How to revive an Astronomical Society?

If you go the Brighton Astronomical Society's web page at

http://www.bhas.fsnet.co.uk

you will see the the Society has suspended meetings until further
notice. There have now been 2 successive AGMs with no volunteers to
be on the Committee and so the Society is effectively dormant
but not yet officially dead.

So we now have a city with population 250,000 with no Astronomical
Society. Any ideas on how to revive it? Would it be best to close
down completely and wait a few years until a new Society emerges or
should we hope that some new members will join & get things going again?
But that's unlikely as its very discouraging for a newcomer to join a
moribund society.

Anyone with suggestions?

Thanks,

Philip Taylor

Philip Taylor wrote in message ...
If you go the Brighton Astronomical Society's web page at

http://www.bhas.fsnet.co.uk

you will see the the Society has suspended meetings until further
notice. There have now been 2 successive AGMs with no volunteers to
be on the Committee and so the Society is effectively dormant
but not yet officially dead.

So we now have a city with population 250,000 with no Astronomical
Society. Any ideas on how to revive it? Would it be best to close
down completely and wait a few years until a new Society emerges or
should we hope that some new members will join & get things going again?
But that's unlikely as its very discouraging for a newcomer to join a
moribund society.

Anyone with suggestions?

Thanks,

Philip Taylor

1) How does anyone remotely interested find out about the existence of
your astro society?
2) Do you have a confident, extroverted publicity officer?
3a) Regular bulletins in the local papers? Eclipses, bright planets or
comets in view with contact phone no. website and e-mail address at
the bottom?
3) Is there a reasonably accessible, reasonably dark site anywhere in
the region for public star parties?
4) Is there a small collection of keen telescope owners who will share
their time showing (vetted) innocents the undersides of orange clouds?

Chris.B

Some thoughts, Philip:

You have to start with a committee. If there are not two people who are
interested, then you don't have any reason to re-start the society. If there
are two people, you have a secretary and a chairman/lady. The world needs to
know of your existence, so you send a communication to the local paper when
you are next ready to observe a specific event. The paper is likely to
interview you and so you get free publicity. This leads to enquiries.....

There are many ways to proceed. In Plymouth, we started with just a few
interested students in 1965; the event was the eclipse of the moon. during
the following years, membership rose to 40 and then stabilised.

If you cannot get more than two people interested, then why fight? Wait 6
months and think again.

Good luck.

Lawrence Harris


On Sat, 06 Nov 2004 19:51:25 GMT, Philip Taylor
wrote:

If you go the Brighton Astronomical Society's web page at

http://www.bhas.fsnet.co.uk

you will see the the Society has suspended meetings until further
notice. There have now been 2 successive AGMs with no volunteers to
be on the Committee and so the Society is effectively dormant
but not yet officially dead.

So we now have a city with population 250,000 with no Astronomical
Society. Any ideas on how to revive it? Would it be best to close
down completely and wait a few years until a new Society emerges or
should we hope that some new members will join & get things going again?
But that's unlikely as its very discouraging for a newcomer to join a
moribund society.

Anyone with suggestions?

Thanks,

Philip Taylor

On Sat, 06 Nov 2004, Philip Taylor wrote:
If you go the Brighton Astronomical Society's web page at
http://www.bhas.fsnet.co.uk
you will see the the Society has suspended meetings until further
notice.

That's sad to hear. I noticed only a couple of days ago that Wadhurst AS
(http://www.wadhurst.info/was/was2004/2004oct.htm) seems also to be
having difficulty recruiting committee members... :/

On Sun 07 Nov Chris.B wrote:
2) Do you have a confident, extroverted publicity officer?

The two most vital functions are meetings and observing officers. If you
don't have a decent programme of events and activities then there's
nothing for a publicity officer to advertise.

3a) Regular bulletins in the local papers? Eclipses, bright planets or
comets in view with contact phone no. website and e-mail address at
the bottom?

These days, having a reasonably fast-loading and informative website
that will work with "any browser", with plenty of local content for the
search-engines to index on is a good idea. That way, if someone types
(say) "Brighton Astronomy" into a search-engine they'll find your
website first. It probably helps if the domain name also includes the
crucial keywords...

--
...Rick Hewett http://www.chocky.demon.co.uk/
"Worlds only harmonica-playing dog. Tuppence."
-- Gaspode the wonder dog
(Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)

hi,

how about a few of the more committed members forming a small, informal
'club', rather than a full blown society, then see if anything takes off
from there during the course of time?
I'd guess new members would be more discouraged by a joining an all but dead
society that appears to be shrinking in size, rather than a small
enthusiatic club whose membership is growing.

Gaz

"Philip Taylor" wrote in message
...
If you go the Brighton Astronomical Society's web page at

http://www.bhas.fsnet.co.uk

you will see the the Society has suspended meetings until further notice.
There have now been 2 successive AGMs with no volunteers to
be on the Committee and so the Society is effectively dormant
but not yet officially dead.

So we now have a city with population 250,000 with no Astronomical
Society. Any ideas on how to revive it? Would it be best to close
down completely and wait a few years until a new Society emerges or should
we hope that some new members will join & get things going again? But
that's unlikely as its very discouraging for a newcomer to join a moribund
society.

Anyone with suggestions?

Have you considered a stripper?
Grim

Have you considered a stripper?
Grim

Grim

Which astro. sco. do you attend - if you're running these
events can I join?! The wife would never match up a visit
to the astro. soc. with a stripper!! :-)

Matt.

"Matthew Maddock" wrote in message k...
Have you considered a stripper?
Grim

Grim

Which astro. sco. do you attend - if you're running these
events can I join?! The wife would never match up a visit
to the astro. soc. with a stripper!! :-)

Matt.

Why would stripping and rebuilding a telescope excite large numbers of people?

Chris.B

As Chairman of a reasonably successful Society, and ex-Chairman of a
Natural-History group that could not get a committee, I can speak from
both sides of the problem.

The Natural-History group restarted with a completely new committee
after a public meeting at which at least 75% of the people who
volunteered to stand for the committee were not members up until that
time. It went on to be very successful, and is 15 or so years later
still going (I believe).

My advice is this:

Forget the programme, forget the publicity, forget most of the
'officers'. Meet for shared talk over coffee. Meet with telescopes
at a suitable venue when you can. Do not put on a big show with a top
speaker, and then fizzle-out as you cannot sustain it. It's better to
have 6 to 10 keen peopole who want more, and become prepared to help
provide it, than 50 who have entertainment provided with no effort on
their part.

Does your society have assets? Telescopes? books? See if you can get
the last remaining committee members to loan them to your 'new' group.
Try to keep a nominal 'old society' committee that can wind-up and
'merge' it if/when your 'house-group' takes off.

Above all; work out what you WANT. Do you want top speakers lecturing
100s of quiescent members, or a small group of keen people, eager to
share? If you want the first, you will always be running to keep
still. If you have the second, it might turn into the first, but with
people keen to contribute and share the load.

Roger

Philip Taylor wrote:

If you go the Brighton Astronomical Society's web page at

http://www.bhas.fsnet.co.uk

you will see the the Society has suspended meetings until further
notice. There have now been 2 successive AGMs with no volunteers to
be on the Committee and so the Society is effectively dormant
but not yet officially dead.

Anyone with suggestions?

Thanks,

Philip Taylor

It might help if either your email or the society's email worked -
both failed for me when I tried to get in touch.

-----------------------------
Martin Frey
http://www.hadastro.org.uk
N 51 01 52.2 E 0 47 21.1
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