Notes from December 6, 2001 meeting.

John, Jonathan, Gerry, Shannon, Kelly, and Dave attended.

1. We compared the TMS-SD merchandise purchased on cafepress.com. The t-shirts, 
sweatshirt, hats, and mugs all looked great. The quality of the tote bags and 
mousepads was inconsistent. The website address was very faint on Dave's order 
and the Mars picture on Shannon's totebag had a visible shadow. Gerry promised 
to upload a new picture to address the problem.

2. Shannon reported on her good fortune in being picked for the Mars Desert 
Research Station's shakedown run during the Christmas and New Years weeks. She 
said the duties will be just to make sure the habitat is properly operating and 
to do science recons of the surrounding terrain. She said she was looking forward 
to "being a biologist" for those two weeks. She promised to keep a diary for 
posting on the chapter's website.

3. We discussed our plans for our tour as Mission Control from mid-February to 
mid-March. Kelly reported that the Mars Society gave us the green light to design 
an experiment. Dave has contacted CalSpace at UCSD about that. We also discussed 
whether cocoa (chocolate) could grow in the MDRS greenhouse, perhaps with a 
tie-in to Mars candy company.

4. Gerry and John reported on Wednesday night's outreach at the Fleet Science 
Center. Gerry had his powerpoint presentation about water on Mars running. They 
talked to a number of people about Mars and the Mars Society and got varying 
reactions. People seemed most interested when told about specific projects run 
by the Mars Society and our chapter.

5. Jonathan promised to look into a speaker he has a contact with from the 
Smithsonian, who is an avid Mars enthusiast. Gerry said that the Fleet is willing 
to work with us in presenting speakers.

6. We tentatively decided to have a presence of some kind at ConDor on February 
22-24, 2002. We also started making plans for next year's ComicCon. Our goal is 
to run two panel discussions with different themes: one more hard-science 
oriented and the other more artistically and science-fiction oriented. There 
was talk about trying to establish an on-line link to Flashline at the Con or 
to MDRS at ConDor.

7. Gerry also asked that people think about ways to improve the website and 
other outreach ventures.

8. We also discussed funding and organization of the chapter.

9. We decided to have Mars Movie Night on Friday, December 21 at 7 pm at Gerry's 
studio. This month's movie is Robinson Crusoe on Mars. Bring your dates, if you 
got 'em, and beverages to go with the popcorn Gerry will provide.

10. We concluded with two videos provided by Jonathan and Gerry. One about the 
founding convention of the Mars Society. The other was a silent video showing 
some of the construction and preparation by NASA of Mars Global Surveyor and 
Mars Odyssey for launch.

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