Hi Ian
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Originally Posted by Ian Robinson
If you are in an astronomy club - Which one ? or which clubs if more than one ?
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Yep, I'm in one club -- Sutherland Astronomical Society at the Green Point Observatory Oyster Bay, Sydney about 12km from my home at Engadine. I grew up less than 1km from our Green Point Observatory at Oyster Bay.
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Originally Posted by Ian Robinson
How often do they meet ?
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Every week, Thursday 8pm. We have an invited speaker on the first Thursday of the month and a technical meeting on the 3rd Thursday. The other weeks are generally not formal.
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Originally Posted by Ian Robinson
What is the usual turn out ?
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On 1st Thursdays, maybe 60-80 depending on how "popular" the speaker is and how topical the talk is. 3rd Thursdays 40-odd and on other weeks anywhere between 30 and 60-odd I'd reckon.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ian Robinson
How often do you attend meetings ?
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I'm usually there about a dozen times a year off and on. I observe at one of our two "observing spots" (Bargo and Waterfall) whenever it is clear on the designated night.
http://www.sasi.net.au/
No astronomy club is perfect. They have, without going into all the rights and wrongs of individual cases, hurt a lot of people in the past mainly due to internal cliques and politics. I'd love to see this all disappear but it is simply part of the human condition and while the astronomy clubs are inhabited by people it will happen from time to time. This is not to defend that, but to simply acknowledge an almost self-evident truth. Is it restricted to "astronomy" clubs? No, you can find it in almost any sort of association and work organisations.
In my experience, politics are found more often where the society has (1) A large membership (2) A lot of corporate possessions and (3) Money. Small clubs on this front usually don't have politics/cliques because 1 2 and 3 are not present. In particular, if you don't have 2 or 3, there isn't a lot to fight over. But if 2 and 3 are present and 1 is also there, politics factions and cliques are probably to be expected. I'm not defending that, but it is an almost self evident fact.
When I say "politics", I don't mean Labor -v- Liberal, I mean (in the main) factions forming within the membership with a view to dominating/controlling/regulating society assets to the detriment or exclusion of others; dominating the decision making process about how and when corporate money is to be spent and the perennial favourite: who gets the credit/thanks/acclaim for this, that or the other achievement or work done and exclusion of an individual (s) from decision making processes. Most society "politics" revolve around these issues.
Balanced against that Astronomical clubs/societies do a heck of a lot of good to "grow" amateur and professional astronomy in Australia and worldwide and (like most clubs) provide a lot of facilities for members that are usually not within reach of individuals. I've watched our society grow from a total of 15 adults plus a handful of junior members (I was one) to 200-odd members. Of that 200 members probably over 100 are fairly regular attendees which is a pretty high percentage (50%) on that count compared to other clubs of our size. We have a membership limit of 200 for ... various reasons that are nowadays mainly related to the size of our premises.
At Sutherland, we have generally had a culture of the committee and the executive being turned over pretty regularly. I have been on the committee and have been its President for two years (1998-2000). I stood down because I firmly believe in that culture that it should be rotated regularly. The three presidents before me held office for two, two and one years each. Beside, holding office or being on the committee is quite a bit of (unpaid) work, and that ought to be shared around. There has been the odd instance of disagreement among the membership over our 45 year history but "politics" (as I've defined above) is generally very much frowned on. We have a reputation (rightly or wrongly) of being a very friendly society.
Sutherland isn't perfect in every way but I'm very proud to be there and it may well be one of the best clubs in Australia. I was a member from 1973-1983 and then 1992- present. I dropped out for a while (1984-1992) while the marriage, mortgage and maternity thing got in the way -- you know how it is. I was still a practising amateur but not in a club, that's all. But even in that time I was out, I toddled along to the odd meeting every year or so to see old friends. No present plans on leaving anytime soon.
Best,
Les D