IFAS Committee

Eamonn - I don't think this thread was specifically for committee members - well, I'm not one anyhow! The history you portrayed is fascinating - as I'm sure will be the future of Irish astronomy.

There's an absolutely superb group of folks on these boards with many differing skills and qualities. I see that the initiatives IFAS has taken to nurture these skills through observing challenges and bringing this group together on these boards to kick tyres, throw ideas around and share experiences has been very successful. In facilitating a central location for all the clubs and their members, IFAS has allowed many people to become very involved in amateur astronomy. Exactly what it should be.

I think that even if IFAS continued as it is, the strong community of local clubs would keep amateur astronomy alive and kicking and IFAS would be there in its umbrella role holding it all together.

In light of the comments in this thread, perhaps a review is necessary. I'm not suggesting a review because something is wrong, far from it. But with a review of the staus quo and the vision of the committee, perhaps IFAS can build on its strong successes and push the boat out a little further. And I'm sure that many of the folks on these boards would be excited about that and contribute to the effort.

Yet another 2 cents worth

Cheers

Dave

Folks, as someone who is relatively new to the community and still firmly has their foot firmly in the novice category I'd like to offer my impressions.

Firstly, as a member of a club and a relatively frequent contributer to these boards I'd like to say that the support, encouragement, depth of knowledge and general welcome I have received from everyone on this forum has been excellent. I think it is immediately apparent to any visitor that this is a vibrant community.
However, besides this board what I know about IFAS could be written on the back of a very small vibrating string. That point made I feel it is important to positively contribute to the discussion.

It seems to me that the strength of IFAS lies in co-operation. There is much expertise within the many clubs around the country. With clearly defined goals this co-operation could manifest itself as a number of beneficial events, projects and an organized support network. How to do this? Ask people if they are willing to help and how they can help. And then ask them to help. For instance, Eamonn mentions the loss of the IAJ. I have a lot of Desktop publishing experience and am willing to donate some time. Create a forum for volunteers, ask them to supply a skill set. Increasingly local authorities are not waiting for people to volunteer- they are actively seeking volunteers.

Obviously this is a rough and somewhat naive example, but it would be nice to see a little more involvement from members. I consider myself an active club member. But I have no idea how to contribute to IFAS. Help me to help you

One of the benifits of IFAS in my opinion was to get speakers for the club meetings, but alas there are very few out there who are willing to give a talk.

I do remember that a list of speakers from all the IFAS clubs was supposed to be made up, this way, any club secretary could look it up and easily see who could give a talk on what, but it never happened.

Such a simple idea would bring home the usefulness of the IFAS to the clubs.

IFAS[1] cant dictate to clubs which is fair enough, it shouldn’t. But what is needed is to have the active people within clubs be able to propose, discuss and get ideas "approved"[2], and run with them, taking other clubs onboard as those clubs wish, in a timely manner.

That currently happens, but boy does it happen slowly. The last IFAS meeting was April. And even then you don’t have much time to get things together. A portion of this site for the club reps to discus these matters seems the logical way forward. I would have that list closed to the general public, but open to those club members who tend to be active and are interested in organising events, though only reps could vote on matter that need voting.

There are areas where IFAS can be active. The observing certs are one example; coordinated observing is another, national PR for collaborative events that clubs participate in. Group insurance? 

Eamon, don’t worry about posting, this is not a committee only thread. At least I hope its not since I'm not on the committee! I was just at the last meeting because the regular SDAS folks couldn’t attend.

IFAS needs marketing. I dont think it needs commercialism to the extent of say A&S. Publishing the handbooks in a sellable format is something I wholeheartedly support, selling telescopes I dont.

IFAS should not be a club. Having 4 national astronomy clubs in the country would just be silly for a start! As I see it IFAS is an umbrella organisation consisting of member clubs to facilitate the promotion of astronomy. That’s different from the constitution btw  To cite something that IFAS (well Bart!) does well is host this site. It got IFAS blessing, IFAS pays for the domain registration, and is recognised by all clubs as the national board. Individual clubs still have their own boards and email lists and this site doesn’t mean to replace them.

Seanie said “I don't think it is fair for us to start passing random ideas back and forth publicly here”. Well club members are in theory, meant to pass feedback to their clubs IFAS reps who then make changes. That’s not happening. So throwing ideas out here seems a good alternative. It gives the reps something to talk about on Sunday morning anyway 

Dave said “IFAS can build on its strong successes and push the boat out a little further”. Sometimes I wonder if the boat has been taken out of the river and put on the bank in case it might get wet

Eamon gave a very interesting history. And its worth remembering that IFAS was really just a small email list a couple of years back.

I think a lot of the problem comes down to communication. The reps should have their names and emails on this site. Even just so other club secretaries can mail them and ask if they had any decent speakers in the last year! For a site with 500 members and 15,000 posts communication at that level is terrible! Once the communication is there (read: committee/reps/enthusiastic-others-who-like-committees board [3]) a lot of the rest should follow.

Lastly I’d like to point out something that I think is very important to say. It may appear from this thread that the all IFAS committee and club reps are doing absolutely nothing. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ll single out some people to illustrate, David Bell, as well as organising the speakers for Whirlpool, is organising the eclipse trip to turkey with Terry Mosley and others. John Flannery, edits Arcturus in between showing Aurora slides, and working on handbooks.

Cheers,
~Al

[1] IFAS for this mail basically means the club reps that make up the IFAS committee.

[2] I'm sure that in the constitution, but basically the clubs themselves vote on whether it gets IFAS backing and basically can call itself an IFAS event/publication.

[3] Fist thing to do will be to organise a trip up north to work out why Terry can’t get on this board!

Hi,

Some of you will have noticed on another thread the committee of IFAS changed this weekend. You can now officially complain to me rather than just, well, complaining to me

As mentioned at todays meeting; What IFAS is is defined clearly in the constitution. What IFAS does and how it does it is not. As such anything that 'promote the interests and development of amateur astronomical societies in Ireland' is within the scope of IFAS.

Over the weekend there were several suggestions aired for projects that IFAS should look into. And IFAS needs more ideas, if there is something that you think IFAS should do please pm me and we'll see what we can do.

Stay tuned...

Cheers,
~Al

Congratulations to the new IFAS committee and we look forward to the continuing development of the organisation. And a big thanks to the outgoing folks who have kept it going.

I hope over te coming weeks that everyone on these boards takes Al's direction and sends on any ideas, suggestions and feedback that they think will enable IFAS to achieve its stated goals.

Cheers
Dave