Minutes of IOTA/EA inauguration meeting (H. Noda)
Date and time:
Sunday, August 27, 05:00UT start (14:00 JST)
via Zoom meeting
Live streaming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEgj8I9KMx4
1.Opening statement→Explanation will be done in EN (and JP),For Japanese participants, do not worry about English. Help will be made.
2Address by the provisional chairperson→--greetings from co-chairpersons Yoshida and Hayamizu:--Background of IOTA/EA establishment--Expressed thank you for IOTA membersʼ participation today--Congratulation of establishment of IOTA/EA
3 Introduction of the guests
4Greetings from guest representatives→-- Steve Preston: contribution by Japanese observers, measuring timing, tool developments,
NEA observation campaign of (3200) Phaethon, (65308) Didymos, excited to IOTA/EA
establishment.
-- David Dunham: welcome IOTA/EA establishment, good geographical expansion,
successful observation NEA of Japanese observers, good luck for IOTA/EA.
--Dave Gault: thanks for invitation, welcome working with everybody.
--Konrad Guhl (European Section): other view from IOTA/ES, which has members of multi
languages, small to big nations (Ireland to Russia) co-worked for 30 years. In ES,
communication is difficult, but collaboration with members from different cultures produces
positive effects for good future. ES can offer help to IOTA/EA.

--Dave Herald: good things to communicate in different languages, importance to try to learn
other languages. Online meetings enabled to face known personnels, e.g. Miyashita, Soma.
Setting this group is good. Long collaboration with Japanese members.
5Agenda ‒ Explanation of establishment and operation of the Association
5-(1) Draft of Bylaws, Rules and Regulations→Soma
He read the following slides one by one. For details, refer to webpage:https://www.perc.it-chiba.ac.jp/iota-ea/wp/iota-ea-bylaws/Articles--1 names and location--2 purpose--4 activities--6 members (regular, associate)--10 officers--13 general meetings--14 accounting FY2023 (Sep1-Jul31), FY2024(Aug1-July31)
Rules and Regulations
Note of Mailing list management
5-(2) Proposed Business Plan for 2023
→Yoshida
1 annual meetings--FY starts on Aug.1, ends on July 31, except FY2023 (Sep.1-).
--Meetings of FY2023 is todayʼs inauguration meeting.
2 providing information, discussions, research analysis, data storage.
--400th anniversary of the telescopic observation of a lunar occultation--Other observations campaign (will be listed on the website, now only (704) Interamnia isavailable)
3 website and mailing list management--Website: https://www.perc.it-chiba.ac.jp/iota-ea/wp/--Membersʼ-only Mailing list ml@iota-ea.org
4 Collaboration with other IOTA groups as IOTA/ES, RASNZ, India, ME, LIADA
5 Other activities--outreach, dissemination activities--membership FeesRegular 1,500 yen
No fees for FY2023
5-(3) Proposed Budget for 2023
→Watanabe--FY2023 no income, no expenditure--an example of income and expenditure for FY2024 is shown on the slide
5-(4) Proposed Provisional Officers→Watanabe
Chairpersons, Secretary, Directors, Regional Director, Auditor(1)-(4) Q&As
→Hayamizu--Yamamura had raised ones prior to the meeting, but Soma overed it in his talk.
-- messages left in the registration form were read
5-(5) Announcement of IOTA/EAʼS Symbol mark→Yoshida--selected one from 21 submissions, judged by 6 persons.
--It shows the unity to other IOTA groups--symbolize the occultation: “E” is occulted by “A” in the symbol mark6 Commemorative photo (screen shot)→Watanabe took several screen shots.
7 Activities of the Departments
7-(1) Promotion of asteroid occultation observation→Watanabe, Miyashita
Explanation of activities
1 predictions
2 observation reports
to: asteroid-report@iota-ea.org
3 disseminate observations
4 archive and publish observations
5 contribute to planetary exploration and scientific research7-(2) Promotion of lunar occultation observations→Miyashita
Mission: take over JCLO: prediction report, dissemination.
1 prediction : posted to the website
2 reception of reports and submission to IOTA central office
to: lunar-report@iota-ea.org
3 dissemination
4 publication of observation results
5 promote research: such as precise double star position, lunar limb shape
400th anniversary of occultation by telescope
7-(3) Operation of the website→Akitaya--Introduction of the IOTA/EA website on PERC/CIT server:
https://www.perc.it-chiba.ac.jp/iota-ea/wp/--IOTA/EA web can be googleʼd7-(4) Archiving of observational data
→Noda--the rule is tentative and flexible--documents available at the bottom of
https://www.perc.it-chiba.ac.jp/iota-ea/wp/iota-ea-bylaws/--cloud storage “pCloud” is kept for raw movie file data for re-production of the light curves
when necessary, for coordinated campaign observations
7-(5) Public Relations and Training→Yoshida--recent activities
IOTA meeting, APRIM, an article of magazine for amateur
Articles of establishment will be posted to “J. of occultation astronomy” and “astronomicalHerald”-- Training session in 2021Kobe, 2022Hokkaido were held. Observation manual prepared inJapanese. English version is under preparation.
--3rd training session will be held in Oct. 2023 at Kagoshima U., target asteroid (155140) 2005
UD.

--We want to keep holding workshop once per year.
7-(6) Local branches (Alphabetic order)→‒ Chilong Lin [National Museum of Natural Science, Taiwan]→--10 more amateurs in his group.
‒ Wai-Chun Yue [Hong Kong Astronomical Society]→--sincere appreciation for establishment and to be part of the IOTA/EA--Dedicated members in HK, to contribute to astronomy, cultivate next generations throughoccultation--IOTA/EA will contribute to the world.
‒ Ye Yuan [Purple Mountain Observatory / Chinese Academy of Sciences]→(Yoshida read her manuscript)--Delighted to be part of meeting.
--IOTA/EA will promote cooperation and communication.
--Fumi invited and succeeded (3200) observation in China.
-- listed members in the slide: Ye Yuan(PMO), Fan Li, Yanning Fu Jian Chen et al.
Comment by Konrad Guhl:--Journal for Occultation Astronomy is not only a journal for IOTA/ES, not Germany so on,
but for worldwide. Feel free to send manuscripts to me or Oliver Klös.
8 Address by the Directors→Akitaya, Miyashita, Noda, Watanabe, Horaguchi.
9 Adjourn