Letter From IRS

Today we had our monthly board meeting, and Arno came in with a sad look on his face & a sad tone in his voice. Earlier this week we had received a letter from the IRS. He starts reading it to us...

We got the 501(c)3 status! We are now officially a nonprofit organization! Now we can start going after lots of grants! YAY!!!

Can you tell I'm happy about this? This is a major milestone. We successfully jumped through the hoops, and now there's more paperwork to fill out. Well, there would have been more paperwork to fill out regardless, but having that official little number 501(c)3 and our code that goes with it, will help a lot.

Oh, yeah, the code - there were several strings of numbers, & we aren't sure which is the relevant one, but we'll figure it out, & we can give it to people and organizations who give us money. But most importantly, there are now organizations willing to consider giving us money which wouldn't even talk to us before.

*Happy Dance*, or as my husband said, "Party time!"

Getting the Word Out

Yesterday I was substituting at River Heights Elementary, one of the schools I had taken the Jr Engineering StarLab to in 2009. One of the teachers at lunch was talking about when to schedule taking his class down to the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake. I told him how we're working to get a planetarium here in Cache Valley, and about the Faraday's Holiday Event we are planning for December 28. That's right, we have a date. It will be at the Whittier Center once again, from 7pm - 8:30pm. I still have to take the check to the Whittier Center, but if everybody's schedules work out, I hope to be able to do that today. Then we start "officially" advertising it. I'll put it on Facebook, on both the StarHouse Discovery Center group page and my page. I'll also look into putting it as an event that people can RSVP to. I'll post it on Twitter, at the public library, look into getting it on the marquee at the Opera House in Downtown Logan, and of course update our website.

Last year, we had 80 people come to the event, and 7 booths of organizations presenting their work. This year, we hope to have more.

Giant Star Party Morning After

Last night was the Giant Star Party at the American West Heritage Center. From what I could see, it was a big success. There were wagon rides, story telling, about half a dozen telescopes, a glow-in-the-dark tea party, space-related crafts, & a gunfight! I gave star show presentations using a freeware planetarium simulation software, Stellarium. I gave four presentations, & had between 15-20 people at each one. I'm not sure how many people total came to the star party, I'm going to have to get a hold of David & Chris at the AWHC to find out exactly how many people came. It looked like there was well over a hundred people watching the gunfight at 10 pm, though. The event wasn't officially over until midnight, but most of the activities ended at 11 pm, & most people started leaving then, so that's when we started cleaning up. I had everything (papers scattered across 4 tables, money from donations, lightning ball, hydraulic robot, Galileoscope, Leonardo bridge, pens, jars, basket, Arno's laptop, my own 8" Dobsonian telescope, dinner, extra clothes to deal with the change in temperature, and multiple boxes & bags for everything to pack into) back into my Bug by 12:30 am (Saturday). I've said it before, & I'll say it again, Bugs are awesome. When I unpacked it before the party started, the people who saw everything come out were amazed. I love my Bug.

Once I've had a chance to process everything, I'll post a report on the success of the Giant Star Party. Hope to see you there next year.

Plans

We have plans going forward on several fronts. The first is to get the 501(c)3 paperwork finished, so we can then start applying for grants lots of places. The second is a presence at upcoming events put on by several other entities in the area. The third is the possibility of getting a site & possibly a building. Fourth, we are looking into the possibility of sponsoring a writing contest.

The 501(c)3 status: it's going forward, slowly. As usual. One of these days we'll actually get it finished. We got a letter from some legal company offering to help with it. They didn't say so in the letter, but I'm sure it would cost us some money, & we're already most of the way done as it is.

Upcoming events: I will be manning a booth for the local Renaissance Faire on May 22, 2010 at the Whittier Center. My booth will be making portable sundials. I did this last Saturday as a workshop for kids of the regional group of the Society for Creative Anachronism. It was a big hit. There is also Physics Day at Lagoon, sponsored by the USU Physics Department. We also decided that we should let the various schools know that we are available for & would like to participate in judging the Science Fairs. My task is to talk to some of the high school photo/multimedia teachers I know & see if they would be willing to have their classes work on some signage for us.

Site & Building: It's going to be years, yet, before we actually have a permanent building, but meanwhile, there is the Discovery simulator, which was built in a trailer home. The USU Trailer Park is slowly emptying out, but the university doesn't have current plans for that area. There also happens to be a community center in the Trailer Park. A woman from USU Housing will be at our next meeting in two weeks to discuss the possibility of us renting a pad for the trailer and using the community center as a classroom, so that we could run missions next school year. We also have a concept sketch for a building, & are looking into the possibility of having the CAD class at one of the local high schools make up some 3-D computer models for us.

Writing Contest: This would happen next year, students would be able to enter some form of technical writing, we would probably have several genre categories, as well as grade level categories. We would need to get the teachers behind this. From my experience with the RFF contests for CONduit, if the teacher is not encouraging the students to participate, then no students will enter.

So, there you have it. Progress is still slow, but it is happening. I'm going to get those building concept sketches up on the website this weekend.

Luckily, I'm not sick

But it seems like just about everyone else is. Only three of us showed up for the meeting early Tuesday morning., & one of the missing sick ones was Arno, who's working on the 501(c)3 forms. Meanwhile, I've been substitute teaching almost every day (including Monday, so it was a REALLY short meeting). I've been telling teachers at every school the last few days what happened with the Jr Engineering & Cache StarHouse programs, & about the StarHouse Discovery Center & what our current status is. It seems like there is at least one teacher at every school who recognizes me from the StarHouse last year, even if they can't remember where they recognize me from. The coolest is when a student recognizes me. I was substituting in a 2nd grade class today, & that happened!

I've also been working on the StarHouse Discovery Center webpage. I'm trying to learn how to do forms so that people can enter their contact info & type a message to us right from the webpage. I think I need to learn some Java to be able to do it, though.