Welcome back from a busy summer for the RASC in Victoria. Starting back in June with the spectacular Transit of Venus through to the three warm, sunny days at the end of August at the Saanich Fair, our volunteers were kept hopping from one event to the other up and down Vancouver Island. We were at the Esquimalt Buccaneer Days, the Saanich Strawberry Festival, attended four Provincial Park programs from Goldstream to Miracle Beach, and presented other sessions with the Victoria Libraries and city parks programs. Some of our members were able to enjoy the camaraderie and a few brief sucker holes up at the Island Star Party in July but we capped it all off with our wonderful RASCals Star Party in Metchosin in the middle of August. We kept up our presence on the “Hill” at the CU on Saturday evenings during the summer and our active members had some great skies on view at our own VCO. Thanks to everyone who supported our public programs. We couldn’t keep up our mission of bringing Astronomy to everyone without you.
Also thanks to those members who worked diligently over the summer to get our observatory in fine shape. (I think Matt Watson and Dan Posey have sleeping bags and air mattresses permanently housed there!) But our active members did not use the VCO as much as we would have hoped in the past few months and we would like to take a look at how we can get more people using the facility the way it should be. If you would like to weigh in on this discussion please do. Contact myself, or any of the tech committee or other council members for comments and suggestions.
We are pleased to have Glenn Hawley, the new president of the National RASC coming to visit us on Saturday, September the 29th. He is on a western “tour” of the RASC centres. We are hoping to have him do some visiting of the VCO and possibly the UVIC facilities and taking him out for dinner. We would be happy to have as many people come to join us as possible to talk with him about some of the new happenings at the National level. He is a keen observer, as well, with lots of stories to tell. Chris Gainor will be hosting Glenn so please contact him (NationalRep) to get the latest information.
Here’s to warm evenings and clear skies for the rest of the fall.
Lauri Roche