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Ok... Just completed the Gerald Award graphics.
Many regular attendees of the Queensland Astrofest will remember with fondness another regular, Gerald Sargent. Gerald used to set up his equipment in the Rubie/Vollyball/Rotunda triangle. Several of Gerald's key attributes were his ingenuity, eye for quality equipment, and fastidious accuracy. But sometimes his ingenuity would see the birth of some... lets just say... dodgy artifacts?
Other key traits of his were the myriad of cables seeming to stream endlessly from his equipment into his hutch nearby, and from the open hutch, red light streaming onto the Imager's Field. He was held with great affection by all who met him.
Sometime around 2012 he told me that soon he wouldn't be able to attend many more Astrofests as it was getting difficult to pack and unpack his equipment. Not long after, his prophecy manifested and he no longer attended.
After the 2019 Queensland Astrofest I was determined to track him down, if only to confirm his name on the Roll of Honour if he had passed. To my joy and great luck, I visited his house in the last week he was there before moving into assisted retirement care. His daughter Helen was ecstatic to meet one of his friends from his astronomical interests, and ushered me in to have tea with him.
Honestly he looked as had when I last saw him at Astrofest as he did not look a day over 250. But age catches up with us all, even this Methuselah, and he was much frailer. I could tell that he thought I was familiar, but he truly did not remember me, but that is the way of it... I was just another of the hundreds he met at the Queensland Astrofest over the years, but there could only be one Gerald.
Gerald was just shy of his 92nd birthday on the 22nd April 2020, when he died among his wife and family, peacefully and gently. I was honored to accept by an invitation from his daughter Helen to attend his memorial service. I learned a lot about him that day as his family spoke about his travels through his work in geo-sciences and resources exploration. How once he and his pilot once held the record for the highest landing in a helicopter during one of his exploration jobs, and that he was a keen radio technician. I was also able to share his astronomy aspect to his friends and family.
There are many stories that we can share about him, and I hope that many who knew him will share some in this thread. One of my first encounters with Gerald was just before the end of an Astrofest and I realised that I didn't have a copy of Microsoft Office to complete some award certificates for that evening. Gerald overheard me and called me over and gave me a "Gold" copy of the suite, saying to me in his dignified English voice "Take this, they ask too much money for their software!" One of my last memories is of him was walking back from the vendor sales with a pile of booty in his hands.
We had decided to commemorate Gerald by creating an award in his honour for Astrofest 2020. Something that invokes his presence, but also something tongue-in-cheek. The Geralds Award (or simply The Gerald) pays homage to his light and cable management... or antithesis... and his ingenuity. Of course COVID put paid to 2020 and 2021, but we had already decided that Anthony Grimshaw with his Astro Management Box was the antithesis of Gerald's cable management and a worthy recipient of the inaugural Gerald Award.
For the 2022 "Gerald" I felt, and his daughter Helen agreed, that Scott Payne's Steam Punk Astro-Box embodied Gerald's ingenuity and old-world charm. In fact Helen said that Scott must have been channeling her father, which I'm sure all would agree.
Congratulations Anthony and Scott.
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