The 101st Annual Meeting of the AAVSO was held last weekend in metro-Boston. Despite Sandy's best efforts, we only lost a handful of attendees to storm-related travel woes.
The Council met at AAVSO HQ on Thursday to talk business - taking only a brief break to share lunch with some of the AAVSO Staff members.
We scheduled a 1st time attendee dinner for members of the Staff and those participants who had never attended an AAVSO meeting. This was a great opportunity to get to know a couple of new faces and to find out what these new attendees hoped to get out of the meeting. This chance to get to know each other put the staff in the best possible position to make useful introductions once the meeting really got going on Friday.
Friday morning began with the usual, staff-manned registration table.
This year we began presenting folks who have been members of the AAVSO for 25 years or more with a special pin to celebrate their commitment to the organization. I had the great honor of presenting these pins to meeting attendees as they arrived.
The paper sessions and membership meeting went very smoothly. You can view the paper abstracts and the Director's Report Slides on the Meeting Archive Page.
Council Member, Bob Stine announced a newly proposed Mission Statement to the membership. Members are encouraged to read the new statement and comment in a dedicated thread in the members-only, AAVSO Governance Forum. (Must be logged in and a member to view this forum.)
We took a moment before lunch on Saturday to take our customary Group Photo. With the assistance of a hotel staff person, we all made it into the picture this time!
There was lots of interesting conversation as folks gathered for the banquet. Just prior to dinner a number of awards were presented. Citations for the Merit Award and the Olcott Award have been placed online.
All in all it was a great meeting. Many thanks to those who helped to plan & run the meeting and especially to all who attended the meeting.