Singastro Session 1 Today!

[zong]

I like the Singastro Fest, at least gave me a chance away from my books

Thanks to everyone who made this possible. Good stuff I think should be commended:
1) Solar gazing! My god H-A rocks haha.. Curly haired sun is definitely a great see..

2) Well organised. The timing for talks and in-betweens are very well done..

3) Informative. Learnt alot! I didn't know heliospectroscopy was so easy to do.. Now it's another one thing in my to-do list! Definitely gonna try it

Wasn't there for the first day so didn't know what happened...

The only worry was no food (ouch!). Yea, the talks were abit long, and prolly abit scary.. And Dr Phil Chan's talk is really cheem.. What "A level student can easily understand".. I couldn't, at least not fully.. haha. But at least it inspired me to further my astrophysics knowledge..

Overall, I like the feel of this festival, hope I can really join in the organising team next year! And we must make it annual ok!

[Q]

For future events, perhaps the organisers can make arrange for those mobile canteen-on-wheels to be deployed for such purposes?

Richard, I sure the next time we have an event, I will trust you to do just that huh... I mean since you suggested it, I would like to see you do it

You know, before the festivals actually happened, we had alot of suggestion but keep in mind though suggestions are welcome please take note that they must be practical. We can give alot of suggestions(they are after all free) but in the end like chee chien(acc) had said, we must not be NATO(No Action Talk Only).

If I remember correctly there are quite a number of volunteers from singastro.
But I didn't see that yesterday OR during the preparation week. Basically, only a hand fully of people are working off their asses for this event. (I appreciate the thanks and help from some of us like Vincent giving a talk, etc etc..)In the future, I would like to see more participation from SingAstro if an event would be to organise.

I might be a bit harsh in this post, but this is my opinion.

Lastly, I would like to thank all those who came to this festivals, I hope you all have enjoy yourself...
and of course to the all the volunteers for you help! Cheers...

[Sam Lee]

The 2 day festival was indeed great and entertaining, but it wasn't without the help of only a handful of Voluntering Coordinators and 1 week of sleepless nights. You would have notice that during the festival itself, some of the directors and actually disappeared for a while (we actually went to take a rest).

There are doubts that we should really be doing this event at all, because there are rarely 'Singastroians' who lend us a helping hand (There is, just not enough). Don't forget, this is suppose to be SINGASTROfest 2004. I was just a little shock on just how many VCs backed out.
We could be a little more successful (like MarsWatch).

I would like to thank all those who have help in one way or another, those taking efforts to lug their heavy equipments to SP, helping out during the Prep wk.

Clear Skies,
Sam

[hlyf]

i think mars watch was more successful cos there was better publicity - newspapers and TV, while for the fest it was only word of mouth, cos of limitations set by the institution, though i guess it couldn't be helped lah.. so in the end the only pp who turned up were "inside" pp, singastro and schools - bp, sp, rp, nyp etc. not many (if any) from the general public, pp who dun already have some astro background.. cos i believe, like for marswatch, there are pp in the general public is interested in astro, they just dunno where to start..

hmmm as for volunteering, personally i felt quite out of place at vc meetings.. cos it seemed like almost all the people there were from sp or sp alumni, singastro pp few, so felt like some sp organised event instead.. i guess it couldn't be helped either cos so few singastro pp volunteered, but just my 2c worth.. sorry for being NATO here too..

[VinSnr]

i think mars watch was more successful cos there was better publicity - newspapers and TV, while for the fest it was only word of mouth, cos of limitations set by the institution, though i guess it couldn't be helped lah.. so in the end the only pp who turned up were "inside" pp, singastro and schools - bp, sp, rp, nyp etc. not many (if any) from the general public, pp who dun already have some astro background.. cos i believe, like for marswatch, there are pp in the general public is interested in astro, they just dunno where to start..

hmmm as for volunteering, personally i felt quite out of place at vc meetings.. cos it seemed like almost all the people there were from sp or sp alumni, singastro pp few, so felt like some sp organised event instead.. i guess it couldn't be helped either cos so few singastro pp volunteered, but just my 2c worth.. sorry for being NATO here too..

Umm...i think you brought up a good point. We need to consider this for the next event. Most important thing is we must learn from any lessons here.

Maybe next time we need to have a good mix of volunteers before we should even do this. Singastro people, IMO, consist of two kinds. One are the various guys and gals from the polys and schools. The others are the working adults. Obviously the working guys are not gonna move their ass and coordinate unless they have specific instructions of what to help. These guys have family committments, and is difficult for them to do coordinating stuff. But they can help in very specific ways due to their experience, contacts and $$$ that they had.

The legwork and coordination can be done by the younger guys and gals here. The working committee should be formed by these people. And they give specific instructions to the working adults of what they can help.

All in all, I think most singastro people are helpful, just that in this case here, time was tight and the SP people took over. I was in fact surprised that it was held in SP but it was difficult to get a good public venue within a short time frame. So it ended up more like a SP event and any singastro members would feel out of place if they volunteer.

Maybe next time we should decide a public venue first so that the job doesn't go to a specific instituition. Only then we get a good mix of people to coordinate this.

I remember the one held at Chinese Garden had more Singastro volunteers.

So I think we have to keep in mind in not making the event at an education institution. Because if it does, for sure it will end being the baby of that school.

[Traveler]

A BIG THANKS to all those Outdoor scope volunteers who brought the their scopes for display and observation (though the weather wasn't kind to us).

There were still some others who were pending their scopes even on the day of the event. It'll be better if they could inform us earlier. Perhaps the next festival we should impose a deadline?

hmmm as for volunteering, personally i felt quite out of place at vc meetings.. cos it seemed like almost all the people there were from sp or sp alumni, singastro pp few, so felt like some sp organised event instead.. i guess it couldn't be helped either cos so few singastro pp volunteered, but just my 2c worth.. sorry for being NATO here too..

Despite several hiccups, i'm sure all of us learnt a thing or two like how to organise and do things fast. It is a good learning experience in working with people even though we do not know each other well.

Lastly, another BIG THANK YOU to all those VCs. (No names will be mentioned in case i miss anyone out!) It is a milestone epecially for those students who are juggling their exams, FYP, ITP etc. Hopefully next year there'll be more volunteers from other sectors of the astro community(should there be another one)....

[fizzy123]

To add on, I happen to realize the public respond was very poor on the second day, especially the younger folks except the Bukit Panjang people. I think we could have sent posters to various organisations and institutions, to make more get aware. Perhaps we could include some simple to make D.I.Y projects the young can do hands on. Thus targeting specific audiences.

Another problem is that Singastro is constantly being overshadowed by the TASOS. When people think of sky phenomenon they straight away think of observatories. Thus when there is eclipse or comets, the press immediately publish TASOS related articles, as the press consider them as 'official' and 'established'. Thus Singastro must find a way to penetrate through their monopoly and get a greater say in astro stuff.

There was once I came across tis article in Sky & Telescope regarding the promoting of astronomy. The guy consistently and persistently write to the local papers regarding simple star gazing for the public. Initially his scribes are all thrown away always. But caught the editors attention finally. At last a monthly column is devoted for astronomy on the papers.

We could try to follow wat the guy did and who knows, small non-mainstream tabloid papers like Newpaper, Friday weekly, Today, Streats might allow us to publish something. Famous star gazer Patrick Moore have a program known as 'Night sky' on BBC radio. We can also try it on local stations like power98, 98.7, YES933. The response in U.K is veri good many like it.

[kayheem]

yeah...usually the canteen is opened till around 6.30 pm but they closed early nowadays. I bought the working party 4 tins of biscuits on the first night. Hoped that would be enough to satisfy overnight hunger pangs.
Wanted to buy some cup noodles but remembered there is no hot water there....
For future events, perhaps the organisers can make arrange for those mobile canteen-on-wheels to be deployed for such purposes? Of course the traffic would have to justify him being there for 2 full days which means more publicity so that more members of the public can turn up. I was surprised that at 7pm, most of the gates to Poly were locked, so people trying to come in for the observation session (if it was one) would have thought the event was cancelled.
I think the main problem is probably lack of sponsors due to restrictions imposed by SP. If not, perhaps a tie-up with Mc Donalds would guarantee food availability till end of the event. Wouldn't help if the newspapers were informed too...
Just a thought...

But in the end, the team performed admirably and innovatively given the limited resources and let's hear a round of applause for them all!


*clap* *clap* *clap* *clap*

rich

Hi all,

Unfortunately, I was not able to make it for the event at all as I was 'enjoying' the wet weather and light pollution in Australia.

As for the food, I do not think MacDonalds will come unless it is confirmed there will be a big turnout. What we can do is to buy drinks from wholesalers and set up a booth to sell canned drinks to the public. Any profit can be used to fund future events. I am not too sure about food, though.

Much have been said about the talks and equipment, but how about the turnout? Can anyone give a guesstimate on how many members of the public were there? Did we manage to write to ST to have it listed in the papers or call the radio stations to mention it?

From the posts so far, it was fairly successful, given the limited time and resources and pats on the back go out to all involved in the organizing, participation of the event.

Rgds,

Kay Heem

[Q]

To add on, I happen to realize the public respond was veripoor on the second day, especially the younger folks except the Bukit Panjang people. I think we could have sent posters to various organisations and institutions, to make more get aware. Perhaps we could include some simple to make D.I.Y projects the young can do hands on. Thus targeting specific audiences.

Please... I HAVE SENT OUT POSTERS to various institution including NTU and NUS. Anyone wants to see the e-mail as proof?

It is just that noone bothers to read their mails or even to print it out.
I ask the one of the members from RP whether they had recieve ANY email, their response was "oh I never check".

We had done OUR job but it cannot be completed if the other side have not done theirs. Get what I mean?

It's not just the organisers but the success of the event also depends on the target audiences!

Another problem is tat Singastro is constantly being overshadowed by the TASOS. When people think of sky phenomenon they straight away think of observatories. Thus when there is eclipse or comets, the press immediately publish TASOS related articles, as the press consider them as 'official' and 'establish'. Thus Singastro must find a way to penetrate through their monopoly and get a greater say in astro stuff.

There was once I came across tis article in Sky & Telescope regarding the promoting of astronomy. The guy consistently and persistently write to the local papers regarding simple star gazing for the public. Initially his scribes are all thrown away always. But caught the editors attention finally. At last a monthly column is devoted for astronomy on the papers.

We could try to follow wat the guy did and who knows, small non-mainstream tabloid papers like Newpaper, Friday weekly, Today, Streats might allow us to publish something. Famous star gazer Patrick Moore have a program known as 'Night sky' on BBC radio. We can also try it on local stations like power98, 98.7, YES933. The response in U.K is veri good many like it.

Yes, by all means please do that. I support your idea.
We need to get things done and not just talk about it.

These guys have family committments, and is difficult for them to do coordinating stuff. But they can help in very specific ways due to their experience, contacts and $$$ that they had.

You know it's funny, I did also send out emails reqesting help. Perhaps these guys never recieve them?
Contacts? what contacts? About what?
As for $$$ is concern, if I'm not wrong only the vendors donated. yes?

[Sam Lee]

Personally i feel that its not the poor turnout that hurts me bad. Its actually the enthusiasm shown by the astro community that really matters. If we can't show enough enthusiasm, why expect others to turn to astronomy as a hobby for them? We have OVER 200 members down here, and if each of you were to attend the festival, wouldn't it be part of the aim already?
What we are doing here right now, is just NATO. It just takes a little to make a difference.
Well, i've learnt my lesson. No more events in institutions!

the-every-inch-of-my-muscle-is-aching,
Sam