AGM - Message from our President

Good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Monty Leventhal, the President of this astronomical club, The SCS.

I and on behalf of the SCS committee, welcome all members and visitors to this SCS Annual General Meeting.

My sincere thanks goes to my committee members who organized speakers and outings for our general meetings each month; namely,

Elizabeth Cocking, our secretary who records our meetings, handles our incoming and outgoing mail, our minutes, our increasing membership, suppers, Raffles, Christmas parties and anything that needs to be known.

Dr. Toner Stevenson, Senior vice president who has worked with Jorge Isaias to produce and run the website. Toner also arranges for very interesting speakers to come to the SCS to give talks at our general meetings.

Dr. Andrew Jacob, our Vice President and Curator at this wonderful observatory who makes sure our speaker's computers are connected to the system here, makes sure we have enough seats for everyone and makes sure interesting books are available for prizes.

Elizabeth Budek, treasure presents a report, at our monthly committee meetings and makes sure all our expenditures and income is under control

Janette Brennan, who has been editor of the SCS Journal (previously known as the BAA NSW Branch) for past 22 years keeping our readers up to date in advances in Astronomy and monthly reports from members.

Councillors; Ann Cairns, George Mavrocordatos, Jorge Isaias and Dr. Ben Livson who recently left the committee, all give meaning input to keep our members informed.

Our guest speakers organised by the committee started in February with Professor Cairns on QB50

CubeSat; March, Geoff Wyatt of Sydney Observatory on Spectroscopy to calculate the distance to stars April, Dr Ben Livson on Astronomy Q & A. May, we had a very successful viewing night. June, Jeff Portelli gave a very interesting talk on Through the Eyepiece. July, Dr Stuart Ryder of Astronomy Australia Ltd on Australia and the European Southern Observatory. August, Professor Andrew Dempster on Framing the space debate in Australia. September, Aina Musaeva of the Sydney Observatory gave a talk on her PhD Research and Marnie Ogg discussed light pollution and Australia's first Dark Sky Park.

Also on behalf of our committee our sincere thanks go to you, our members and visitors for attending our meetings, and to those who volunteered and brought telescopes and provided information at astronomy outreach events at Centennial Park, Rouse Hill House and Farm, Macquarie University, The University of Sydney and at Sydney Observatory. Without you and your engagement we probably could not exist.

Monty Leventhal OAM.

President.