This year's Georgia Sky View is progressing nicely. We're starting to
get registrations and door prizes in for the event. The door prizes
that we've gotten in so far are shown on the official FRAC website.
http://www.flintriverastronomy.org/frac/GSV2009Prizes.htm
We've gotten a promise of at least one more door prize from Orion. It
will be shipped at a date closer to the opening date of the event.

I rode out to the site today to check things out. The Park Ranger
told me that two of the dorms had be revonated (he didn't say which
ones and there are four dorms) and the other two would be renovated
at sometime in the near future. For those choosing to stay in the
dorms, they will probably be nicer than they have been.

I'm working very closely with Georgia Power in order to insure that
the lights will be turned off this year. I've sent my contact in
the "Customer Service Department" a letter and a map showing the
exact locations of all the lights that we need extinguished for the
event.

I've sent out over 100 letters to different vendors and manufacturers
of astronomical gear requesting door prizes. Hopefully, as the event
nears, we'll be receiving more door prizes. We're expecting to have
Camera Bug at the event as a vendor and I've sent letters to several
other vendors inviting them to our star party as well.

The tee shirt design has been finalized. The shirts will be yellow
this year with black and white logos on them. The front logo will be
a small (3") logo on the left chest area (pocket area) and the rear
logo will be 12 1/4". I felt that putting a small logo on the front
would make the shirt more comfortable to wear having much less ink on
the front. We really wanted a pocketed shirt this year but the color
choices were so limited and just plain dull that we dropped that idea.

While we're on the subject of shirts, if you want to be assured of a
shirt, please get your registrations in by the cutoff date of April
10th. If you wait until later to submit your registration, I may not
be able to guarantee you a shirt. It will take the printer some time
to get the shirts printed up. Don't forget to specify the size shirt
you want.

Ok, that's about it for now. All we need is some more door prizes
and more registrations to come in. Any questions? You can contact me
through the links on the GSV'09 page of our website. Don't miss this
year's event. It's truly going to be a "Stellar Event". See you
there.

Steve Bentley
GSV'09 Coordinator