Chairmans Newsletters

May 2004 letter

Dear Members and Friends of the Branch,

I am pleased to take this opportunity to welcome you to the web site of the South Wales Branch of the British Computer Society and to this news page from your chairman.

In my last letter I talked about the planned changes for the BCS and what that meant to the society and its members. Most have now been implemented and we all look forward to the benefits these are intended to bring to all.

This branch has now been using electronic methods to communicate with its members for a couple of years and this has certainly increased flexibility in what the branch can offer to its members. The committee hopes it has also delivered benefits to the members, but as with all aspects of the running of your branch, we are always pleased to receive constructive feedback from our membership.

Your South Wales Branch exists to provide the BCS members in the area with the opportunity to maintain contact with fellow professionals, and to keep abreast of current developments. The committee continues to present a programme of interesting, entertaining and thought provoking meetings planned for the coming months which is detailed on this Web site. We always emphasise that our meetings are open to everyone and we are delighted to see that many non-members enjoy and benefit from our events and hope that more will do so in the future.

The meetings are not only an opportunity to hear the presentations but also an ideal opportunity to talk with like-minded people over a drink and a snack prior to each presentation. With the recession in the IT industry now showing signs of lifting you may even start a new phase of your career through such casual network opportunities. The committee members attend most of these presentations and are always available to hear your views on how the BCS should be run to deliver the greatest benefits to its members.

During the term of my chairmanship of the branch I am sad to say that my predecessor, Ted Stuart, fell victim to cancer and passed away. Ted had devoted much of his spare time to BCS activities and is greatly missed. In his memory, an award has been created for the best evening presentation of the year and this will be presented for the first time at the AGM on the 20th May 2004 and each AGM there after.

Over the last year we have seen some excellent presentations, which of course you can review under past events on this site. These have covered topics from all aspects of IT and many with a distinctly Welsh flavour. We are constantly working on the approaching 6 months in a continuous rolling manner so feel free to make suggestions or even offer to make a presentation at any time. Contact any of the committee with such proposals and we will follow them up with you.

We now publish the minutes of the committee meetings on this site with the aim of providing further opportunities for the members to interact with the committee. You will see from the most recent minutes that we are planning a section of the website dedicated to Welsh interests related to IT. This should be going live very soon and will be directly accessible from this site. Watch out for it and let us have your feedback and ideas.

Thank you for taking the time to read this welcome page and I look forward to meeting you at our meetings and AGM.

Yours,

Paul Bulmer

For the Committee of the South Wales Branch