BCFNS NEWSLETTER

August 2020

Our Mission

The Blanco County Friends of the Night Sky formed in September 2018 and we hit the ground running. In helping other groups to form, it recently dawned on us that we never wrote up a formal Mission Statement. We knew what we did but we just hadn't slowed down long enough to put it in writing. Well, now we have. This week the Board approved the following as our Mission Statement. We think its pretty neat.

Our mission is to promote and encourage the preservation and protection of the Night Sky in Blanco County and beyond; to support communities, businesses, and organizations within Blanco County to obtain and sustain various Night Sky Friendly designations; and to provide education and information to citizens of Blanco County of all ages in support of long term night sky preservation and light pollution abatement.

The Word Spreads

Once we discovered that the night sky doesn’t begin and end at the Blanco County line, we decided it was in our best interest to help other night sky advocates get organized all across the Hill Country. Working closely with the Hill Country Alliance and the Texas Chapter of the International Dark Sky Association, there are now eight county-based night sky friends groups in the Hill Country that have formed or are forming. These are: the Blanco County Friends of the Night Sky plus groups in Travis County, Comal County, Kendall County, Kerr County, Bandera County, and two groups in Hays County. There is active interest in forming friends groups in Gillespie County, Llano County, Mason County, Kimble County, Real County, and Uvalde County. And it grows beyond that. This last week we helped a group of night sky advocates in Alpine, Ft. Davis, and Marfa form the West Texas Friends of the Night Sky that will cover a huge area in the Trans-Pecos. We are honored to be able to help these colleagues get up and running.

Hill Country Night Sky Month — October

The Hill Country Alliance is sponsoring the first annual Hill Country Night Sky Month to raise awareness of light pollution and night sky preservation. October is the month. Be on the lookout for announcements to come.

Night Sky Song Contest

Due to this terrible virus that just won’t go away, we’ve been forced to postpone this year's Hill Country Night Sky Song Contest. We had hoped to close the contest on Sept 25 and have the event itself on Oct 3. But that’s just not going to happen. If you are a songwriter and are working on a piece for the contest, don't despair! We’ll definitely have a 2021 contest and good music is timeless.

Membership Report

Our membership continues to grow. We now have 61 paid memberships representing 98 members. That’s great! Last week, we gained two new members solely because they had seen one of our membership signs mounted on a neighbor’s fence. That is absolutely the best form of advertisement we can have…using a membership sign to tell the world that you value the darkness of the night sky. Are you a member yet? Have you bought a membership sign? It’s our logo done in metal, 18” x 12” and has reflective lettering so it can be seen at night. We sell ‘em at our cost of right at $30 each. You can order them off our website or by calling Wayne at (210) 557-6127. Membership information and how to order a sign is at blancocountynightsky.org/membership.php.

Volunteers Needed

We need volunteers. And they're coming. Two energetic folks have stepped up to do night sky measurements in and around Blanco and another one has come forward for Johnson City. Another volunteer has offered to help with the Night Sky Friendly Neighborhood Program. We also now have a volunteer help the Blanco Chamber of Commerce work with the local motels to retrofit their outdoor lighting using Hotel Occupancy Tax funds. There are several other specific areas we need help with and they are all listed on our website, https://www.blancocountynightsky.org/volunteers.php. The more volunteers we have, the sooner we can turn back the plague of light pollution.

Fundraising

To protect the night sky, we need volunteers…and — surprise, surprise — money. We use the latter for things like printing brochures and business cards, providing cash incentives for our school essay contests and art contests, buying props for lighting demonstrations,