Please contact Martin George if, after reading the information below, you have any queries, and especially if you have nominations!

IPS Officer Elections 2024

IPS members are asked to put forward their nominations for Officer positions of President-Elect, Executive Secretary and Treasurer for 2025-26. These elections are held every two years. Current Executive Secretary Derek Demeter and Treasurer Michael Smail are both eligible for re-nomination, and IPS will also be electing a new President-Elect. The terms of office for the winning candidates will begin on 2025 January 1 and end on 2026 December 31. The President-Elect will be IPS President in 2027-28 and Past President in 2029-30.

Multiple nominations for all positions (especially President-Elect) are highly desirable, so we encourage nominations from the worldwide IPS membership.

Please first discuss your nomination with your nominee, then send nominations to Martin George, Chair of the IPS Elections Committee, at martingeorge3@hotmail.com. Nominations close at the time of the IPS General Meeting at the upcoming 2024 IPS Conference in Germany in July.

Please contact Martin George if you have any queries about these positions, or the election process.

IPS Board Member Elections 2024

In addition to nominations for Officer positions, IPS is seeking nominations for Board Member positions in four of the six continental zones: Europe, Asia, Latin America and North America. In Europe and Latin America, the Board Members whose current terms will finish at the end of 2024 (Anna Green and Marco Avalos Dittel, respectively) are eligible for re-election.

In regions covered by an IPS Affiliate, Board Member nominations are to be made by the Affiliate, which, if approved, will make the nomination on your behalf. In regions not covered by an affiliate, IPS members may nominate Board Members directly.

The newly elected Board Members will have three-year terms beginning on 2025 January 1 and ending on 2027 December 31. Board Member nominations close on 2024 August 1 at 0h UT, and are to be sent to Martin George, Chair of the IPS Elections Committee.

President Elect - Michael McConville

Executive Secretary - Patricia Seaton

Treasurer - Mike Smail

The IPS would like to thank all of the candidates who stood for a position, and congratulate the new officers. In addition we would like to thank all of the IPS members who voted in the election.

The new officers will begin their terms at the beginning of the new year.

Tuesday, December 15, 2020 – The International Planetarium Society (IPS) is pleased to announce the newest member to their advisory council, Association of South America Planetariums (APAS). The two associations have previously collaborated on multiple initiatives in an effort to promote and achieve collective goals. They are excited to continue their partnership as they work together towards the common mission of advancement and cooperation among planetariums worldwide. 

“In December of last year, our members came together for the XI APAS meeting at La Plata Planetarium in Argentina,” shared Diego Bagú, President of the Association of South America Planetariums. “More than 40 of our planetarians and representatives attended and agreed to move to be move forward with the IPS Affiliation process.” 

“This past November the IPS Board unanimously approved the affiliate application by APAS,” said Mark Subbarao, President of the International Planetarium Society. “APAS will join our council of 23 other affiliate partners, helping us provide creative and supportive resources for innovation, advancement, and cooperation among the planetariums worldwide.”

APAS joins IPS as the 24th affiliate partner, furthering IPS in its mission to provide the planetarium community professional development, science literacy and arts/humanities awareness, innovative ideas, and partnerships on a global scale. 

This expansion IPS in South America and the partnership with APAS as an affiliate partner occurred thanks to Ángela Patricia Pérez Henao (Jesús Emilio Ramírez Planetarium, Medellín, Colombia), Carlos Molina (Bogotá Planetarium, Colombia), Guilherme Frederico Marranghelo (UNIPAMPA Planetarium, Bagé, Brazil), Nélio Martins da Silva Azevedo Sasaki (Digital Planetarium of Manaus and Parintins, Brazil) and Bryant González (Proyecto Mochileros Astronómicos, Venezuela). They all provided their names and membership of IPS as part of the necessary requirements for membership, as well as the efforts of the people involved in the entire negotiation: the President of the IPS, Mark Subbarao (Adler Planetarium, USA), the President of the APAS, Diego Bagu (Planetarium of the National University of La Plata, Argentina), the Secretary of APAS, Paulo Sobreira (Juan Bernardino Marques Barrio Planetarium, Goiânia, Brazil) and the representative of IPS in Latin America, Alexandre Cherman (ABP and Planetarium of the City of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).

About the International Planetarium Society (IPS)

The International Planetarium Society is the global association of planetarium professionals. Its nearly 500 members come from 50 countries around the world. They represent schools, colleges and universities, museums, and public facilities of all sizes, including both fixed and portable planetariums.

About the Association of South America Planetariums (APAS)

APAS, previously known as Southern Cone Planetariums, was established in 1975 in Montevideo. In 1997, it was renamed Mercosur Planetariums in Porto Alegre, Brazil. In 2013 the association was renamed the Association of South America Planetariums (APAS), in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Today APAS has 19 institutional planetariums that are active in 6 countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, and Uruguay).

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
WASHINGTON DEPOT, CT - May 19th, 2020

The International Planetarium Society (IPS) signed a partnership agreement with Slooh so that member planetariums can offer their constituents the ability to learn to explore space from home using Slooh’s network of online telescopes. Participating planetariums will use Slooh to create online astronomy clubs for people in the communities they serve, leveraging Slooh’s social platform for communal exploration of space.

“Slooh’s innovative platform for space exploration will help planetariums that have been forced to close due to the coronavirus to continue to fulfill their mission”, said Mark Subbarao, President of the IPS. “The global pandemic had shuttered almost all of the world’s planetariums. This partnership will provide a new way for planetariums to serve their audiences while closed.”

“Slooh is designed to scale affordably by gathering people to share live views of space from online telescopes while learning from each other”, said Michael Paolucci, Founder of Slooh. “We believe in the power of connecting humanity through communal exploration of the Universe, as the coronavirus reminds us that we are all in this together.”

Among the first planetariums to leverage Slooh’s platform is the Fleischmann Planetarium and Science Center in Reno, Nevada. “We see Slooh’s Astronomy Club product as a great way to engage our local students safely and energetically in real research and exploration, to help us help them reach for the stars, while creating a community of explorers and artists, scientists and stargazers”, said Paul McFarlane, Director of the Fleischmann Planetarium and Science Center, University of Nevada, Reno.

Slooh makes a game of learning to explore space for students of all ages and is an inspiring way for schools to incorporate astronomy into a STEAM curriculum and teach scientific reasoning. Slooh's flagship observatory is situated at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC), one of the finest observatory sites in the world and home to the largest telescope in the world. Slooh has developed a gamified curriculum with support from the National Science Foundation which challenges people to hunt down phenomenon in space and follow in the footsteps of famous discoveries in a self-directed learning environment.

In response to the global quarantine and shutdown of schools, Slooh.com launched a new Student Membership tier for just $20 per year, and as low as $10 per student per year when purchased in quantity by school groups. Slooh's Online Space Camp for 4th to 8th grade students begins June 8th. For more information about Slooh’s products for schools, visit Slooh Education.

About International Planetarium Society

The International Planetarium Society (IPS) is the global association of planetarium professionals. The International Planetarium Society is the creative and supportive resource for innovation, advancement, and cooperation among the planetariums worldwide. The International Planetarium Society provides the planetarium community with professional development, science literacy and arts awareness, and partnerships in order to enhance the world’s appreciation and understanding of our universe. Its nearly 700 members come from over 50 countries around the world. They represent schools, colleges and universities, museums, and public facilities of all sizes, including both fixed and portable planetariums. More than 20 regional and national planetarium associations from around the world are affiliated with IPS.

About Slooh

Slooh’s amazing new interface to space features a new educational product Astronomy Club for students to learn to explore space via Slooh’s global network of online telescopes. Slooh’s live coverage of celestial events including potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs), comets, transits, eclipses, and solar activity are syndicated to media outlets from its partner observatories worldwide. Slooh’s automated observatories develop celestial image streams in real-time for broadcast to the Internet, and Slooh’s technology is protected by Patent No.: US 7,194,146 B2 which was awarded in 2006. Slooh recently published a book, The Saturn Above It, An Anthology of Short Fiction About Space. Slooh is supported by investment from Connecticut Innovations, the State’s venture capital investment fund. Slooh is hiring software engineers and astronomy educators.

For more information, please email Slooh's Director of Education, Russ Glenn at education@slooh.com, or call (877) 427-5664 ext 4.

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/slooh/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SloohLive/

If you've wondered what it might be like to spend a week with the GDP (Society of German-Speaking Planetariums), the newest of the "week in" professional development programs sponsored by IPS, then you need to read Derek Demeter's report.

Go to https://www.ips-planetarium.org/page/VirtualVisits

The GDP Wants You!

Imagine: a week of professional development that could take you to the Swiss Alps, a magnificent Austrian castle, or the German Black Forest. 

Now imagine gracious hosts, funds toward your airfare, and time to immerse yourself in planetarium culture.

This, briefly, is “A Week With the GDP,” the newest professional and cultural development opportunity sponsored by IPS.

Intrigued? Go to the Week with the GDP page at https://www.ips-planetarium.org/page/Weekwithgdp.

Don't take too long, however: Applications are being accepted between now and 31 December.

The first change elevates the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Working Group to the status of a standing committee. 

The second change requires conference bidders to include a statement on EDI, and also requests that conference keynote speakers reflect the diversity of IPS.

Both of these changes were spurred by an open letter sent to the IPS leadership In light of the discussions following the 2022 IPS conference site selection. In that letter, invested IPS members  addressed concerns regarding EDI and proposed a plan of action. 

These votes make the rule changes necessary to pursue that plan of action. Other items in the letter will be taken up by the EDI standing committee. All interested IPS members are invited to join that committee and help move that work forward.

The IPS leadership would like to thank the letter writers for working constructively to help us build a better IPS.

More details, of course, will be shared in the new future.

Council expressed sincere appreciation to Carolyn Sumners from the Houston Museum of Natural Science for its equally strong bid presentation. 

Please be aware that It was an extremely difficult decision. Council considered the concerns of all facets of the IPS community, trying to balance the needs of each with the needs of IPS as a society.

Make requests via the new form: "Contact the IPS Education Committee" [https://www.ips-planetarium.org/page/helpteaching] ...and a member of the IPS Education committee will help you with ideas from planetarians around the world on best practices for presenting content or leading activities under the dome.

Instructions on how to renew membership may be found on the Tips for Members page - https://www.ips-planetarium.org/page/tips

Accounts are set up to give members a 30-day grace period, so no one is cut off from membership benefits if the renewal takes a little time.

The September 2018 Planetarian is now available as a pdf online.

Remember that you need to be logged in as a member to see it; find the link under the Members Only menu.

Date: Wed, Sep 5, 2018 at 11:20 AM
Subject: IPS2022 Conference Bidders Letters

Dear IPS Members,

Bids for the IPS2022 Conference were presented during our Council Meeting and at the General Assembly in Toulouse this summer from St. Petersburg, Russia and Houston, Texas (USA).  Following the bids serious concerns were expressed regarding safety and security of LGBQT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender, questioning/inclusive) persons at both proposed conference sites.  The IPS officers and council members called a special meeting to discuss these issues.  We then sent a letter to each bidder requesting their responses to these concerns.  Based on the responses provided, both sites have pledged to abide by the IPS Code of Conduct and provide a safe and welcoming environment for all IPS members and conference participants.

The IPS Officers sincerely appreciate each of our IPS2022 Conference bidders for their thorough responses to these concerns.  Their letters may be viewed here [http://www.ips-planetarium.org; click on links to each document below]. We encourage members to read them as they consider which venue they recommend to their affiliate representative before their final vote at the IPS Council Meeting in 2019.

russia-ips_about_lgbtq.pdf

usa-ips_about_lgbtq.pdf

If you have any additional concerns related to these letters, please contact your affiliate representative and the IPS Officers.

Sincerely,

Shawn Laatsch, IPS President

From Björn Voss, for the IPS Planetarium Centennial team
bjoern.voss@lwl.org

IPS’s new project to prepare a year of celebrations for the centennial of the planetarium starting in 2023 is progressing well. Many ideas for activities during the Centennial were suggested during two workshops and a meeting at IPS2018 and at the annual conference of GDP, the Society of the German-Speaking Planetsriums affiliate.

These are now available for comment on a digital canvas, courtesy of Centennial Committee member Ryan Wyatt, at padlet.com/ryanwyatt/planetarium_centennial.

The ideas and suggestions on this canvas are, as of now, presented in just the way they were proposed, unfiltered and unweighted. Please check them out and comment or vote on them! Also, if you have further ideas, please post them to the canvas or let us know by email at centennial@gdp-planetarium.org.

While you think about additional activities for the centennial year, please keep in mind that the celebration is not just about the events of 1923-1925. It is meant to celebrate the entire 100 years that have passed since then, focusing on all aspects of our business, and thus it is also meant to be vendor-neutral.

Most importantly, if you would like to contribute to one of the projects, you are more than welcome to work with us on your favorite ideas; please get in touch with us!

For President-Elect (in alphabetical order):

• Levant Gurdemir
• Kaoru Kimura
• Maciej Ligowski

For Executive Secretary: Patty Seaton
(unopposed; current Secretary Rachel Thompson is not seeking re-election)

For Treasurer: Ann Bragg
(unopposed; seeking re-election)

Full details and statement from the candidates will appear in the September Planetarian and on the website.

Pictured: IPS Past President Joanne Young, Kaoru Kimura, Daniel Audeon, Karrie Berglund, and Mike Bruno. Photo by Olivier Hernandez. Three new fellows were unable to attend the conference: Tayna Hill, Dan Neafus, and Mark Rigby.

Past President Martin George receives the IPS Service Award from President Shawn Laatsch.	Ohira Takayuki of Megastar accepts the IPS Technology Award from Awards Committee Chair Manos Kitsanos.

Full details of the awards and the recipients will appear in the September Planetarian. 

Photo of IPS President Shawn Laatsch ‍speaking at the signing ceremony in Xuyi, 
From China Global Television Network (CGTN) - Eastern China town building 'The Sky Eye' to attract world astronomy lover.

If you cannot wait for your print edition to arrive in the mail, you can download the June 2018 Planetarian from the members only section!

If you're not a member, you're missing out! It's never too late to join.

A message from Elections Committee Chair Martin George:

As you are aware, 2018 is an election year for the IPS. Later this year, we shall all be voting for the next President-Elect, Secretary, and Treasurer who will hold those positions during 2019-20.

The President-Elect will be President in 2021-22 and Past President in 2023-24.

Nominations are now open for these positions. Nominations also will be taken from the floor at the General Meeting in Toulouse during IPS 2018, but the Elections Committee seeks nominations well in advance.

If you would like to nominate an IPS member for any of these positions, please let me know. I am pleased to work with several dedicated Elections Committee members and if you would like any further information about these roles, we should be happy to help.

My email: martingeorge3@hotmail.com

I look forward to hearing from you, and especially to seeing you at IPS 2018!

Planetariums around the world are gearing up for the 2018 celebration of International Day of Planetariums on 11 March.

If you need some ideas for activities or just want to see what another planetarium is doing, check the IDP page and download best practices from Astronomical Center Rijeka!

Portable Planetariums: remember to enter the contest for the World-wide Outreach Portable Planetarium event!

Learn more here: IDP2018

• NASA Virtual Reality for Informal Education and Planetarium Shows is a collection of media, Uniview, and Digital Sky 2 Buttons. It includes spherical images/videos using equirectangular warping, which should be usable by most digital planetarium systems, goggle VR, and smartphone VR setups with minimum extra work. Direct link is https://informal.jpl.nasa.gov/museum/VR.
  
  
• An Orion Nebula in Visible and Infrared Light sequence, shown by Frank Summers at the Pleiades conference in October 2017. Direct links:
  HD version:https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/videos/1233-Video?keyword=Orion
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maqCZhIg9uU
  
  Dome version:https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/videos/1153-Video?Format=Dome&Topic=104-stars-and-nebulas&keyword=Orion
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42jCVx9e7_c
  
   

The December Planetarian is arriving soon in mailboxes in the United States - and is on its way a bit slower to boxes around the world.

If you cannot wait for your print version to arrive, log in as a member and read the pdf version!

The Code:

The community of participants at IPS conferences and in the planetarium and astronomy education field is made up of members from around the globe with a diverse set of skills, personalities, and experiences. It is through these differences that our community experiences success and continued growth. We expect everyone in our community to follow these guidelines when interacting with others both inside and outside of our community. Our goal is to maintain a positive, inclusive, successful, and growing community.

As members of the International Planetarium Society community,

• We pledge to treat all people with respect and provide a harassment and bullying-free environment, regardless of sex, sexual orientation and/or gender identity, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, nationality, ethnicity, and religion. In particular, sexual language and imagery, sexist, racist, or otherwise exclusionary jokes are not appropriate. We will treat those outside our community with the same respect as people within our community.
• We pledge that all discussions between members of the community should be done with respect, and we pledge to take proactive measure to ensure that all participants are heard and feel confident that they can freely express their opinions.
• We pledge to help the entire community follow the code of conduct and to not remain silent when we note violations. Violations should be reported to IPS officers.

This code of conduct applies to all community situations, including conferences, associated social events, on social media, and one-on-one interactions.

This statement has been adapted from the Great Lakes Planetarium Association and Astropy Community Code of Conduct as further adapted by the Kepler K2 Science Conference, licensed by a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Permanent link to the IPS Code of Conduct

• Lullaby for Lindsay (3 Mb; 2:50)
• Moon Rising (3.5 Mb; 3:42)
• Perseid (3.5 Mb; 3:35)
• Planetary Drift (3.2 Mb; 3:20)
• Remember November (3.9 Mb; 4:05)
• Space Soliloquy (4.3 Mb; 4:26)

In return for the contributions we provide a link to John Hohnstein's Mystic Machine website (http://www.mysticmachine.com/). Any composer that contributes free pieces to the IPS free music web page gets a link to his/her website in appreciation. This can be construed as advertising, but it's in return for something of direct value and relevance.

Congratulations to the Tellus World of Science - Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, selected as the site of the 2020 IPS Conference, June 21-25, 2020. Stay tuned for details.

IPS is already soliciting written bids for the 2022 conference, due on 1 June 2018 in time for IPS Council Meeting in Toulouse.
Contact President Shawn Laatsch or President-Elect Mark SubbaRao for more information.