NOTICE:
The NERAL BUSINESS MEETING will be held
Saturday, August 2, 2008
4:00pm under the Food Tent
@ the Stellafane Convention
Springfield, Vermont
This meeting is open to the public.

***

NOTICE:
If you are using the free software SKYPE
voice over ip (www.skype.com).
And would like to participate in the next NERAL meeting in cyberspace,
please contact the NERAL Chair.
The number of participants is limited. 
A microphone plugged into your sound card is required.
(Webcam optional, depending on bandwidth considerations)

***
REPORT:

2008 ANNUAL REPORT for the NORTH EAST REGION
OF THE ASTRONOMICAL LEAGUE
filed July 3, 2007

This year NERAL’s Walter Scott Houston Award will be presented to noted AAVSO & ALPO observer, professional optician and amateur telescope making guru Mike Mattei on Saturday, August 2^nd 2008 at Stellafane in Springfield Vermont. We are sending out a press release to all the ALCORS in the NE Region, as well as several astronomy listserves. We will have our annual business meeting concurrent with the annual Stellafane Convention this year, and customarily send out the e-mail meeting notice along with the Walter Scott Houston Award press release. 

This year we were able to collect biographies of several good candidates by e-mailing the ALCORS in our Region. We are keeping this information on file for future service awards.  NERAL has been enlivened by its new web presence at www.neral.org, and has posted member news throughout the year. We hope to expand this member news section as we increase our contact with our regional clubs during the year.

This year all 5 of our NERAL officers have kept in regular contact by means of e-mail, phone and particularly now our new Skype connections. (www.skype.com)  Our most recent deliberations on the Walter Scott Houston Award were facilitated by a Skype conference call. This free software has proven to be very easy to use, and we find that we don’t use the webcams much, since a good audio connection suffices.  Up to 24 callers can be conferenced in.  Since gasoline prices have been increasing, there have been fewer opportunities to travel and meet each during the year. 

We are delighted that ALCon 2009 will be in the North East Region, and we are expecting that there will be good support from our member societies, particularly those who attend Rockland Astronomy Club’s nearby annual North East Astronomy Forum in Suffern, NY.
During the Awards Ceremonies at this year’s Stellafane Convention we will certainly be sure to announce ALCon 2009 at Hofstra University on Long Island. We will see you there!

Respectfully submitted,

Maryann Arrien

Chair: NERAL

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