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.