Chairmans Newsletters

September 2002 letter

Dear Branch Member,

As your re-elected Branch Chairman starting my second term in office, I take pleasure in welcoming you all to the South Wales Branch for another year.

The meetings held last year covered a great spectrum of applications that involve computing these days. The program was kicked off with a presentation about the "millennium map" project. This gave an insight into how aeroplanes, photography and computers can be combined to solve problems for governments, estate agents, power companies, water companies, surveyors or the people who would simply like to see their houses from a different angle. The presenter was faced with a never-ending stream of intriguing questions that he handled with mind stimulating answers. This was followed with equally stimulating presentations on how web sites can be made accessible by everyone, another on the legal implications facing the use of computers. This presentation caused so much interest that one of the biggest challenges was how to fit everyone into the room. Fortunately we did succeed, just. The final presentation of the calendar year was “case studies in M-Business”, looking at the implications of mobile computing.

The program continued into this calendar year with presentations on the client-side revolution, the way forward for intranets, JAVA – saint or sinner and the human genome project. These were all thought stimulating presentations that provoked many searching questions, all answered competently by the very knowledgeable presenters.

You will find next years program on the enclosed sheet. The current program can always be seen on the branch website.

The committee continues to build this program round the subjects you have expressed interest in on your voting papers in the past or through requests you have made via the committee secretary. The committee is always keen on hearing your ideas for future meetings, initiatives or activities. What we are asking you to do is to bombard us with your ideas via e-mail to ken.potter@talk21.com or by snail-mail to: Ken Potter, 25 Nellive Park, Newport NP1 9SE

I look forward to meeting many of you at the meetings in this year’s program - and to the opportunity of talking with you about the program and any other aspects of the Branch activities you may like to discuss. This year we have a member of the South Wales Branch Committee, Ralph Miller, standing for election to the BCS Council. The Committee strongly support his application and hope you will also endorse this.

One final point for your consideration. The Branch committee has gained some new members during the year but has also lost some old members due to changing circumstances. New committee members are always welcome. We meet approximately once a month, but only for nine months of the year; people contribute whatever they can. Contact a member of the Committee, as shown on the program card, if you would like to attend a committee meeting to see what it is all about.

Yours,

Paul Bulmer

For the Committee of the South Wales Branch