Ordinary Meeting, 2004 May 26

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Ordinary Meeting, 2004 May 26

held at The Geological Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1

Tom Boles, President

Ron Johnson, Nick Hewitt and Nick James, Secretaries

Mr Boles opened the seventh Ordinary Meeting of the 114th session, and invited Dr Hewitt to read the minutes of the previous meeting, which, having met the approval of members, were duly signed. Mr Johnson announced that two presents had been received since the previous meeting. Mrs Hazel McGee had donated a number of books, in addition to three gifts from Gordon Taylor: A Handbook of Solar Eclipses, by I.M. Lewis, The Indian Eclipse 1898, edited by E.W. Maunder, and a large number of issues of past Memoires. Members showed their appreciation to the donors. The President announced the proposal of 21 new members. Members approved the 17 new members who had been proposed at the previous meeting, and Mr Boles welcomed any newcomers to introduce themselves after the meeting. Mr James announced that Council had accepted two papers for publication in the Journal:

The aurora in 2003, by Ron Livesy

Detection and measurement of the white dwarf spin period in the January 2004 outburst of DO (YY) Draconis, by David Boyd

The President pointed out that Wednesday meetings now started at 17:30, whereas in the past they had started at 17:00. He asked members for a show of hands as to which time would be preferable for future meetings. There was no clear consensus. Finally, Mr Boles announced that the next meeting would be the Exhibition Meeting on June 26, held this year once again at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. The President then invited Mr Peter Hingley, librarian to the Royal Astronomical Society, to deliver the evening's first talk, on the topical subject of historical transits of the planet Venus.