by Bill Murmann, CAA President

I’d like to thank members who joined us and brought food to share and who helped with our Annual Convention and potluck picnic Saturday (Sept. 16) at Letha House Park.  And thanks to our officers and board members-at-large who brought supplies and helped with the picnic — especially Treasurer Ron Palcic who handled ticket sales for our raffle.

We had nice weather and pretty decent night skies for observing, though we had some haze around the horizon and dewy conditions later in the evening.

Special thanks goes to Rich Whisler who did all the grilling for our meal, and to Marianne Wadsworth and Gail Korylak who organized the food line on three tables.  Thanks also to Marianne, and Nancy Whisler who helped clean up.

And thanks to Observatory Director Jay Reynolds who held observatory training and brought a slide show about our solar eclipse program that helped draw an estimated 10,000 guests to Edgewater Park.

I think everyone, including visitors from the Black River and Mahoning Valley astronomy clubs, enjoyed the food and socializing.

Jay Reynolds, Bruce Lane, Dave Watkins, and I were the last to leave at 12:45 AM after listening to groups of coyotes howling in the distance off to the east and the west.

Finally, our sincere appreciation to the following donors who generously provided items for our raffle:

Orion Telescopes & Binoculars
TeleVue
Meade Instrument Corporation
Sky & Telescope Magazine
Knightware, LLC
Bob’s Knobs

Next year’s Annual Convention and picnic will be on Saturday, September 8, 2018.