by Rene Gedaly, President

The GuideStar has a new editor. Bill Pellerin, editor and publisher of the HAS GuideStar for two decades, has turned over the reins to new editor Bob Wiesner. Welcome, Bob. For his tenure at the award-wining GuideStar, we honored Bill Pellerin with the President’s Exemplary Service Award. Thank you, Bill.

Ed Fraini: VP Facilitator. One of the advantages of membership in HAS is that its members bring with them some great skills. One of these members is VP Ed Fraini, and I’m not talking about the skills he puts to use at the dark site or the observing chops he’s honing as he makes his way to AL Master Observer status. No, I’m talking about the skills he brings from his day job, professional leadership development. Just take a look at our Vision statement. It sounds simple but it will inform every action the committees, directors, and officers take.

Don’t get dropped. Renew your membership now. We hold seminars at UH for those new to astronomy and for those with more experience. You can find an observing opportunity almost every week now. Our dark-sky site hosts educational programs for members, guests, and the public. And for you members who live online, access to recorded presentations, member photo galleries, and, this is a biggie, only members have access to the private HAS Facebook group. What a freewheeling space that is. Don’t miss out. Renew today.

HAS Women Meet ‘n Greet. It’s a get together for HAS Women Sunday April 17th beginning at 2 pm. Where? Centrally located at Amelia Goldberg’s home. Join us for a little food & drink and a lot of just plain getting to know one another. If you’re a female member of HAS, be sure to RSVP for location details.

Site Orientation Now Online! Thanks to all who made this happen, especially to John Haynes who authored and has been giving the same site orientation in person at UH. With progress comes the added convenience of online orientation, but also yearly testing, and that’s a good thing. All site users need to pass the test to get the new year’s site code. An additional special thank you to Mark Ferraz and the Web Technology team. Folks, it takes a lot of hard work to make it easy for the rest of us. We appreciate it.