Category Archives: Meeting re-caps

October 18th meeting recap

dragon in colour copyOur October meeting got off to a very strange start–the hotel moved us to room 700, the biggest, fanciest suite in the hotel.  We all took time to oggle the two bathrooms, one with a giant jacuzzi, lounged on the couches, sat around the conference table, and watched videos on the television. We even had coffee!!

Another strange thing–we had what I suspect is our lowest attendance ever. I hope it’s not because members couldn’t find us!

The Sunday morning cinema started late as we had fun trying to Creaturefigure out the tech logistics of playing DVDs on a computer hooked up to the television.  In honour of Hallow’en, Keith brought in 5 movies of terrifying horror & horrifying terror: Dracula (1931),  The Mummy (1932), The Wolf Man (1941), and The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954.  The Creature won the vote. Although very dated, and “scientifically-challenged”,  it proved quite enjoyable.

Rhodan issue 2827
Newest issue, due to be released on Oct 23rd.

Sylvain had an excellent presentation prepared on Perry Rhodan.  We were astonished by the scope of this serial space-opera, the most successful science fiction series ever written. There are several story arcs, called “cycles” , and more popular characters such as Atlan have inspired spin-offs.  There are conventions, collectibles, toys, and so on. Some of us had seen it in French translations, but others wondered how we had managed not to hear of such a huge phenomena. The official website is here: http://www.perry-rhodan.net/  Clicking on the international tab will bring up some English pages, but I found that Google translation worked quite well.

 

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After a short break and the raffle draw, Keith and Sylvain teamed up to show us different aspects of the the Thunderbirds, in honour of the 50th anniversary. We saw something of the history of the show, the making of the marionettes, the fantastic models, and even silly plot-holes none of us noticed way back in our childhoods, but seem glaringly obvious now.  There were wonderfully cool machines doing super-cool things, like moving the Empire State Building. Totally impractical, especially as the engineers on the job failed to take note of the underground river, but wow, it was so cooool. 😉

We were supposed to continue work on our animation project, but we were running late, some members were absent, and we decided we’d rather spend more time remembering the Thunderbirds and Gerry Anderson.

Supper was at La Cage au Sports, Bell Centre. We kicked around some ideas for next year’s programming.  The November meeting will have to be trimmed a bit to make room for discussing 2016 programming, and working on dropping big rocks on innocent dinosaurs.

 

 

September 20 Meeting Re-Cap

The theme for September 20th was Heavens Above! and telescopes took centre stage. Also all four corners of the room and the front porch of the hotel!

Guests Bill Strople and David Shuman, both members of the RASC Montreal Centre, brought in telescopes as did MonSFFA members Wayne Glover, Lindsay Brown, and Mark Burakoff.  We got to see a classic refractor from the 50s, Newtonian & SCT reflectors, and a Coronado made specifically for solar viewing. The sky being clear, members were able to view our sun in all its glory, showing prominences and filaments.  After supper, we viewed the moon through Lindsay’s telescope.

But starting from the beginning:

Logans_run_movie_posterEarly birds arriving at 11 AM watched Logan’s Run, a classic from 1976. Most members felt the movie stood up today, even though quite rooted in the style of the 70’s.  Seeing it again with new eyes and more experience of the world, some members saw a deeper, more religious feeling to the movie.

MonSFFA 20150920-23
David verifies settings on the Coronado

David Shuman then set up his Coronado on the hotel’s front porch, so members came and went back and forth as he changed filters and settings to see different aspects of our nearest star.

Meanwhile, Bill Strople set up a huge, long focal length refractor from the 50s, and a brand new, not even on the market yet, Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian mount.

IMGP8379 refractor
Classic refractor from the 50s
Bill with new Dob
New Dob from Explore Scientific, Engineering sample.

Photos are by Cathy and Sylvain, click the thumbnails for larger photos.

 

 

PIC_0332 Mark with sct LR
Mark sets up Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. (SCT)

 

Wayne, Lindsay, and Mark set up their Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes as well.  How does an SCT work?
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Bill then gave a presentation on all the different types on display, explaining each one’s strengths and weaknesses. Mark Mark beginner astro kitfollowed up with an introduction to observing for the beginner, recommending binoculars and finder charts.  Cathy pointed out the importance of magazines such as Astronomy and Sky & Telescope.  Many telescopes languish in closets because their owners got bored with the moon and didn’t know where else to point their scopes. Both magazines have extensive websites covering everything & everything of an astronomical nature,

Bill refractor & SCT
Bill explains why observers have a marked preference for the SCT over the classic refractor. A refractor the equivalent of the SCT on the right might require a pick up truck for transportation.

MonSFFA 20150920-02

 

 

 

Sylvain posted cartoons with an astronomy theme, and there were various books and planispheres on display as well. A planishere  of the southern sky proved intriguing as members realized there was no equivalent in the south to our north star.

Postcards from Pluto, a slide presentation, followed. Cathy showed the latest images from New Horizons. On display, was the poster for the discovery of Pluto, autographed by Clyde Tombaugh himself.

Title pageAfter the raffle, we discussed our Stop Motion project which we had not completed last month. (Stop-Motion Project Storyboards are here.) Plans were made, assignments handed out, members have homework!! (However, design a dinosaur sounds a lot more interesting than any homework I ever assigned. )

cage croppedSupper was at la Cage au Sports, but not the one across the street that we usually frequent as that one it turned out was closed for renovations. Fortunately, it is only a short walk to the Bell Centre.

After supper, we observed the moon over the police station with Lindsay’s telescope and Mark’s binoculars. Had we arrived 20 minutes earlier we would have seen Saturn., but it was hidden behind the bulk of the station.

MonSFFA 20150920-31moon watching cropped and brightenedThere is talk of arranging an observing session from a dark sky. Stay tuned.

 

More photographs and video segments are available to our members.

May 31st Meeting

The Tour de l’Île de Montréal, also known as the Detour de l’ile, was not as effective at keeping members away from our meeting as some other events have been, but it was a nuisance. The detour the organizers advised me to take didn’t work as the ramp to the Bonaventure was closed for construction. I did say a few naughty words….

And then said a few more when I got to the hotel and found the room still set up for previous meeting, complete with dirty coffee cups, and a gazillion chairs that obviously had been moved in there for storage.

IMGP7905However, a few more early birds showed up and the organization for the book sale got underway. My thanks to Matthew, Grace, Marc, Wayne, Marquise, Josée, and others who wandered in to heave chairs and boxes of books around. The sale was a success by our standards–first count seems to be about 180$ for books, and then there was more that came in for snacks. Many thanks here go to Linzy Brown who baked utterly gorgeous cupcakes with flowers.

Cupcakes, SSPThe flowery cupcakes were in keeping with our meeting theme. Last month we celebrated the April showers, so May flowers had to follow. There were flowered shirts, flowers pinned to shirts, the aforementioned cupcake flowers, and Danny pointed out that there were flowers on the money, and all of us had at least a nickle, LOL, so all of us qualified for the participation draw in December.

Sylvain St-Pierre gave an excellent presentation on how well, or not, the future predictions of the past held up.  He had a number of very interesting posters about the room, several of which will find their way to our members’ page in the near future, (insert snicker).

Conversations during the break were quite lively, as the book sale was still going on, and we all had opinions on what was a good read and what was less good. Okay, dross, but hey, the covers drew the eyes, at least those of the men. Other conversations ranged from Puppies, both sad and rabid, to Montreal’s bid for the World Con in 2017. There was a hive of activity surrounding Sean Peatman and his new bride, Melanie. A lovely lady, no wonder we have seen so little of Sean!
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IMGP7913After the break, Keith Braithwaite led a discussion on the work of Glen Larson. The general feeling was that his work may have been derivative, but we enjoyed watching his productions, especially BattleStar Galactica. Keith had some clips of shows that never seemed to have made it to Montreal.

Many, many thank yous are due to the MonsFolk who packed up the left over books, and shoved nearly all of them into MY car. Good Grief, Charlie Brown. The boxes are all heaped up in my basement waiting for me to get them on shelves, which will happen one of these days, maybe before Christmas…

For supper, we journeyed up to the Belle et la boeuf, http://www.belleetboeuf.com/ The hamburgers and poutines were devine, the decor featured a wall of books, LPs, and magazines from the past, which was rather apropos given the book sale and the two presentations which both featured a nostalgic aspect. It was fun picking out the old stuff of our memories, and some stuff even older like wooden farm implements. The menu was terribly funny with names like Capitaine Flam and Pac Mac. The drinks were hilarious, Linzi’s drink (the Miss Piggy) came with a twist of bacon! It was very noisy, however, and children are not allowed, so I don’t know if we will be able to keep going there.

A good meeting! Thanks to all who wrangled the boxes and furniture, gave presentations, donated drinks and snacks, and packed up the books again at the end.

Remember to start collecting all the gear you need for a trip to the Jurassic World, most probably on the 14th of June.

Meeting recap, some news of interest to members

April 26 Meeting

Early birds arriving around 11 O’clock were entertained by a series of clips compiled by Sylvain st-Pierre: ATTACK OF THE SPONSORS FROM MARS. These often hilarious TV adverts were mostly new to us.

Giant antThe SF Cinema Matinée, hosted by Keith Braithwaite, featured BUGS. Five movie titles were on offer, the winner was THEM!. The audience was impressed especially by the strong  dialogue and reasonably sound science. It holds up well.

Paleo Art,Archaeopteryx again presented by Keith Braithwaite, Jurassic Art–Painting the Prehistoric Past, proved very interesting especially as he showed the evolution of our interpretation of the fossils.
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News: Danny Sichel gave a brief presentation on The SCP Foundation and also advised us of a sale of used library books. The sale is Saturday, second of May, to Sunday 10th of May, from 13h to 19, at  l’Aréna Etienne-Desmarteau, 3430, rue de Bellechasse. Bring lots of bags–apparently the entire floor of the arena is packed with books discarded from several Montreal libraries. almost 11 thousand books and magazines in fact, and every day books are added to replace those sold. WEBSITE with map, pictures, poster.

 computer-condomSwimming with Cyber Sharks–-Tips on Protecting Your Computer From Attack:  Steven Janssen gave an interesting presentation on protecting our computers. The main lesson learned was to create strong Pa$$Words. Common phishing tactics and frauds were also discussed.

Supper was at La Cage, where we were bombarded by noise as the restaurant was packed to the rafters with hockey fans. Ah, well, at least we got seats, and service was reasonably quick in spite of the crowd.

March 22 Meeting Recap

Loooong meeting, since we started at 11:00 AM to avoid the parade and possible manif problems. I didn’t notice when we wound up, but I think it was at least 5:00PM!!

Due to work being done in St-François, the hotel graciously offered us the use of Grand Salon, connected to Saguenay and Richelieu for our snacks displays, books, etc. The Salon is a wonderful space in which to show movies!

The meeting was well attended, with three members sporting crazy hats, and a few others wearing St Patrick’s Day Parade paraphernalia. The crazy hat winner was Marquise, who was wearing a cow!

Sylvain’s presentation “Trailer Trash”  was met with much laughter. Keith followed this up at noon with the first of the SF Cinema Matinee mornings. The members present for this event carefully read the hand outs, watched the trailers, and voted for the movie they wished to see: It Came From Outer Space.  A movie ahead of its time it turned out, as the aliens, though grotesque in appearance, harboured no ill intent toward Earth’s inhabitants.

René Walling was up next with a great presentation on anime for the SF/F Fan. He showed trailers from television series and movies for anime in various genre categories that would appeal to SF & Fantasy fans.  We were also provided with printed handouts listing his recommendations.  (This list is on line, just click this sentence.)

Raffle tickets & snacks were sold during the break, netting the club 41$.  This income is  important to us, so thank you all who contributed to the cause.

After the break, we debated the future of the printed WARP. Options from one extreme to the other:  no printed WARP to printed WARPs for all members,  Members agreed we needed printed WARPs available for those who wanted them, but cost is a major issue. For WARP 90, Cathy printed copies on her own printer, in colour, for an estimated cost of 5$ an issue.  Keith will print WARP 91 in b&w, with some colour, so we will have a chance to see how that possibility works out.   A few members suggested they would be willing to pay a little more for a colour issue. It was pointed out that since the club was founded, membership fees have been raised only once, from 20$ to 25$, yet our costs have risen a lot more, especially for the meeting space.  Another option could be offering the colour copies to platinum members.

The debate lasted much longer than expected, proof of our members’ attachment to WARP. Final decision will be taken after the WARP 91 experiment.  In the meantime, we value your input into this important discussion, so please do contact us with your thoughts and ideas:  <executive@monsffa.ca> 

Cathy showed a screen capture of our website, pointing out the members only page, and the subscribe button. We also saw how Terry Pratchett’s name is being shown in our website’s “clacks overhead”.

Changes in our meeting schedule for April and May, programming for next few months, and the problem of the July BBQ without a BBQ completed the roundup of club news.

Got Books?  Danny had several very interesting books, René presented a more recent unusual title, Cathy spoke about Terry Pratchett, with emphasis on her favourite Discworld novel: Going Postal, and François brought “Frankenstein” , a classic we all know about, but few of us have read. René suggested we do this more often, maybe with short readings, but fitting Got Books into a regular meeting along with the SF Cinema Matinée, may prove too much in too little time. Cathy has long wanted a reading group, but this also requires more time than we have.

Supper was at the Indian Restaurant since La Cage was stuffed full of soccer fans. The food was good, the atmosphere conducive to conversation, so our day came to a very pleasant ending with coffee and dessert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

February meeting, quick re-cap

dragon in colour copyGreetings, MonSSFen and Friends:

The February meeting had members coming in from the cold, and others sick with a cold, and some left out in the cold because trains were not running.

So we were few in number, about a dozen or so, I think, but we had a good time.

Sylvain brought some pre-meeting entertainment in the form of romantic tv comics that also led into his presentation on Hanna-Barbera’s Toth years. As usual, the presentation was very slick, using really cool special effects. Cathy inadvertently nicked Keith’s keys, which sent everyone scrambling to find them.  Danny gave an excellent presentation on wishes and how they never seem to work the way you expect them to.
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The raffle prizes were really good thanks to donations from members, Sylvain in particular.  Snacks included Valentine chocolates, candy hearts, and red-iced cupcakes.

Seven of us went for supper at the Cage au Sports, and indulged in more calories.

A really sweet meeting!