Joining instructions
Venue
SPA2014 will take place at The BCS's London Offices (map: http://www.bcs.org/maps for maps)
The full address of the venue is
BCS London Office
First Floor
The Davidson Building
5 Southampton Street
London
WC2E 7HA
Telephone: 01793 417 666
Email: [email protected]
Travel to the venue
Please see http://www.bcs.org/upload/pdf/london-office-guide.pdf for full details of how to reach the venue by public transport.
We would not advise driving to the venue as parking is very expensive in central London and most journeys would be far quicker by public transport.
Overseas visitors:
As the venue is in Central London, overseas visitors have a wide range of travel options.
For those travelling from Europe, the Eurostar service arrives at St Pancras International station in North London. A short journey on the underground (Piccadilly line) will bring you to Covent Garden station, which is a few minutes walk from BCS London.
Good public transport links exist from all the London Airports, with London Heathrow airport probably presenting the most straightforward journey to the venue. Train/Underground travel is by far the most cost effective means of getting around. London taxis (“black cabs”) offer comfort and reasonable value over short distances, but a journey from Heathrow is likely to be around £50 possibly more if traffic is bad.
Registration
Upon arrival at The Davidson Building each day, you will need tick your name off on the list held at the security desk – before then proceeding to the first floor where you can register for the conference.
At registration, you will be given your copy of the event documentation and administrative information.
Registration on Sunday is from 12.00 and from 8:30am on each of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for participants arriving for the first time on those days. Participants who have registered on previous days need not register again (although they will still need to “sign in”) – but please do remember to bring your conference badge each day.
Accommodation
As SPA2014 is NOT a residential conference, participants will need to either make a hotel booking or travel to the event each day. While we are not able to make any specific hotel recommendations, participants may wish to note that our evening activities are taking place at The Strand Palace Hotel (http://www.strandpalacehotel.co.uk). Alternatively the Imperial, President and Bedford hotels (see http://www.imperialhotels.co.uk/) are reasonable compared to the Strand Palace (£135) and only 5 minutes away (visiting BCS staff often stay at the President - £77 - which is cheap and clean).
Meals and refreshments
Lunch is provided on each of the days, including Sunday for those arriving for the 1pm sessions. If you have any special dietary requirements that you did not indicate at the time of booking, please let us know asap. Tea, Coffee and water will be available throughout the day.
A hot buffet will be available on Monday and Tuesday evenings as part of the evening conference activities.
On Sunday evening no food is being laid on, but we are planning to have a number of groups organised, each of which will visit a local restaurant thus giving chance for participants to purchase an evening meal and to meet each other.
Insurance
The BCS, SPA Specialist Group nor the conference administrators can accept any responsibility for the loss of, or damage to participants’ personal possessions while attending the event. We therefore recommend that you make your own insurance arrangements.
BCS London has a cloakroom which is unmanned – coats & bags left there are at the delegates own risk.
Dress code, diversions etc
The dress code at SPA is casual and the centre is a warm venue. Our evening social activities are taking place in the Strand Palace hotel which is just a few seconds walk from BCS London.
We hope you will enjoy SPA2014 and look forward to meeting you at the conference. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any queries relating to your participation.