OSP Director
From the Desk of Larry Godsey, OSP Director
April 22nd, 2008
Planning for OSP 2008 is well underway for another successful year. The committee has been meeting and we have finally signed all the contracts are in the process of updating the registration forms for this year and should be ready for registration in a few days.
Howard Knytych is busy lining up speakers and it looks like we will have Garrett Keating, who is a researcher at U.C. Berkley working with the Allen Array, and he will be bringing us up-to-the-minute information what's happening at the Allen Array projecct. Howard is still lining up other speakers and it looks like another great year of informative talks.
We are encouraging all who need to charge batteries to use solar panels or wind generators for charging. We fully expect that the USFS will no longer allow us generators for general use at OSP.
We will have three new Observing Award lists this year in addition to the six Observing Award lists form the past two years. You will need to do advance research and make charts to find the harder ones. This year's list should be up on the web page within a couple of weeks.
Shawna and her crew with iced drink and caffeine fixes and Holly with the Chuckwagon were both be back this year and up and running by dinner time on Wednesday through Sunday lunchtime. Kelly is back with Nomad ISP with satellite internet service available.
Jan Keiski is again be recruiting volunteers for two hour shifts. Many thanks to you all who volunteered to help in the past as you are the ones that make it successful each year.
With the lack of generator usage we're still looking and discussing other options, but no great ideas yet on how to provide reliable power to recharge batteries without a generator. It is one of our major points of discussion with the USFS, along with the condition of the 4240 and 800 roads.
I do welcome any constructive suggestions, comments, complaints and kudos. While it's obvious that we can't do everything we'd like to do, we can certainly fine tune the operations and try to make it easier for everyone. I'm always happy to pass on the kudos and work on the complaints.
You can email me directly at: oregonstarparty@gmail.com and I'll get back to you.