Guide to and Etiquette at our Meetings

BSIA meetings have a relaxed atmosphere, and we aren’t concerned with the occasional stray light. Nevertheless, we ask that you consider the high density of sensitive astronomy equipment when moving around at The Hub. Telescopes don’t like to be knocked, so please try to keep an awareness of the space immediately around you – particularly behind you!

Most of our members will gladly share a view through their telescope or binoculars, but please be careful not to use anything without asking. When using someone else’s telescope, remember that it might have cost them a lot of money. Try not to touch it (aside from focusing) and ask them to help you if an adjustment is needed.

Important:- Our meetings at The Hub are effectively hosted by the café at the Hub, its presence and willingness to provide staff for the evening makes the BSIA meetings possible.  Please do not bring your own food and drink to our meetings. We ask you to  support the café by purchasing your refreshments from the cafe during the course of the evening. This includes hot and cold drinks, alcohol and food. The management of the cafe do much to support our meetings, they solely open the cafe for us at meeting evenings and we must support them in return. Without them, BSIA would not currently be possible.

Although our meetings are open to all, we do ask you to join our group (no fees are levied) and if you have enjoyed our meeting consider donating whatever you can afford on this website.

We do wish for everyone to have access to our social stargazing events and enjoy the sky safely, however we recognise that there is a risk of antisocial behaviour or harassment, and we will take measured steps to mitigate it. Any incident reported to an organiser will be treated seriously, and we will investigate thoroughly and potentially remove and ban any guilty party.

The organisers of the BSIA (the ‘Unofficial Force’) endeavour to be maximally democratic, unprejudiced and secular in the enforcement of this policy. We invite your feedback and will consider amendments at our regular committee meetings.

Additionally, touting for business, selling goods, using laser pointers and flying drones are ban-worthy offenses and will not be tolerated at our meetings. Please do not bring any scooters, mopeds, vans or cars along the path to the Hub. There is plenty of places to leave these by the Monkey Gate.

We would ask all attendees to abide by the following instructions:

Inform the organisers if you plan to attend and provide names by the RSVP button on the Upcoming Events page of this website. We are limited by the Royal Parks to a fixed number of attendees. Please be aware and follow advice about visiting Regents Park https://www.royalparks.org.uk/…/the…/visitor-information

The Benugo cafe can only open solely for Irregulars if our evenings are profitable for them. We ask all attendees not to bring any refreshments to the Hub, rather to purchase these at the cafe during the evening. We hope every Irregular buys something. Please do not use the internal staircase within the cafe. It is closed during our meeting.

Follow our wellbeing and safety advice given on our website