FORMER AST PRESIDENT TAKES ON
WORLD ROLE
By Karenne Barnes
AST Member Martin George has recently taken on a very significant role:
as of January 1, 2005, he has been President of the International Planetarium
Society (IPS).
The IPS is the world body of planetarium professionals, with membership
in 50 countries. The Society's Council consists of the five-member elected
executive in addition to representatives from each of 22 affiliate groups
around the world, including the Australasian Planetarium Society (of which
Martin is Secretary).
Martin has been involved with the IPS for many years, and in 2002 was honoured
by being made a Fellow. His role as President was preceded by a two-year
period as President-Elect, following elections held in December 2002.
He is the first President from the southern hemisphere in the long history
of the organisation. After his two-year Presidential period, Martin
will remain on the IPS Executive for two further years as Past President.
Martin's role which is, of course, in addition to his role as Curator of
Astronomy and Manager of Collections and Information Services at the Queen
Victoria Museum in Launceston has kept him very busy indeed. As
well, shortly after he became President-Elect in January 2003, he took over
for the rest of that year and part of the next as Acting Director of the
Museum owing to the illness of the Director.
Martin's IPS duties are many, and include dealing with day-to-day IPS issues;
overseeing the various Committees of the IPS (himself serving as Chair of
the Finance and Language Committees); working on matters of IPS policy;
and ensuring ongoing liaison between the IPS and the Research Astronomy
and Space Science Communities.
He will also be playing a major role in the organisation of the next biennial
IPS conference, to be held in Melbourne in 2006. It will be the first time
that an IPS conference has ever been held in the southern hemisphere!
IPS matters take up a good deal of Martin's time, requiring him to be overseas
quite frequently. Over the past several months, IPS affairs have taken
him to Brazil, Spain, the UK, Finland, China and the USA. He just
managed to make it back to Australia for Christmas 2004 after a finance
meeting in North Carolina, but his timing was immaculate he managed to obtain
a superb view of the Geminid Meteors under a clear, dark sky in the North
Carolina countryside.
Coming up, things will probably become still more busy. But Martin
somehow nevertheless manages to squeeze in his favourite pastime playing
bridge, of which he is an Australian Grand Master. He currently, however,
has much less time for the game and is the first to admit that he is getting
a little rusty.
Does all of this mean that Martin's interest in amateur astronomy is waning?
Not at all. He's still out there using the telescope whenever he can,
and continues to drive long distances at short notice to dark sky sites
if there is some chance of a nice auroral display. And as far as this
author or Martin himself is aware, he is the only AST member to have been
to every NACAA (the biennial National Australian Convention of Amateur Astronomers)
since 1972, in addition to being an AST member continuously since 1970.
So if you find that Martin is sometimes a difficult person with whom to
get in touch, don't be too surprised. And I, myself, am never surprised
to hear such announcements as "I'm off to China on Friday". But in
spite of his hectic lifestyle, he still loves his work in Tasmania and, of
course, the AST.
