Galway Starparty 2012 U-turn

Oi! O' Mahoney!
Don't go rockin' my cushy IFAS rep boat.


An IFAS event would be brilliant.
But like Dave said, you need people
from the clubs to get stuck in.
I'd actually love to be able to give
time to something like this but I've way
too much on as it is..

Family events are one thing but
stuffy confrences is what the punters
seem to want.
It'd be hard to call it a starparty unless
there was observing but it
could be more like an "Astrocon".

Always with these things its best to start
off simple.
Much like the SAC BSP, it was purely
a starparty this year - cost us NOTHING
we had a fab weekend & NO HASSLE.


An IFAS event?
Just letting my mind wonder here...
and using my experience of the WSP's..
A one day event would be more than enough
starting off to get organised.
The biggest hassle is forigen speakers
organizing flights, transfers, accom, hissyfits.
Best avoided!!
There are PLENTY of awesome Irish / N. Ir people
that would kick start the event.
Ammm.. anything else..
40 min talks work best,
IFAS 'Brand' the shite out of it,
You may have the annoying problem
of non IFAS clubs there trying to cash-in
on the newbies.
Dinners are lovely but a headwreck to
organise as the chef will always want
numbers well in advance.
One way to avoid this is to
have people pay online for the confrence.
You'll get the cash up front and an idea of numbers
plus no 'looking for people to sit at the door
all day' which is a thankless job.
Raffle...
Its tough to get anything off any company
these days but its always worth a try.
Nothing else comes to mind right now..


1-Pick a date.
2-Rent a hotel confrence room.
3-Ask people (6?) to do a talk for free.
4-Charge no more than €20
5-Keep it simple.

All pie in the sky unless there is a
few people to push it along.

Sorry for such a late reply, but I appreciate the responses especially from Frank and Dave, two people who have been in the same "boat" and understand exactly what I meant, while all the guys from SAC had massive respect from everyone during the WSP years as it was an amazing event with some amazing speakers

Dave_Lillis wrote: Ronan, I can completely understand your thinking on all this.
Like Frank says, starparties (conferances) such as these are a massive burden on those involved. We can relate with the WSP, the club here never so much as got a single new member out of it and never made money, infact it often had to be subsidised from the club coffers.

Could not be further from the truth!

It is a huge effort and actually often gains little to nothing for the
club running an event if this scale.

Our own members rarely turned up and the thought of organising another really bothered me as was not helping our own people

Some people will say "for shame", it happened to us, my answer is they can go run it if they like.

Some people have actually complained to me for cancelling the event, and I replied with Dave's answer.

I think there is only one other IFAS club capable of running a starparty who plenty of resources/people at hand and that would be the IAA, now would be the time for them to set their stake, they did enquire last year about running costs, for the GAF it would have been several thousand euro for the WSP style event I'm positive we are talking a five figure sum?


On the idea of an "IFAS convention" see UK FAS Convention was held on Saturday 15th October see fedastro.org.uk/fas/index.php?option=com...view&id=121&Itemid=2

Although the Irish astronomy scene is tiny compared to the UK a simple format should be used, did anyone attend the BAA out of London weekend in Dublin during Sept 2008? I did and went to learn how they managed 7 speakers in one day compared to our usual 4. It was also held at UCD which made room hire easier and there was catering and space for stands etc on site aswell see homepage.eircom.net/~irishas/meet/baameet.htm

I tried something similar the following year for the GAF with a speaker format 3/2/2 and worked very well and a got a great crowd, even Frank spoke that year, was one of the best GAF's, I think that year I introduced the naive "Stargazers to flock to Galway to see Uranus and other marvels" paper add, one which I think people will never forget :lol:

I would be committed to helping organise an Autumn IFAS convention, I think we will need a new thread with some serious discussion.

Ronan Newman
Secretary
Galway AC

PS For anyone who did not get to attend this year's event, we have filmed all of the talks and for those who would like to see Chandra Wrickramashinge, the scientist who caused a sensation when he proposed that life on Earth could have been 'seeded' from space see the talk www.youtube.com/user/Galwayastronomyclub#p/u/13/GiqsN3FsKmg and www.youtube.com/user/Galwayastronomyclub#p/u/12/qY7Zimz48Js

Although the Irish astronomy scene is tiny compared to the UK a simple format should be used, did anyone attend the BAA out of London weekend in Dublin during Sept 2008? I did and went to learn how they managed 7 speakers in one day compared to our usual 4. It was also held at UCD which made room hire easier and there was catering and space for stands etc on site aswell see homepage.eircom.net/~irishas/meet/baameet.htm

Hi Ronan

Just want to say sorry to hear your event is shelved for this year , and I can emphatise totally with your mindset on the subject. As regards the BAA event in September 2008 I organised a lot of that event. I worked directly with the BAA , was assisted by the IAS committee at the time and Dunsink Observatory were very supportive. IAS / BAA 2008 meeting in 2008

I got the venue ( did a deal with UCD as I was a student there at the time ) , invited the Irish speakers (Dr Niall Smith,Dr Mohsen Shadmehri,Prof Tom Ray ,Eamonn Annsbro, and myself ) also sorted out the refreshment area for the BAA. ( a real headache) the Montrose dinner , designed the poster for the event as well ( OMG) sorted out logistics of the Birr Castle/Newgrange Visit ( bus et cetra ) so much work. Every week from April 2007 till September 2008 well over a year there was someting to do towards the end game. I worked in conjunction with three members of the BAA over e mail and even had one meeting in London when I was there in February 2008 for another purpose.

The BAA had a very rigid format that had to be attended too , so it was a lot of hard work to give them exactly what they required. The BAA paid for venue, refreshments, speaker accomodation, buses , et cetra. Dunsink Observatory hosted the wine reception they demanded in an historic building.

IFAS people are missing out on meeting each other, regular meetings like Whirlpool, Galway, the Burren are getting axed in this terrible recession.

Perhaps Dunsink Observatory would be a good venue for us to set up an annual winter meeting ?
What do people think of this idea ?

Am worn out just thinking back to the BAA Out of London meeting and the river of e mails and meetings that made that happen at the time.


Deirdre Kelleghan
Vice Chair IFAS
@skysketcher

dmcdona wrote: As regards money, which has been mentioned, I just want to make it clear that IFAS had the chance of getting €10,000 (or more) from Forfas in the spring of this year.

Yes, I remember you and I Dave had a long discussion on this and on how we at SAC could use some of this funding for the BSP, after lengthy discussions within the club we decided we didnt need any money (as Frank said earlier) to run our starparty the way we do. It's a hassle and cost free way of doing things, although I did hope we'd get more IFAS club member people at it, to those who did come, it was much appreciated that you came along and added to the event. The vast majority of the attendees were not IFAS affiliated.

R Newman wrote: while all the guys from SAC had massive respect from everyone during the WSP years as it was an amazing event with some amazing speakers

Thats fine and all, but respect doesnt pay the bills, what ultimately killed off the WSP was that less and less people were coming along, we'd get about half the club at it and a handfull of IFAS people, I'm not attacking any IFAS people here, I havent been to every event thats happened in the past 10 years, but I have done my best to be there and have been to more then I've missed. I was actually looking forward to the GSP this year, oh well.

R Newman wrote:

Dave_Lillis wrote: Ronan, I can completely understand your thinking on all this.
Like Frank says, starparties (conferances) such as these are a massive burden on those involved. We can relate with the WSP, the club here never so much as got a single new member out of it and never made money, infact it often had to be subsidised from the club coffers.

Could not be further from the truth!

good to see someone using this format gained members and some money from it, we never did.

DeirdreKelleghan wrote:

IFAS people are missing out on meeting each other, regular meetings like Whirlpool, Galway, the Burren are getting axed in this terrible recession.

yea, the recession is taking hold for sure but the Burren Starparty is not axed, we just dropped the conferance side of it. If the IFAS committee wished to meet up at the BSP for a meeting last year, then we could have asked the hotel for a room, they would have accomodated us, but it does seem like that most are interested in the conference side of things. Observing in this country is always hit and miss I guess.


It always struck me that some of the biggest clubs in this country never ran an annual WSP/GSP type event, I can only conclude that they saw the amount of hassle involved and stayed clear of it, SAC is far from been the biggest IFAS club.


As for running an event in somewhere like Dublin, thats super, but you need someone or a group of people who seriously want to run it. They'd need to be honest and realistic with themselves before they decide on such an endevour interms of time, commitment and finance, try avoid mistakes interms of timing, venue, food, speakers, whatever, or you will get people complaining (customer is always right)

For alot of us in SAC this happened and while runing at a loss and we ended up asking ourselves, why the hell are we doing this s... when all we want to do is look through telescopes.

Dont get me wrong, I like going to these conferances, but like Frank, I do not have the spare time or will power to run one knowing whats involved. :rant:

Am I right saying it will be pointless trying to do an IFAS convention unless there is equal participation from all the clubs? If the guys at SAC are not interested then I suppose it cant really happen, anyone from Midlands AC reading this as very quiet on the topic?,MAC-now holders of Ireland's only offical Starparty. Also topic on private IFAS board

Ronan

I take it that WSP is not happening this year?
You need at least a few clubs participating to make an event happen. How about an Ifas meet up once a year? just book a venue but no real organizing. Invite speakers if they are interested but no financial obligation on behalf of Ifas. Pick a theme for the event such as photography, observing, sketching etc. And see who comes. If the weather is bad there is always then pub.