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1976

 

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May. Social meetings move to the Horseshoe Bar in Drury St., Glasgow - unsuccessfully. After June they moved again to the Waterloo, on Waterloo St., but died away over the following year.

As 1976 went on the internal problems became acute, with complete disagreement about how to handle them because the old constitution had been suspended and the new one had yet to be ratified. I resigned from the Vice-Presidency on 13th June, and the next few months were the first of the only two periods when I've been off the Council since 1963. (See 1989). Chris Boyce and Jim Campbell stepped in.

Aug.21. Ayrshire branch meeting. One reason why the troublemakers couldn't agree was that the one eventually expelled was opposed to all discussion of Contact with Other Intelligence, including the tracking station project. I had been chairing discussion meetings (which he insisted on disrupting) for as equal to "Man and the Stars", and to keep them going I held three meetings at the Sun Inn in Irvine, where I had previously run the Irvine Folk Song Club, and also hosted one meeting at home.

Sept.4. One troublemaker expelled, the only expulsion in all the years to date. The other resigned soon afterwards.

Oct.20. ASTRA signs lease for new premises at 49 Almada St., Hamilton. These gave us lecture room, lounge, office, workroom, kitchenette and toilet which was intended to be a darkroom, and were occupied for the next six years.

Nov.18. It had now emerged, by chance, that the Companies Office was holding up our application because they didn't believe the society was genuine. Once convinced of that, they had with drawn almost all objections to the name (the sticking point) except for the word 'Technology', which, they said, could cause us to be confused with the Association of Circuit Technologists Ltd. A number of other acronyms were considered, including Oscar's 'Association to Search for Those Trying to Radio Anyone', but in the end we settled for 'The Association in Scotland To Research into Astronautics, Limited', although it makes the acronym ungrammatical by capitalising the 'To'. However the best acronym to date was suggested later by Gordon Dick (Ross), 'A Set of Totally Reprehensible Alcoholics'.

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1975

1977

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Date Last Modified: 31 07 1999