Burren Star Party 2010

So Terry,
what are you planning ?????

Hi Dave,
As I'm sure you know, there was a plan for a resurrected WSP last year, but the date chosen clashed with the European Light Pollution Conference we had already planned in Armagh, so Tony & Mike abandoned it for last year. Lord Rosse told me that he was very disappointed about that, & said he would try to facilitate another one. Also, a lot of people have been saying that it would be a shame to see the end of the WSP, so Tony & Mike & I have been discussing whether it's feasible to organise one this year. Obviously if it does go ahead, we would want to avoid a clash with the BSP.
There's nothing definite yet, and even if there's enough enthusiasm for it, it may not be financially viable.
So 'watch this space' is all I can say at the moment.

Terry

The very best of luck with it Terry.
Can't see why you couldn't pull it off!
It would be nice to see the WSP kept going.

Only issue as you say
and probably know from talking to us in SAC by now is money.
You'll face the same problems SAC always did,
in that,
you will be gambling that you will be able to
cover all your costs form the entry tickets & raffle.

I also wish you better luck negotiating with the Hotel than we did.
After several pleas from us to do a better deal for '08 / '09
on the function room / rooms / dinner / Teas & Coffees,
they thought it good business to in fact increase the cost of everything
year on year but I'm sure they missed the money this time the way things are going.

It's great news that you say Lord Rosse is going to facilitate you
I assume by that you mean he is going to reduce or negate his entry fee
to the grounds or perhaps let you use the science centre?
That would be very noble of him indeed.

I'm sure you know by now Shannon Development always gave a few quid
in sponsorship twoards the burden although they halved it from 1000
to 500 it's still something against the average 8 - 10K bill for a 3 day event
that you'll be facing. (Going by our history books)

On a brighter note, I've noticed trans Atlantic flight costs
have fallen a good bit in the last year so if you have an American speaker
over that will help.

Again,
I, and I'm sure all the SAC committee & members wish
you the best of luck.
We'll be watching this space indeed!

Hi Terry,
Thanks for the response, and we all do sincerely hope you manage to get the WSP ball rolling again. It had snowballed into a financially unviable monster for us, one that would have cleared out the clubs accounts had we gone ahead with it in 2009.
We would have litrerally had an empty bank account with a fistfull of bills to pay. In the distant past, the club members would have put their hands in their pockets for it but given the current economic climate I cant think of a quicker way of wiping out a clubs membership (especially given that a big minority never go to Birr anyway).

Our costs were ever increasing, which lead to the ticket costs going up. The high entry fee was leading some people to ask if SAC was profiting from the WSP. Hard as it might be to believe, the WSP made a substantial loss in 2008, one we could not afford to repeat. We lost all our sponsorship and Shannon developement drastically cut their funding. So with costs increasing (the Hotel would not help us out amazingly), ever increasing entry fees and attendences numbers going down (a vicious circle), it was heading in only one direction.

As Frank says above, we tried everything we could think of to get our costs down, but to no avail. Our decision to call it a quits was only after many many hours of debating and pouring over the finances to see what we could do to improve the situation, but inevitably we reached a unaminous decision to call it a day.
Many people cried "shame", I wonder how loud they would have been paying atleast 70 euros to get in the door in 2009, especially given the current economic climate.

We went back to basics and for the 2009BSP event, our financial projections for it were successful, so ensuring the 2010 event. Total costs were literally a tiny fraction of what the WSP would have needed, literally an order of magnitude lower, so making our entry fee quite reasonable.

BTW, the differance in attitude to the event by local businesses in BallyVaughan was incomplete contrast to our recption in Birr, they could not do enough for us in BallyVaughan and helped us in every way they could, we could not even get the town council to turn off some of the monument lighting in Birr, not an inch to help us. Light pollution has rapidly grown in recent years making observing in the castle grounds almost pointless, one less reason for people to fork out money for the event.

you might think it unusual that we're "washing our laundry in public", the committe decided long ago to make our reasoning public so that people knew what we were up against.

Terry, We appreciate it that you considered our event in the planning for the Birr event and we hope it works out for you.

Talk to you soon.
Dave.