Astronomy Ireland charging for events

David,

I am a subscriber to Astronomy & Space magazine and I admire the effort put in by other subscribers to make events like the observing nights happen, I've even participated from time to time myself, but what club? My subscription to A&S was sold to me as including club membership, yet in the five years I've been a subscriber I've never received a membership card, a notice of a general meeting or any communication about the election of officers, nor have I seen a club constitution, articles of association or a summary of club accounts.

Who appoints the officers of the club?
When is the AGM held?
Who is entitled to attend an AGM and/or elect officers?

As far as I'm concerned I'm an A&S subscriber and that's the end of it.

€30 for a slap up meal and a nights observing is not bad value. A burger at Eddie Rockets and a cinema ticket will cost you that and wouldn't last as long. Incidently, any money that you donate to a registered charity is fully tax deductable, so if you are on the 42% band you will get this back if you submit it with your tax return. I am not sure of AI's tax status but if you can claim the tax back its a bargain night out-just keep the receipt.
I saw a comment on the price matching from the AI shop. I bought a fairly large and expensive instrument from them recently. I got the same price as Telescope Service were asking including shipping costs -and I never even had to ask for it or even point out the price I was quoted from Germany.

Dave Grennan wrote:

Keiran (Phoenix): I will ask about those lecture DVD's. I agree its gone on way too long. My limited knmowledge is that the guys who rips the video to mp4 is having hardware problems. I'll see if there is anything I can do to help him along.

Cheers Dave. I know you have a guy working on it for the last month. Our star parties are free but then again its bring your own and cook your own which eats (excuse the pun) into observing time. If food was laid on then I would expect to pay.

Query? 3600+ members? The latest mag has a feature on the 10,000th member. Does that mean we lost 6000+ members

Keiran (Phoenix): I will ask about those lecture DVD's. I agree its gone on way too long. My limited knmowledge is that the guys who rips the video to mp4 is having hardware problems. I'll see if there is anything I can do to help him along.

Just a thought:
They could look at putting edited highlights on youtube/google-video, even the audio stream can easily go up as a podcast like Cian does for sdas.

Youtube is very handy. You can easily embed videos on your own website. eg www.shamrockrovers.ie/videos.php or just directly on youtube if you don't want the hassle www.youtube.com/profile?user=ShamrockRovers

Mind you those are free services so they might dig into DVD sales...

What ticked me off about the webcasts was that I had fully intended to travel down to Dublin for Kevin Sweeneys lecture but then two people had to take off work which meant I was left holding the fort. I thought, No problem I will watch it online. I waited for months and eventually the link came up BUT DID NOT BLOODY WORK. Its been that way since. OK I could buy the DVD but then why the hell am I a member. Why not have a member zone on the website to watch the lectures and then all none members buy the DVD.

Youtube is very handy. You can easily embed videos on your own website. eg www.shamrockrovers.ie/videos.php or just directly on youtube if you don't want the hassle

Good idea AL. Although I have some recollection that YT have some kind of time or size limit on files. I did find a great joomla component which allows streaming direct from your own webiste. I used recently to stream a video of asteroid vv2 from my own site. Thanks for that idea. I'll make a point of looking into it.