Awards for All
By now, I expect everybody is aware of the grant the Association of Falkirk Astronomers have received from the Awards for All scheme. This scheme is set up to help small groups and distributes Lottery Grants between £500 and £5,000. The main aim is to fund projects which involve people in the community, bringing them together to enjoy arts, sports, heritage, social and other community activities. Our grant of £3,998 was awarded from the New Opportunities Fund within the Awards for All programme and is towards the purchase of an LCD projector and a Laptop computer. One of the main aims of our group is to promote public awareness of astronomy and astronomical study and the purchase of these items will be used to further that aim.
One of the conditions of the grant, is that we give as much publicity as possible to it, with that in mind it has been publicised in the Falkirk Herald, the Advertiser, the AFA website, the Federation of Astronomical Societies website and newsletter, the SAG website and newsletter and on Central FM radio.
We have also received letters of congratulations from Michael Connerty MP, Dennis Canavan MSP and Cathie Peattie MSP.
The committee have not rushed into spending the money and are giving careful consideration to the best value and most up-to-date equipment that can be purchased for the money but it will be in place before the start of the next session.
STOP PRESS: A laptop and an LCD projector have been purchased from Telegence Technology in Blinkbonny Road, Falkirk. The laptop is an IPC with Intel P4 2 GHz processor, 256 MB RAM, 30 GB Hard drive and the LCD projector is a Phillips BSURE with XGA (1024 X 768 pixels), 3000 hour lamp life, 1200 ANSI lumens and 29 dbA noise.