To the best of our knowledge, our club was the first in the World to be set up around loaned equipment.  

The most important question to answer is "does it work?". The answer is "yes".

In the first  year, with 30 students from ages 11-18 borrowing over 20 observatory kits, some of which have dozens of bits and pieces, nothing has been broken or lost.   As we predicted, students who are really interested take great care.   The equipment spends most of its time in members homes, it only comes to school to allow other members to borrow it.

   Our aim is to encourage other schools to lend home astronomical observatories to students.   You could just have one unit in the library or a fleet in the science department.