President's Report | Annual General Meeting

4 April 2009

Welcome all.

Well, what a year…..those of you who have been keeping an eye on our regular updates will know that we’ve been very busy, and have achieved a lot.

I would like to acknowledge the support of the committee and POAC members. The committee have worked extremely well together, drawing on the spread of skills offered by each. And I’m particularly grateful for the support offered by Harvey Butcher. Without his backing, I’m sure many doors would have remained firmly closed.

Some of our achievements include:

• 21 January 2008 | POAC was incorporated as an Association in the ACT.
• February 2008 | Meeting with Graham Durant, Questacon
• March 2008 | Meeting with the Science Attache, Japanese Government
• March 2008 | Meetings with Andrew Barr and Bill Stefaniak
• May 2008 | Meeting with Ivan Slavich, CEO of TransACT, and Andrew Barr to discuss financial support to allow an engineering assessment and business plan to be prepared.
• May 08 | Seed funding provided to the ANU by TransACT and the ACT Government
• June 2008 | Meeting with Senator Kim Carr’s adviser, Andrew Reeves
• July 2008 | Letters sent out to local clubs seeking financial support
• July 2008 | Started a petition for public support
• September 2008 | Letters to banking and mining industries seeking financial support
• October 2008 | Solar observing in Garema Pl. Articles on ABC Radio and in the Canberra Times
• October 2008 | Business Proposal finalised
• November 2008 | ABC Stateline coverage
• December 2008 | Preparation of Business Plan outsourced
• December 2008 | Feasibility study/engineering report finalised
• January 2009 | Meeting with Meridith Hunter (ACT Greens)
• Feburary 2009 | Public proposal submitted to the ACT Government
• Various meetings with staff from the DPM’s office, National Capital Authority, Andrew Barr, Senator Humphries, Chris Pyne, Ivan Slavich, Zed Zeselja, and staff
• Discussions with Kate Lundy, Dick Smith, and many others.
• Numerous emails (last count over 1,500 in and another 1,500 out)

And where has this taken us?

We’ve been able to get within earshot of the decision makers, including Julia Gillard, Andrew Barr and Katy Gallagher. But as you know this is one of the worst times to be asking for money perhaps for the last 60 years or more, with the state of the economy as it is. The latest news from the ACT Government is that they probably won’t be allocating any money to relocate the planetarium in the 09/10 Budget. So we’re focussing on the Federal Government at the moment, hoping to pick up some of the stimulus money on offer.

And to the future?

If the Federal Government doesn’t offer any money, we’ll focus on philanthropic groups, keeping the pressure on both governments with the 2010/11 budget in mind. It may not happen as soon as we’d all like it, but we won’t give in until we achieve our objective, to have a public planetarium and observatory in the Canberra region. The most sensible option is to take advantage of the Tradies offer of equipment and buildings, and relocate now, we just have to convince the powers that be!

Craig Collins
President,
Planetarium and Observatory Association of Canberra