By Jessie Weisner

Medicine Hat astronomy club looking for support

Jan 4, 2019 | 2:42 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — A local club that’s been active in the community for nearly four decades is having a tough time, and asking for some help.

The Medicine Hat Astronomy Club is struggling with members and fundraising, and wants nothing more than to keep its doors open.

“The club has been around for the better part of 39 years,” says James Paulson, president of the Medicine Hat Astronomy Club. “We do an active program of educating young people in the community, providing services to other groups within the community as well as hobbying, the hobby of amateur astronomy.”

The club started up in 1980, building the Sunridge Observatory just 8 years later, with their own 16 inch telescope. 

Today, it offers services like educating young people, hosting tours for community groups and catering to the hobby of amateur astronomy.

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“We service all the Girl Guides of Canada, the BoyScouts, school groups” says Paulson. “We’ve been starting to offer programs o n the Saturdays for kids, we do an open house once a month on the second Saturday of every month and of course we have our club meetings on the first Thursday of every month.”

The club has to fundraise $3,600 dollars a year to continue operating, and depends on its 17 members to make that happen.

However, Paulson says some current members haven’t been very active.

“We’re struggling to get volunteer effort,” says Paulson. “We’ve got 17 members right now, which is not a bad sized group of people, it’s what you can get out of those people.”

As a result, the club is putting a call out to the community for anyone interested in the cosmos that would be wiling to commit to just 30 hours a year.

“I’ve challenged our members to give 30 hours of their time a year, I want them to commit 12 hours of that to come to meetings once a month,” says Paulson. “The other 18 hours they can split that. Either coming to open houses or coming out to help with a group tour, helping with our summer star party, helping with the maintenance issues that we have from time to time.”

Paulson adds that anyone is welcome to join, there’s no need to be an astronomy expert to help the group out.

“We just want an interest in astronomy,” says Pauslon. “We’ve had blue collar workers, tradespeople, college professors, university graduates, doctors, city council members so we have a diverse background of people.”

However, if participating and fundraising continue to go downhill, Medicine Hat will lose an important part of the community.

“If we can’t raise the funds, we can’t keep the facility, and that’s what it comes down to, and that’s a loss to the community because It’s a loss to the other junior groups that use us for services,” says Paulson. “It’s a loss to the community as a whole because they no longer have a place to visit as a resource. I don’t want to go down that road.”

Despite that, Paulson has high hopes for the community support for a club that’s been present for so long.

In addition, if everything works out, the group is aiming to fundraise for a brand-new $20,000 telescope to replace the current one purchased in 1988.

For more information, visit the astronomy clubs Facebook page or website.