February 25, 2007 Monthly Meeting

All:

We had another lively meeting last Sunday, with 13 in attendance. We welcome Larry, who was attracted to our meeting from the web site. Hope you enjoyed the meeting and come back again, Larry!

Derek had sent out a mass mailing to a variety of potential Mars speakers, inviting them to our track at the ISDC. A number have already responded positively. It looks like we have a good start at getting a number of quality Mars speakers for our track.

In another wrinkle, National NSS is attracting so many major, plenary caliber speakers that the plenary sessions may be expanded. This is contracting the number of track slots excessively – the number of track slots is now well under 20, a number that is way too low. This will be addressed and some better balance is expected.

Curtis showed his proposed advertising posters. These look very good, and we’ll acquire them in both 8X11 and 11X17 sizes to post in college campuses, etc.

Pam announced that her expansive run of Mars memorabilia is complete. We’ll have the best Mars knick-knack table ever! Kudos to Pam for her efforts and generosity for donating them.

After much discussion regarding bumper stickers, it was decided to authorize Mark to expend up to $150 of Mars Society funds to go and order a set of two-color and full color bumper stickers for sale at the convention.

Discussions began on our table displays. We’ll need sign-up and information sheets for the Mars Society, and a banner. Roger took the action item to check into getting these from national.

We then discussed T-shirts. While we sold a large number of T-shirts at the 9th Mars Society, we were without competition, selling the only ‘convention’ T-shirt. This will not be the case at the NSS ISDC, and caution was agreed on. We will probably make a number of
Mars Society/NSS ISDC themed T-shirts – Mark will think on potential designs.

Overall, our planning for the ISDC is coming along well.

On a sadder note, this was Greg’s Last meeting with us, with him moving to Portland in March. We thank Greg for his efforts in keeping the Mars flame alive these past years, and will miss his participation.

**ACTION ITEMS **
>Dan will put a blurb / link to the NSS ISDC on the Mars Society national home page
>Roger will attend the NSS planning meeting at the convention hotel with Brent from national NSS in order to assess the physical layout
>Roger will contact national Mars Society to get info sheet, membership sign-up, and banner design
>Mark will spend up to $150 to procure bumper stickers
>Mark will come up with some T-shirt ideas for the next meeting
>Kurt will forward to Mark some pictures of the MDRS / FMARS for above
>Kurt will attend the National NSS planning telecom while Derek and April are off on vacation….
See you all March 25th!