Thanks to friend and fellow, established member Stephen Loveday, I am, after many years, reacquainting myself with a passion for astronomy, the origins of which can be traced back to early childhood, when my father got my brother and I out of bed to see fuzzy black and white television images of Neil Armstrong's "one small step,.." onto the lunar surface. When a little older, and fuelled by coverage of further Apollo missions, I spent several childhood years learning my way around less polluted skies before finding my time increasingly devoted to other interests. The intervening years have seen me acquire a degree in Applied Physics and a career principally within Project Management within the financial markets / financial arena. Those years being punctuated by occasional astronomical 'adventures' including more recently viewing the: Hale-Bopp comet whilst in the Lake District; the 1998 Leonids meteor shower (a predicted maxima) whilst in South Africa; the 1999 solar eclipse from south-east Bavaria; various meteor showers; the transit of Venus; casual viewing of the moon and Jupiter through Steve's binoculars when we met up whilst holidaying in France last summer; and visiting Sydney Observatory.
It's from that modest position and finding my interest stimulated through attending several of the Society's monthly meetings, the first of which provided a viewing of Comet Holmes, that I will look to dabble further in this coming year, whilst continuing to nurture my own young children's fledgling interest.

Having a young family provides much pleasure these days. I still get to the gym fairly regularly and manage to do a fair bit of running including half marathons and 10k's. I used to do a lot of climbing and hill walking (principally in the UK but also various trips abroad). I am a keen photographer and hope to acquire some knowledge of astro-photography through the society.