AstroMcGill is the astronomy outreach group within the Physics Department of McGill University. There are currently over a dozen postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates that make up the group on an entirely volunteer basis (i.e., in addition to research and classes). The "Astronomy Days" program brings AstroMcGill members into elementary school classrooms in the greater Montreal area, where we lead fun and educational hands-on astronomy activities, completely free of charge. Lesson plans for all our activities are also available for educators to use on their own if they so desire. Our monthly public astronomy nights feature talks from astronomers at McGill and throughout Montreal, tours of the McGill Cosmology Group's instrumentation lab, and observing with our small telescopes (weather permitting), all for free. We have an ongoing podcast series in which we interview astronomers visiting McGill and talk to them about their research at a level which is easy for the general public to understand. Podcasts are available from our webpage, the McGill Podcasts page, and the iTunes store (for free, of course). So far we have over 5,000 downloads from iTunes alone! AstroMcGill has partnered with the Montreal Planetarium and Université de Montréal for special events (such as the transit of Venus in summer 2011), and we teamed up with the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Montreal Centre to host several special observing nights for groups at McGill. We are currently working to develop undergraduate observing labs that utilize our small telescopes. You can stay up to date with AstroMcGill and breaking news from all areas of astronomy by following us on Facebook and Twitter.
I co-founded AstroMcGill along with Sebastian Guillot shortly after arriving at McGill University for my first postdoctoral appointment and I am currently co-chair. In only one year, we have built a vibrant, diverse, and high-impact outreach program, essentially from scratch. We've received a lot of support from the Physics Department and individual professors, especially Prof. Vicky Kaspi. We'll continue expanding our program in the coming year, with particular focus on improving our observing facilities and creating more resources for undergraduate classes at McGill.