It is with great sadness that I must tell you all that the founding President of our Sunshine Coast RASC Centre has passed.

Bill Clark emerged on the scene in the Spring of 2004. Bill had recently been given a telescope as a gift and so wanted to know more about such instruments. Bill saw astronomical articles in the newspaper written by Dr. Garth Jones in 2004. Bill wrote to Garth to ask him questions about astronomy. Instead of writing a reply, Garth showed up at Bill’s front door to answer Bill’s questions. .Bill subsequently convened a meeting of the loosely associated remnants of the original astronomy club at this house in Sandy Hook, and subsequently registered that club as a non-profit society, registered that club as a CRA charity, championed the cause of the club joining the RASC, and started the long process of building an observatory.

Garth’s Our Night Skies article announcing “the inaugural meeting of the Sunshine Coast Astronomy Club (SCAC)” on Friday 2004 July 30 and giving Bill Clark as the contact person appeared in The Local 2004 July 22. The astronomers met in Bill’s driveway on Deerhorn Drive in Sandy Hook with telescopes in daylight in August 2004. By September 2004 they were seriously searching for sites where one might build an observatory. The club held regular meetings and observing sessions. We held our first Astronomy in the Park outreach event at Porpoise Bay Provincial Park on 2005 August 13.

At an Executive Meeting of the club on 2007 July 20, Bill led an in-depth discussion on the merits of the Sunshine Coast Astronomy Club becoming a Centre for the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada with a decision made to place this matter before the entire club on 2007 September 28. Instead of being just a group of astronomers in an astronomy club in an isolated community we’d be the 29^th Centre of a respected organization with over a century of history behind it.

On 2007 December 11 the Sunshine Coast Astronomy Club became registered with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) as charity 81283 2277 RR0001. David Thompson, Debra MacWilliam, and Bill Clark all worked on the CRA application for the club’s Non-profit status on the island in Bill’s kitchen at his home on Deerhorn Drive. Three years and eight months after the new club was formed, it now had an essential element of its fundraising capability set so that it could start serious fundraising for the observatory dream.

At the monthly meeting on 2008 April 25, roughly four years after Bill Clark organized the new club and 20 years after Neil, Merle, and Bill Phillips founded the original club, the Sunshine Coast Astronomy Club was accepted as the 29th Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. On June 27, 2015, Bill’s observatory dream came true as we had our opening ceremony.

In 2014 we created one of Bill Clark’s dreams: An astronomy TV program, Night Lights. Other RASC Centres had attempted this, and spent thousands doing so, never went beyond a few episodes, and typically paid the production costs. Following up on Bill’s January presentation, our SCC entered into a partnership with Eastlink Coast Cable that cost us nothing; in fact, they provided student videographers and studio space and editing free of charge and paid for our meals breaks and for road trips to video tours of astronomical facilities. Our volunteers supplied scripts and appeared in the episodes. We are now in our ninth series. Bill wanted everyone in our club in front of the cameras.

My first contact with this Centre was Bill, who became my friend and mentor in August 2013. It was Bill that got me involved with the executive in 2014, it was Bill that took me to my first National Council meeting, it was Bill that pushed me towards becoming this Centre’s president in 2015, and it was Bill that encouraged me to join the RASC’s national Board, on which I served until 2023. I could not have achieved what I have as an astronomer if he hadn’t been there supporting me.

In the last few years we hadn’t seen much of Bill as his diabetes had left him increasingly handicapped until finally he had limited mobility and lost the ability to drive. He knew of our New Horizons upgrade to the observatory this year but was unable to attend due to his mobility issues. My last contact with him was during our Travelling Neighbourhood Star Party at Holy Family Catholic Church on 22 October, which we held there in the hopes that he could join us as it is just across the street from his house. He phoned me at the event to tell me that he would not be able to make it as his legs were giving him problems, but told me how excited he was that we were busy doing astronomy in public again and improving our observatory.

Bill was an amazing person and we will miss him terribly.

You can see more photos of him here:

Charles Ennis, Past National President, RASC