Newsletter to the SPoCs

27 June 2008

Dear SPoCs,

We have a very short newsletter this week:

Organisational Matters:

We would like to welcome our new IYA2009 Organisational Associates, Armagh Planetarium, and our new IYA2009 Organisational Node, ECSITE-European Network of Science Centres and Museums.

We are proud to announce that Celestron is our newest IYA2009 Global Sponsor. Celestron recognised the tremendous potential of IYA2009 and we extremely delighted with this new partnership.

Guidelines and Resources:

As the IYA2009 draws closer and the preparation of activities and the search for support becomes more urgent, the IYA2009 Secretariat had prepared a resource which will hopefully help you promote and get support for your IYA2009 national activities. The IYA2009 Communication Guidelines for SPoCs is available on the Resources webpage: http://www.astronomy2009.org/static/resources/iya2009_comm_guidelines_spocs.pdf and attached to this email.

The IYA2009 Trailer is now available in Fulldome format (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulldome). This is a very useful resource for planetariums and we recommend you to contact your national planetariums to show the IYA2009 trailer.

Please note that the trailer without text is also available for download. Those of you haven't been able to request a translated version in time for it to be produced by the IYA2009 Secretariat, may now use this version and add text if you so wish.

Opening Event:

We would like to remind you about the IYA2009 Opening Ceremony. As you know, it will be held in Paris, at the UNESCO Headquarters, on 15 and 16 January 2009. The ceremony will have the presence of several invited personalities on astronomy and the topics of their talks will range from history to the state of astrophysics nowadays, from the exciting discoveries to the prospective for the future. The programme will also include discussion in round tables and remote observations.

Participation in the IYA2009 Opening Ceremony will be by invitation only. In order to properly prepare this ceremony, the Opening Ceremony Task Group needs to know in advance how many people (typically from 1 to 3) from your IYA2009 National Node would who like to attend.

The Task Group would also like to stress the importance to have as many young people as possible. For this, they ask your help in selecting one or two students from your country (18-21 yrs old), who are highly engaged in astronomy and who should be selected on their merits.

Please note that neither accommodation, nor travel expenses will be covered for the SPoCs. However, the Task Group will offer 4 days stay for the students in youth hotels, extending over the weekend if they wish to tour in Paris or meet together. The travel expenses would have to be covered by the IYA2009 National Node of each country.

We ask you again to tell us as soon as possible (no later than 4 July) whether you intend to participate in the ceremony, how many people from your node would come, and if you agree to do the selection of young people and can support their travel.

The selection process should start as soon as possible, and be finished by the 1 October 2008. More information on the IYA2009 Opening Event Website: http://ama09.obspm.fr/ama09/open.php

If you have any questions, please contact the IYA2009 Opening Ceremony Task Group at astro.2009@obspm.fr

Once again, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards,

Pedro, Lars and Mariana

IYA2009 Secretariat

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