August 31, 2006 by Gregory Tucker.

April has made the Vision and Values presentation available to everyone. This is the guiding vision for the Mars and Beyond track of the ISDC 2007 in Dallas.

Vision and Values Presentation

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August 30, 2006 by Gregory Tucker.

The Dallas Mars Society met as scheduled on Aug 27 at 6:30 at the Plano Spaghetti Warehouse.  Attendance was 14 (counting 3 children), which is a new high!   This was the first meeting after the 9th Annual Mars Society Convention in Washington D.C., and there was much to discuss both with regards to the past Mars Society Conference and the future ISDC Conference in May 2007. 

April and Derek jointly chaired the meeting with a thoroughly prepared agenda, leading to a highly productive and organized meeting.  In quick summary, the highlights were:

>Call to order at 6:40

>nominated interim officers.   These officers will serve until more formal elections can be held at a later date, probably around New Year’s.  These officers will help us organize our tasks for the upcoming ISDC conference.

                -President:             Derek Andreas

                -Vice President     April Andreas

                -Secretary:             Kurt Chankaya

                -Treasurer              Roger Carr

>Discussion of the 9^th Mars Conference

                -Summary of main speakers

                -Both Jim Heiser’s and Kurt Chankaya’s talks went well

>>The T-shirt’s were a SMASH!  Virtually all of the T-shirts sold the first day, at the full $20 price.  Our T-shirts were the only ones being sold. It was real neat to see conference attendees walking about wearing our club’s design!  Kudos to Mark for making the design, and Derek / April for making the shirts.

                >This means we now have money, a few hundred dollars.  This will be set aside for potential expenses during the ISDC.  April and Roger will look into setting up a separate bank account.

                >** Just to make sure everyone heard, the NSS and Mars Society will NOT be holding a joint conference at the ISDC this Spring.  Agreement on this failed to be reached – we are back to doing a ‘just’ a separate Mars track.

>High Performance Leadership Project

                April will use preparing for the ISDC as her toastmaster’s project at her job.   There are many experienced folks there who can help and mentor us through the ISDC conference process.  April proposed a ‘vision statement’ for our group, which stressed mutual respect and teamwork will be the themes of our participation with other space advocacy groups at ISDC. 

>ISDC planning meeting

                Derek talked about the ISDC planning meeting he was in with the NSS.  There was a map of the hotel layout and tracks, greater definition of the exact tasks and schedule. And overall a great more definition of what is ahead of us.   Besides the tracks, we have a Mars Society table to set up and man, a luncheon and dinner to plan, and alternative activities for alternate nights. 

                We brainstormed ideas for ‘big name’ speakers that national should invite, and also lesser names that would make good tract speakers. 

                Abstracts relating to ‘Mars and Beyond’ will be funneled our way by the NSS, and we will evaluate and help schedule these, as well as trying to get interesting talks and themes for our track. 

>Key Projects and Volunteers

                To help this all happen, Derek proposed a list of projects that were needed.  Volunteers were assigned to most tasks.  These individuals will be responsible for accountable progress on these projects.

                -track coordinator (coordinates track speakers, themes, dinners etc) Derek and Kurt

                                (a suggestion was made to create a separate task for the lunch and dinner)

                -Track overseer (makes sure the track runs smoothly) Roger

                -Reviewing Abstracts Jim H, Mimi, Greg, Curtis

                -Evaluation forms (forms for reviewing the tracks, conference etc) Mimi, Kurt

                -Mars Society nbsp Derek, Roger

                -Mars Society Information Track / Lunch (TBD)

                -Pizza Night Engineer  (alternate activities, not the ‘main banquet’) (TBD)

                -Dallas Mars Society Product Line   (T-shirts, books, jewelry, etc) Mark, Kurt

-Space Passport April

Overall, we had a well organized and productive meeting, and a good start to our planning for the ISDC.  Details will continue to evolve as we get further into the planning. If you have any ideas, don’t hold back..post to the group!

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August 22, 2006 by Gregory Tucker.

by Chris Carberry
Monday, August 21, 2006

There are moments in space advocacy that stand out, and the Great 2006 Mars Blitz certainly falls into that category. It was a tremendous success. On Thursday afternoon, August 3, 2006, the Mars Society sent over 100 members to Capitol Hill to show support for the Vision for Space Exploration and to make sure Mars remains a key part of that plan. In just over three hours, we spoke to over 100 congressional offices. This was truly a “blitz.”

Full story

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August 21, 2006 by Gregory Tucker.

• Officer Volunteers
• President
• Vice President
• Secretary
• Keep meeting minutes
• Organize hard copies of major handouts and e-mails
• Treasurer
• Keep paper trail of club money
• Possibly apply for 501(c)3 status with bank account (www.501c3.org)
• Formal elections later this year
• Report on Conference
• Report on T-shirt Money
• Accolades for Mark
• High Performance Leadership Project
• Vision for the Conference
• Core Values
• Brief Overview of ISDC 2007
• Speaker and Topic Brainstorming, Wish List
• Key Projects Overview
• Details of each project
• Track coordinator
• Track overseer
• Reviewing abstracts
• Evaluation forms
• Mars Society information table
• Mars Society information track/lunch
• Pizza night engineer
• Dallas Mars Society product line
• Space passport
• Call for volunteers
• Call for comments, close of meeting

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August 13, 2006 by Gregory Tucker.

MARS HOAX: A bogus email is going around the Internet. It claims that Mars will be historically close to Earth on August 27, 2006–so close that Mars will look as large as the full Moon. This is not true. Here are the facts: On August 27th, Mars will be on the other side of the solar system, about 385 million kilometers from Earth. The red planet will look tiny and dim, nothing like a full Moon.

The “Mars Hoax” email first appeared in 2003. On August 27th of that year, Mars really did come historically close to Earth. But the email’s claim that Mars would rival the Moon was grossly exaggerated. Every August since 2003, the email has staged a revival. It’s as wrong now as it was then.

Courtesy: Space Weather News for August 6, 2006

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