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Great advice from Carl & Liz - go to the viewing night and get a hands-on feel of the scopes available.
Also good advice from Brian. If you have dark skies, any size or type of telescope will give you brilliant views, provided it's of reasonable quality and not a cheap plastic scope from Coles! The Universe is beautiful at all scales. Not true that you see more with a big scope - a short focal length, small scope will give you views of big star clusters and rich starfields like you'll never see with a big scope, but a big scope will take you much deeper for faint galaxies etc if that is your bent (not that a small scope won't show you lots of galaxies). However if your skies are light-polluted, a small scope may prove effective for little more than planets/Moon.
The old truism is that the best scope is the one you use the most. People who maintain their keenness report no issues with handling, storing, transporting, setting-up and regularly collimating 'big' Dobsonians (8-12"), or waiting for cool-down. But they are large units and if the interest wanes just a little they can quickly become dust gatherers. Be aware that the great view you might have through someone's 12" dob sitting on the observing field does come at a cost, beyond financial!
Good luck with it!
Cheers -
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