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*** This year NERALís Walter Scott Houston Award will be presented to John Bortle, most known for his work on comets and the Bortle Scale of Sky Darkness, on Saturday, August 7th 2010 at the Stellafane Convention in Springfield, Vermont. We will also be giving a gold-framed NERAL Special Service Award Certificate to Sam Storch, an astronomy educator who will be moving to Florida shortly, for his many years of planetarium work and educational activities in New York. A press release about the two awards will be sent to all the ALCORS in the NE Region, as well as several astronomy listserves in mid July. We will also have our annual business meeting at Stellafane on Saturday August 7, 2010 at 5:00pm, and customarily send out the e-mail meeting notice along with the Walter Scott Houston Award press release. NERAL has maintained its web presence at www.neral.org courtesy of free webhosting by our Secretary Alan Rifkinís business (FAR Labs), and I have posted updates and member newsletters on the web that have been given to us throughout the year. This year all our NERAL officers have kept in contact by means of e-mail, phone and scheduled conference call using the free service www.freeconference.com. We have found this dial-in service easier to use than Skype. The balance in the NERAL treasury has dropped to $233.61, and with the cost of the two awards mentioned above, will dip down to approximately $183.00 by the end of July. NERAL started with approximately $600 in its treasury back in 2001 and we have never requested any additional funds from the League for operation. We had been hoping to receive a small income from ALCON 2009, which was held in the NE Region just last year, but sadly the bad economy prevented that convention from making any profit at all. Since our reserves are so low now, the NERAL officers have asked our treasurer Richard Roberts to officially submit a modest funds request of $50 to the Astronomical League to keep NERAL from draining its treasury further. We wish to continue to give the Walter Scott Houston Award every year at Stellafane. During the last 9 years all costs other than the actual manufacture of the plaque itself have been personally absorbed by us without reimbursement. Thank you for considering our request.
Maryann Arrien Chair: NERAL
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