Saving DCU Astrosoc

I just wanna know if anyone has any suggestions to our little dilemma. As some of you may know DCU Astronomy Society is in its second year and was started by my class, the current 3rd year physics with astronomy students. We had 70 members last year and a drop to 40 this year.

We didn't do an awful lot last year, mostly because we didn't get our equipment till the end of the year. I decided to go for events officer this year in order to make sure we had lots of events. Slight problem. Money. All clubs and societies are funded by the college. We have to submit a grant app and get some of the money you apply for.

I had planned to have 2 star-b-q's per semester and the bus to our chosen location costs €300 so we needed at least €1200 for that. The other things were low budget. Thats not a lot to ask for really. The thing is we were given €87 for events!

So naturarly, without funding, we've done nothing much other than set up the scope a couple of times to look at the sun. If we can't get outside college (theres tons of flood lights) we can't do observing.

Also because of this lack of events, if we have talks, the member just aren't interested anymore. Most joined for the observation I think.

Myself and Dwane Doyle are the most active on the committee but I don't think either of us can be on it next year because we'll be in 4th year. We've only had one meeting all year! And I don't know if we can get the younger students to go on the committee.

I don't even know why I'm writing this, I know theres nothing anyone can do, it just really saddens me to see Astrosoc go down so quickly after we started so well.

Hi Amanda,
hope Dwane and yourself enjoyed the trip - nice the see you both there!

I think you have to think small, again, Amanda. Like almost any club that starts off, its only luck that lets it bring those grandiose ideas come to fruition so quickly! Now that you see what DCU is ofering in aid...

As a start, have a scout around for guest speakers that can make a trip to your venue and give a talk for free, or as close as.

Try to get those free events running as much as possible, like perhaps an observing session in the grounds somewhere, or volunteers car-pooling to a less light-polluted location.

Even at that, if students have an interest in beer and SU events, and willing to spend money on them, then they should be willing to part with money for events related to their hobby. Organise bus trips (start with the mini ones first) to nearby places of interest, and get everyone to chip in.

Have you guys got a club newsletter up and running yet? Is there a means of cheap (or free) photocopying at your disposal? Abuse it if there is!

And don't forget, the simple, little touches all add up - an A5 sheet at every meeting gien out with observing highlights, ISS pass times, a small 'constellation in focus' section, a photograph by a member or two.

Refreshments of any kind (cola/lemonade and biscuits will do just fine - it doesn't always have to be beer and wine in a college you know!).

These are just some ideas I have helped excercise when in other astronomy clubs, and over the course of a couple of months, they did help. Change won't happen straight away, but you will get more notice.

Hope these ideas help a bit!

Seanie.

Hi guys,

From my experience with Astro 2 in NUI Maynooth which I helped set up way back in 1997 I'd have to agree with Seanie. Think small to get going. StarBQs are just too big for a budding society!

Astro2 did it's first year on zero money and it's second on no more than a few hundred pounds (man I'm old).

So, when I say start small what do I mean, well, firstly, harnass the talents within your club. The first two years of Astro2 we did all our talks and meetings with purly internal people. Someone would volunteer to prepare a presentation on a given topic and present it to the members. We covered all sorts of things over the years but the most popular talks always seem to be basic lesons for beginners.

If possible try to have your events be regular. Have something (no matter how small) every single week on the same time in the same place on the same day so that people get into the habbit of going to your meetings. Like I said it doesn't have to be anything fancy. Host a debate, watch a DVD, do some astronomy lessons, and get a few speekers in over the year. You'll be amazed just how few weeks there are in an accademic year these days! Also, make sure to build up comeraderie by all going to the same bar afterwards for a good natter, that's what Astronomy clubs are all about IMO.

There are also a lot of people around who will be happy to give talks to Amateur groups. Astro2 have a talk almost every tuesday of the academic year and only a handful of them are internal NUIM people, the rest are from the otehr Dublin Universities, some from clubs in the Dublin area, a few from further afiled within Ireland and, in the last few years, we get about 2-4 over-sees speakers each year. People just LOVE coming over to Ireland, the people we get never ask for more than travel, accomodation and food and refuse to take any more.

Also, you don't need a dark sky for observing, we do almost all our observing events on campus where there are lights everywhere. We just pick targets that will work in the conditions. The planets are excellent targets and Saturn in particular never fails to impress and neither does the moon at high magnification. The good meteor showers like the Geminids also work well from on campus.

Anyhow, the best of luck with it, I for one would love to see more active Astronomy Societies in the other Irish Universities.

Bart.

Ok thank you both for the advise!

I guess we could observe the moon from campus, its come up before but everyone seems to be too busy or lazy to do anything. Thing is, theres only 3 weeks left of the academic year so we don't have much time to get people interested again.

Bart what kind of numbers did you have at your talks when you started off? Cause we usually have 10, including committee members, even when well promoted.

We had trouble electing a new committee last year, this year is going to be worse!

As for handing out info on stuff giving observing highlights, Dwane does a really good night sky page on the website, which is the most viewed page. Naturaly, because its the only thing thats updated.

I'm going to have to drag the rest of the committee out of hibernation I think....

Don't worry about it so much then Amanda, if there are only a couple of academic weeks left. Discouragement is a bad thing, but not worth fretting over with so little time left! Just make sure your committee keeps in touch over the summer break for the start of next year, and start fresh again!

When Astro2 started out (I was there too!), there were about 15 average attendees at the meeting, gradually rising to perhaps 25 at best, but rarely. As the club picked up momentum in the second year, it gradually became very popular, then in 1999 it won the Society of the Year award, which was great!

I can't say right now how many attend on the almost weekly basis, but before I left Maynooth, we moved to the Physics building, and sometimes hit 40 people turning up for the average lecture/meeting nights.

Seanie.

Hi,

For small societies the weekly meeting is the focus for everything. You need to get people to turn up and get involved with that. As someone suggested having tea/coffee/minerals and biscuits after the meeting is a great way to go about getting people there. It changes the meeting from being what may be a fairly dry affair to a more social occasion. Forget about beer nights, you can team up with other societies from other diciplines to organise those, its not something to bother doing on your own if you are a small society.

One reason why people may not turn up to meetings is that they study this stuff day in day out, and may simply not want to hear any more astronomy. Why should they leave the library and go to a meeting when what their studying is more interesting and relavent. Primarilly thats where the tea comes in! However its also worth looking at the talks you put on.

Are too many of the talks too advanced? Unlikley in a university but you never know, you may have a lot of not faculty members.
Are the talks too basic? Explaining the HR diagram might go down well in a local club, but could be coma inducing to astronomy students!
Are there enough/too many talks related to the coursework?
Would having a monthly tutorial night for freshers given by more advanced students be of interest?

Finally you will want to get more members. Astronomy has the unique position of being a science that is accessible and interesting to everyone. People want to know about eclipses, the big bang, where we came from etc. etc. But getting them to join might be tricky. The best way is with a regular observing program.
One day a month set up a couple of scopes in a busy area of campus for solar observing. Even projection with binoculars will do. Looking a stunspots may be fairly boring, but remember that most people wont ever have seen them, let alone know what they are.
The same goes for night time observing. Many people will never have actually looked at the moon through even binoculars, nor seen the Jovian moons or the rings of saturn. In winter it gets dark early, so you can set up a couple of scopes near the library/canteen just to show people these things. Sidewalk astronomy will get you membership outside the course; and show the physics students and faculty that you actually do stuff that gets people interested. Oh and having free tea at observing will help too!

Forget getting the bus to a dark sky. You cant afford it. Though what you could think about is organising an observing trip to somewhere like West Cork for next year. People pay their own way. Train to cork, bus to castletownbear/ahilles, stay in a rented house for a couple of days.

Spend a little of the €87 on a kettle. Teabags, coffee and biscuts come from Lidl. So someone just has to remember to buy/steal milk.

I'm convinced that one of the main reasons that UCD Mathsoc is still around is due to having a kettle. They only have around 10 members at a meeting (or used to anyway). But people would turn up from other disciplines to hear an interesting talk about some curious part of mathematics. And of course to get a free cup of coffee!

Lastly you need to be an active society to get people interested. Practically that means having a weekly event. Whether thats a talk, sidewalk observing, whatever. Something needs to happen regularly.

And I am serious about getting the kettle! Go get one now, and organise an end of year meeting (any topic will do really!) and announce that there will be refreshments afterwards.

Cheers,
~Al