SAG Proposals

At the 2009 Delegate (General) Meeting of the Swiss Astronomical Society, I made two proposals. In fact, these were the first proposals from an individual member of the Society for decades. Indeed, the Society has ceased to be a driving force in Swiss astronomy. The Swiss Society for Astrophysics and Astronomy, founded in 1968, occupies that role now. Hence, I knew that both of my proposals would fail and that I would have to look to the latter or other institutions for support. Nonetheless, I wanted to at least present the proposals to the Swiss Astronomical Society out of courtesy. The first proposal aimed to increase engagement of pupils and students in astronomy, the second proposal to fund an estimated CHF 10 million investment and annual operation costs of CHF 0.5 million for a large remote-controlled telescope at a darksky site abroad mainly for educational use.