Introduction

The Croydon Astronomical Society is a registered charity based in the London Borough of Croydon.  We welcome new joiners – whether you are a complete beginner or a highly experienced. We don’t charge a membership fee, although we do welcome donations.  

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What we do

We hold public talks on astronomy and related subjects approximately every other Thursday evening during school term time. We also maintain an observatory which is located at the edge of the historic airfield at Kenley. Many members participate in the forum croydonastro (which is hosted on Google groups) which allows members to 'chat' to each other on items of astronomical or society interest and to share images taken. 

Membership

Our members range in experience from complete beginners to the highly experienced. Newcomers and guests tend to visit for a couple of meetings to determine if membership is for them. However, we welcome membership applications from all and is encouraged. All you need to do to join the society is to fill in the online application form and we’ll get back to you. If you have any questions about joining please do not hesitate to get in contact with us.   Please don’t forget to let us know if your contact details have changed.

Membership Year / Financial Year

Our Rules and Policies require that members reaffirm their membership every year and so a new application will need to be made each year.  Our membership year runs from 1st September to 31st August.

 

Renewing Members - Our preference is that membership renewals are completed as soon as possible in the membership year. Please note that if a member has not renewed by two weeks prior to the Annual General Meeting (AGM) then, for administrative reasons, membership is deemed to have lapsed for the purposes of voting at the AGM in that membership year.

 

New Members - For administrative reasons we do not allow new members to join within the two week period prior to an Annual General Meeting or to an Extraordinary General Meeting.

 

Our financial year runs from 1st April to 31st March and we aim to hold our AGM in May or June.

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How much does it cost to join?

We believe that our society should be inclusive, and, because we don’t want potential members to be discouraged from becoming a member by fixed membership fees, we operate a donation funded model. (We do however make a small charge for pre-arranged group visits to our observatory). Nevertheless it is a fact of life that there are certain expenses that we need to cover including:

• Hiring the school hall for our Friday meetings – we suggest a donation of £3 per person.

• Expenses of visiting speakers

• Maintenance of the observatory buildings including business rates and electricity standing charge

• Maintenance and purchase of new equipment

• Communications – website and e-mail costs.

• Maintaining a contingency fund for emergencies

 

Members and visitors can donate through the following methods:.   

• We have an online donations facility through Charities Aid Foundation called CAF Donate.  CAF Donate allows you to donate using your VISA, MasterCard or American Express card, your PayPal account or your CAF Charity Account. If you are able to Gift Aid your donation, this boosts the amount of your donation by 25%.

• We also have a cash donation box at our public talks (the “Little Grey Box” - the oldest member of our society) and there are donation boxes at the observatory.

 

Volunteering for the Society

The society does not have any paid employees – we are all volunteers. We really appreciate help from members in relation to volunteering to serve on the committee, welcoming visitors to the observatory, maintaining the observatory and presenting short (or longer) talks at our public meetings.

 

 

 

Questions?

If you have further questions please feel free to contact us or apply online below.