July's agenda was quite packed with announcements and presentations. 

Lots of maintenance has been performed at the observatory--the parking area has a new layer of gravel, power has been restored to the last row of scope pads, and the club scopes have been balanced and repaired to improve their usability.  The bad news is that there are LOTS of mosquitoes--so don't forget your bug repellant when you come out!

Anybody want some free firewood?  Come and get it, but remember--it is BYOCS (that means Bring Your Own Chain Saw!).  There are lots of dead trees that Bob Newman will gladly let you take down and haul off.  See Bob for details.

New club officers were elected--Harry Bearman (President) and Tres Ross (Treasurer) were re-elected by acclamation, and Gene Dawson was railroaded, oops I mean honored with the Vice Presidency.

We got the final update on our plan to change the day

and location for our monthly indoor meetings.  Her it is:  Beginning in August, we will meet at the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens on the 3rd Tuesday of the month.  There won't be an indoor meeting in July--we will be having a bar-b-que picnic at the observatory on Saturday, 7/27 beginning at 4:00PM.

It is time to renew your memberships--so send your check to Treasurer at eh return address on this newsletter or bring it to the picnic.  $30 for regular members, $15 dollars for students.

The Beyond Messier and Beside Messier books are in.  They feature observing objects that are FWAS favorites and often-overlooked objects that can be seen beside Messiers in the eyepiece.  They are $10 each--see Becky Nordeen to get one.

And saving the best for last--we got a preview of Sallie Teams' talk she will be giving to AAVSO in July in Hawaii.  The title of her talk is "Possible Signs of Eta Carinae Outburst in Artifacts of Ancient Bolivia".   See page 4 for some samples of the talk.

Inside this issue: