We were approached by Grace Yick, park ranger for the Upper Newport Bay Nature Reserve, to put on an informal Astronomy program at the Peter and Mary Muth Interpretive Center over the summer.

I visited their facility on Friday and had a chance to discuss things in greater detail with her and to assess the capabilities of their center for our needs.

In short - I think we have an incredible opportunity to utilize an amazing facility in a way that will benefit both organizations and our local communities.

The center, only two years old, has a medium sized lecture hall (probably seats about 50+ people) and a class-room (seats approx 30+). It also has a number of permanent nature display areas related of course to the Newport By Nature Preserve.

The center is actually willing to put this on at no cost/low cost - especially as I suggested that we would not expect to get any remuneration for our part in this. The centers normal hours are from 10am until 4pm each day and they would be especially opening their center just for us. In view of this we agreed that an "optional" donation would be recommended at $2 per person. I think that would be very fair and reasonable.