do not know of a single school, primary or secondary, that has a scope that they use. I'm sure there is, but you can count these on one hand with fingers to spare.

My suggestions:
1, Give it away. I have given away scopes here on IIS, one of which was a scope that a school asked me to dispose of for them! I made it a condition of the give away that the person taking it doesn't have a scope or that it goes to a kid with a budding interest in astro.

2, Sell it cheap. If it is a substantial instrument, then sell it at a cheap price exactly to get rid of it. Nothing wrong with that and if advertised here it will very likely go to someone who will make use of it. Offer a C11 for $500 and see how fast it moves! Make it the problem of the interested party to pick it up, don't ship it as there is a considerable amount of work involved to do this. At a cheap price the buyer will be well motivated to pick it up under their own steam.

Alex.