on providing material

The matter of providing materials to the participants of the RASC new telescope owners clinic came up again.

Eric suggested that USB keys might be good to do. And he wondered about a source who may provide complimentary units. However, it was a little indefinite. And would not be possible to determine, it sounded like, until January. A little late maybe, this time 'round.

Steve wondered how much USB keys might cost. I surmised that small capacity ones could be had for cheap, probably. That said, I reminded everyone that I did not have a big budget for the event. And much of it would possibly be consumed in advertising and a bit of photocopying. There'd also be the matter of transferring gathered content to the keys.

I did admit to really like the idea in principle. In a perfect world, I'd like us to provide branded keys. USB keys with the RASC logo. That'd be really awesome. Alas...

Someone suggested optical discs. Again, not a bad idea, but still expensive. And tedious to make. Probably more time consuming then USB.

And then Steve suggested the perfect solution. We can just put the material and links on our web site. Cheap. Easy to update. Easy to keep fresh. Most of the stuff is online anyway. And it would drive people back into our web site. At least once. We can track it. Cool. Not as easily lost. Arguable. All we'd need to do would be to provide a single, one-page handout, neat and tidy, with one link!

Done! (Well, consider it done.) Now we need to assemble good content...