IFAS (Astronomy) Promotion

I found myself at the Annual Country Fair thing in Emo court yesterday.
Sort of celebration/promotion of all things countryside.

It sort of struck me that it would have been a good place to have had an astronomy promotion stand. Good crowd, elevated site lots of distant views, good fit with the sorts of things being promoted, receptive audience etc, etc, etc.

What sort of things does IFAS do to promote this fine sport of ours?
What is the vision?

jmp

Unfortunately, Insurance plays a large part in these things.
Which is where the sidewalk astronomy comes into play. Let me get the details together where you can organise a "star party" where minimal insurance risk comes into play.

Deirdre Kelleghan - Please help out ???

The Insurance problem is more or less curently being sorted out. For the past 2 years, IFAS clubs have had insurance, albeit a semi obscure one, due to the hobby itself realy. The problem thereafter is a combination of things, like weather, a permises, volunteers, to name a few.

When in a capacity like Astronomy & Space Ltd to be able to 'get out there' and be seen, it is because of the determined efforts of (generaly) 1 man who makes a financial living from those efforts. For everybdy else (aka IFAS and the other non-affiliated amateur astronomy clubs), it is volunteers giving up their freetime to promote and serve - something that has been going on since the IAS first started in 1937 as Ireland's first astronomy club.

Therefore, it is through IFAS' clubs own events and the like that IFAS gets promoted. It elps clubs in turn with an insurance policy tht covers them for those same events. Currently, as IFAS is no single organisation, but an umbrella representation of as many clubs that can fit underneath it, defining what IFAS is doing is a bit hard to do! ts a resource and an outlet - not a company, hierarchy, or body. But, it has been suggested before that this change in order to promote itself more fully. The clash there is though the thought that clubs may 'seem' to loose their individuality!

The debate goes on.

Seanie

As Seanie said insurance is the biggest problem for doing anything. It has stopped clubs in the past from organising things for major astronomical events and has forced others to have more private than public events.

On the bright side we should have all this sorted out in the next couple of months.

For the original point about country fairs etc. I think that is something for the local clubs to do. For example if there was a fair in Tullamore you wouldn't really expect to see IFAS there promoting clubs from all over the country, its something that you'd expect to see TAS at. Mind you having IFAS do simple things like having leaflets for the public about astronomy avaible to clubs would be a help. National events are where IFAS should make more of an impact, and its on my list of things to progress; but there are more important things to work on first.

Cheers,
~Al

The shannonside club here in Limerick run a weekly article in the weekend Limerick Leader, it was felt here that this was the best way to reach a mass audience without too much effort, the paper sells 10s of thousands of copies in the weekend, the top of the article has the club logo and at the end is the clubs website and the club PROs name and phone number.

When in a capacity like Astronomy & Space Ltd to be able to 'get out there' and be seen, it is because of the determined efforts of (generaly) 1 man who makes a financial living from those efforts. For everybdy else (aka IFAS and the other non-affiliated amateur astronomy clubs), it is volunteers giving up their freetime.

Even so, one thing we should be much better at is national sidewalk observation.

A&S have a network of people that they can get to do sidewalk astronomy for major cvelestial events. Typically there are about 10(ish) sites nationwide, many with just a couple of astronomers, who also are giving up their freetime with A&S covering the insurance (I presume). And some of those who have run or who help out with A&S observing around the country are regular readers here too!

We have that many clubs spread out around the country! It should be fairly easy for IFAS to coordinate a national, say, Jupiter watch on a bigger and better scale than what we see with A&S.

I've said on the committee section before that I want to see one national observing night before Whirlpool, even if its just to look at the Moon! Hopefully we'll soon be in a position where we can start working on this.

Cheers,
~Albert