Attendees: Steve Izzo, Ann Murphy, Barton Meeks, Mike Keefe, Doug Lively, Anastasia Vail, Matt Lochansky, Steve Blake

In Person Meetings discussion: Steve Izzo

Recent Delta surge is making return to indoor meetings soon less likely. Options for meeting venue:

  • Craft Center: Easier parking, easier getting in and out, closer to food. But smaller. Visibility of screen is poor. Beyond 10-20 people it is tough to see.

  • NCMNS: Museum has better facilities for streaming. Parking in the surface lot off of Jones St. is the most convenient. Limit ~60 attendees. Options for reserving larger rooms if needed (and we can request far enough in advance).

Could explore relocating TV in the Crafts Center to improve visibility. Could do a membership poll about preferred venue? Doug: Option to have the speaker at the museum streaming to the Crafts Center.

Because of the resurgence of COVID-19, push back first indoor meeting until October or November. CDC recommendation is for masks and social distancing inside.

ACTION: Doug will email Kari W. to tell her that we are targeting October for our first indoor meeting; find out the museum’s protocol.

New Member Engagement: Matt Lochansky

We really need to ensure all our newer members get pulled into the club. Sending a welcome email is not enough. The best way to retain members is to give them ownership. Even just a simple message like, “if you are looking to get more involved with the club or have questions, stay on the call after the meeting ends” Then, we get to know the member(s) and their interest(s) and direct them appropriately. There are tons of “jobs” which would benefit the club – from simple things like taking photos when we start meeting in person, to more complicated tasks like putting together a newsletter, we need volunteers. Perhaps some new members could even form a new member welcoming committee.

Ana: We could have regular new member orientation meetings.

Mike: Change indoor meeting format; move business section first. Or, first 15 minutes is new member orientation. Ask new members to log in 15 minutes early to ask questions.

Ann: Zoom breakout room before meeting start. (RAC doesn’t have that level of Zoom account).

Steve B: RAC Academy – should we have RAC Academy meetings? Or a quarterly new member meeting?

Doug: Mentoring program didn’t get kicked off. COVID-19 is the problem. Could use Zoom.

ACTION: Steve I will setup a meeting in the next week for people to ask questions. Alternative: Ask an Astronomer meeting for the regular meeting in September.

Re-organizing RAC Information: Steve Blake

  • Re-organize the RAC Google Drive to make the most up-to-date and relevant information more easily discoverable. Move expired documents to the “attic”.
  • Confirm that the club documents on the website (e.g., by-laws) are up-to-date. Develop a protocol for keeping them up-to-date.
  • Figure out how to make club reports on the RAC website more easily discoverable to logged-in RAC members without exposing sensitive club info to the public.

Steve B: Would llike to just copy all content into a new directory, reorganize that, get approval, and then make that the new top-level.

Steve I: We are running up against our storage limit on the Google Drive.

Mike: We can use Teams to store files instead (capacity limit unknown).

Matt: Current WordPress prevents us from hiding directories (holding minutes for instance) from people not logged in (previous plugin used is currently broken).

Steve I: could store minutes in groups.io.

ACTION: Steve B will incrementally reorganize the Google Drive. May move everything to Teams later.

ACTION: Mike will host a demo of Microsoft Teams on Monday August 9.

Email reduction and better communication: Steve I

Steve I: Send most emails to members@ list instead of announcements@, because everyone can reply to a mail from members@. Every member is automatically subscribed to announcements@ and cannot remove themselves.

Matt: Can send mail to both members@ and announcements@; members only get one email and replies always goes to members@.

Mike: Let’s contact people who aren’t in either members@ or imaging@ and let them know about them.

Standardizing language: Anastasia Vail

I wanted to reach out to the leadership group since I’ve seen a bit of conversation (and confusion) regarding the title of our monthly meetings. I’ve seen them referred to as both “Indoor Meetings” and more recently “Regular Meetings” (due to most meetings being virtual). Communication has gone out to the club with both names, and I worry this could be confusing for some people (I’ve been asked a couple of times if there’s a difference between the two). I would recommend picking one or the other (or something new) to stick with across the board. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I do a lot of “titling” of meetings seen by members/the public through social media and YouTube uploads (so far, I’ve only ever used “Indoor Meeting”), so I thought I’d kick off the conversation.

Doug: RACOBS → Observing Session.

Think about renaming Indoor Meeting.

Element3 Update: Doug Lively

Zero attendees as of now. Will continue to support.

Departments/Committees:

Treasurer’s Report: Steve Izzo

  • Checking: $ 633.61
  • Savings: $17213.06
  • Special purpose checking: $ 0.63

408 total accounts:

  • 72 cancelled
  • 249 individual
  • 51 family (36 secondary)

New membership growth has slowed down.

Webmaster: Barton Meeks

Nothing to report.

Loaner Scope Program: Mike Keefe

Ramiro is no longer coordinating the loaner program. Andy Grant has volunteered. 5 or 6 other people have also volunteered. Web site has been updated to make handling loaner scopes better.

Key Holders: Mike Keefe

Keyholders will have to reapply. Not replacing the lock but will be engraving the keys.

Public Outreach: Matt Lochansky

Getting ready to restart outreach! Details are being finalized and will be shared with the rest of the club very soon.

The committee will be looking for additional volunteers to coordinate events and assist at events without bringing a telescope

Doug: public will be at Howell Woods on Aug 13. Please post on our social media.

Education Committee (Astronomy Classes): Steve Izzo

Where are we at?

ACTION: Doug will ping Phyllis.

ALCOR: Doug Lively

RAC members are working on observing programs.

Social Media: Anastasia Vail

Facebook is RAC’s main vehicle of outreach.

Next RAC Indoor Meeting: Ann Murphy

Amy Sayle will be our the speaker; need to update the website. Ann will lead.

Future RAC meeting at Morehead?

ACTION: (TBA) Need to confirm RAC meeting date at Morehead Planetarium with Amy Sayle.