SAO Funding Drive

Following the suggestion on one of our newest alumni members, SAO will soon be launching a funding drive in collaboration with Swinburne Alumni. The funding drive will aim to raise at least AU$20,000 to help fund two main projects: "AstroFest", an annual SAO mini-conference open to all SAO students, alumni and teaching staff and research projects headed by Swinburne astronomers.

It has been suggested for some time now that SAO should organise a series of face-to-face gatherings in various countries around the world so that the SAO community can come together and actually meet each other! It's early days yet, but we're currently trying to negotiate an astronomy site in Texas for our first SAO AstroFest for (hopefully!) October 2007. In 2008, another AstroFest will be held in (or around) Melbourne to coincide with the Swinburne centenary.

SAO alumni and students have also expressed an interest in helping fund fundamental astronomy research and so, depending on how much money is raised in the funding drive, we could also support various research projects by, for example, helping to pay for observing trips or journal page changes. All SAO supported research projects would be fully acknowledged in any publications and results would naturally be disseminated back to the SAO community.

Swinburne Alumni will have more details about the scheme to follow shortly.