Branch Chairman's Letter - Session 2008 - 2009

September 2008

Dear Branch Member,

Welcome to the 2008-9 season of Branch meetings

I have pleasure in enclosing the Hertfordshire Branch Programme for 2008-9.

Attendance at all Hertfordshire Branch talks qualifies as Continuing Professional Development (CPD).   As part of CPD, BCS operates a mentoring scheme, offering opportunities to be a mentor and to be mentored.   There is more information in the Members' Benefits area of the BCS web-site.

I should like to draw your attention to the Thames Barrier visit in April.   Numbers of attendees are limited by the operator, so please register your interest by emailing herts_bookings@bcs.org.uk.   There will be no charge for Branch members; guests are welcome; they will be asked to contribute £10 towards the cost of the meeting.   As soon as the Environment Agency confirms the date it will be posted on our web-site (http://www.herts.bcs.org/ future.htm).

Most members based in and around Hertfordshire will be aware that we send reminder postcards about a week in advance of each meeting.   While this is an effective means of filling the seats, it is a relatively costly exercise, in terms of the branch budget.   Consequently, we apply postcode-based filters, to include only those addresses considered close enough for the return trip to Hemel Hempstead to be practical.   If you are not receiving postcards and would like to be added to the list, please email our Membership Secretary (herts_memsec@bcs.org.uk) with "Subscribe postcard" as the subject, and putting your name and BCS membership number in the body of the email.   Similarly, send "Unsubscribe postcard" if you wish to be excluded from the mailing.   You may change your subscription status at any time; please note that the postcard production cycle begins two weeks ahead of posting.

Meetings will be held in Hemel Hempstead. We continue to benefit from the generous hospitality of Steria Limited, who have also sponsored printing of the programme card.   Late changes will be posted on our web-site. I would like to record my thanks to the committee for their considerable efforts in assembling the programme, stuffing and sealing the envelopes - an exercise in team bonding?

As always, your suggestions for future presentations will be most welcome. I trust you will enjoy the programme and I look forward to welcoming you to our meetings.

Yours sincerely,

Committee Report for 2007 - 2008

On behalf of the Committee, I have pleasure in presenting this report to members on the activities of the Branch.

The main pre-occupation of the committee is to organise Branch meetings.   Our obligation under BCS rules is to provide four meetings per year; this year we have had eight, including tonight.

Finding topics and speakers can be a challenge.   This season got off to the best possible start at the last AGM: a topic was suggested by one member and the speaker was arranged by another.   The subject was Virtualisation, presented by Hardev Sanghera from VMware Corporation, in October.

In September, Peter Wood, First Base Technologies, demonstrated that the intelligent use of Google can reveal more about an organisation than it may intend.

Malcolm Appleford rejoined the committee at last year's AGM and in November, in collaboration with Mike Barwise, found himself researching and then presenting on the "One Laptop per Child" project.

Deft footwork by Siva Niranjan, Branch Secretary, saved the day for the January meeting. As the postcards arrived at HQ for franking, one speaker withdrew.   The same day Siva heard that Paul Offord of advance7 was willing to talk about "Method-based problem diagnosis" and Siva invited him to fill the gap.

The visit to University of London's Mill Hill Observatory was fully subscribed. The clouds cleared as the tour ended and we were rewarded with a glimpse of Saturn's rings.

For March we brought Nicolas Connault, Moodle Developer, from Paris to discuss unit testing and in April Paul Mukherjee, Chief Architect, BT Health London gave us his interpretation of Enterprise Architecture.

Much effort and expense goes into the production of postcards before each meeting. Informal research has consistently indicated that the combination of postcards and emails is what prompts members to meetings.   In January and March there were no postcards and attendance was well down, supporting that conclusion.   Currently, we send postcards only to members whose addresses are within a range of postcodes considered close enough to the venue for the member to make the return journey in an evening.   We will continue to issue postcards on this basis and we intend to enable members to opt in or opt out of receiving the postcards.

In a departure from previous practice, we are well advanced with the formation of the next season's programme.   There is still room, of course, for suggestions of topics from the membership, so if you have an idea, or would like to present yourself, please let us know - the earlier the better.

Last year we introduced mugs with the Branch and BCS 50th anniversary logos as a promotional item.   In the coming year we will have badged pens - please use them to spread awareness of the BCS amongst your family, friends and colleagues.

The Branch is in good health: membership stands at 1,376, up from 1,369 last AGM, and attendance at meetings averages 36 (excluding January and March).   We are grateful to the speakers for their enthusiasm, to Steria Limited for their continuing sponsorship of meetings and printing the programme card and to our colleagues on the committee, without whom all this would grind to a halt.   If anyone present would like to join the committee we would ask them to volunteer at the appropriate point in the AGM proceedings.

Yours sincerely,