Jenny started working as an IT consultant shortly after leaving University. While enjoying the freedom and travel of consultancy she is now settled in Oxford and enjoys her role as a Software Tester. Jenny believes the joy of working in IT is the speed and pace of development and always seeing something new that will enhance everyday life.

Jenny joined BCS in early 2007 after attending BCS meetings and being impressed by the organisation.

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Tony has been working with 'electronic data processing equipment' since 1970 and in this time has performed all information systems roles (often concurrently) across a broad spectrum of industrial sectors (including Metals, Brewing, Hotels, Publishing, Property and Manufacturing). As a complete contrast he also served for 21 years in an infantry battalion of the Territorial Army, again performing (and enjoying) all roles from rifleman to operations officer. As you would expect from these diverse experiences he is by now a business analyst rather than a technical specialist.

Having started out as a computer operator (IBM 360 series) he progressed in the "traditional" way through programming (in COBOL and assembler) to team leader before progressing to systems analysis. Subsequently his career broadened to include all aspects of business systems but has sustained the twin themes of financial control systems and telecommunications, which are now merging as e-commerce reaches maturity.

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Brian is a Consultant with Tessella Support Services, which specialises in the application of innovative software solutions to scientific, technical and engineering problems. He is currently responsible for support and development of their Internal Systems.

Brian has worked in the IT industry for over 25 years, which has encompassed a spectrum of roles ranging from FORTRAN Programming, through Capacity and Performance Analysis, Computer Services / Systems Management, and operational responsibility for a large Supercomputer Centre. In that time the operating environments have ranged from mainframe MVS, through Unix on workstations to supercomputers, and to Windows, NetWare and Linux. More recently he has acted as a solutions architect, where his interests have included infrastructure, data storage management, a number of Internet related technologies.

He holds a PhD in Physical Chemistry, and during his scientific career, worked on the experimental investigation and computation of molecular properties, before being subverted(?) by IT.

Brian became a member of BCS in 1981. He has been an active member of the Oxfordshire Branch Committee since 2002, when he took on the role of CPD Representative, before becoming Secretary in 2003.

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Cheryl joined CSC on the graduate programme after completing her degree in June 2001. During her time with CSC she has worked for BAe Systems in Supercomputing and at present is working for Field Services in Service Delivery.

She has a BSc (Hons) in Computing. As part of her course she spent a year in an Industrial Placement during which time she worked for the Department of Trade and Industry in IT Policy and Support.

Cheryl joined BCS after completing her degree.

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Tim joined Voca (then BACS) in 1999 to lead the development of the vision and architecture for what became known as NewBACS, a major programme to upgrade the BACS payment service to deliver new products and services. The programme was driven by the need for a complete technology renewal of systems that were 10-20 years old. Voca is the world's largest automated clearing-house for electronic payments, processing over 65 million payments on a peak day. The programme has won a number of awards for its innovative use of technology and improved service to business customers, including the 2003 BCS Technology Award for Services. Tim is now mostly involved with developing new ventures that leverage Voca's core assets and technology.

Prior to joining Voca, Tim spent over 20 years in various government departments - mostly in IT management roles. He currently sits on the board of TWIST (which is developing XML-based standards for the financial supply chain) and is a frequent speaker at IT and finance-related conferences. He was previously Chairman of the International SSADM Users Group and involved in the development of various IT initiatives.

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Tim joined the Branch Committee in April 2004, became a full member of BCS in 1995 and was elected a Fellow in 2007. He is also a member of the BCS Elite Group

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Sheila is currently working freelance and has many years experience as a project manager. For four years she worked in a Microsoft consultancy practice and gained a wide range of experiences in different businesses and technologies. These included: a music publisher, solicitors, accountants, charities, government and funding bodies and academic institutes.

Since starting her career in ICT she has worked in a software development environment for a wide variety of applications and platforms. These include MS DOS, UNIX, Windows XP and the various other shades of Windows. Applications include databases, Web based solutions, communications and video on demand. Earlier she worked for four years on a large project for an applied research group at Oxford Brookes University. This EU funded project was a proof of concept experiment using asynchronous transfer mode communications and video technology.

She effected a career change to ICT in 1987 and took her first degree in computing and accountancy. Her first job in computing was in 1990 and she has been very happy ever since in the computing industry. Prior to this Sheila's career was no less varied and included bringing up a family and teaching in a horticulture and field studies centre.

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Sheila became an associate member of BCS in 1990 and a full member in 2002. She joined the Oxfordshire Committee in 1995 and has thoroughly enjoyed the role. Apart from her share in Committee tasks she served for three years as the CPD Representative. For the bi-annual Oxfordshire schools' web page competition, Sheila was Secretary for the 2001 competition, Chair for the 2003 competition, joint secretary for the 2005 competition, and is co-chair for the 2007 competition. She was elected a Fellow of BCS in 2006.

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Simon works for Radstone Limited (trading as Radstone Technology and formerly Plessey Microsystems) as a Software Engineer. Radstone is the world's leading independent supplier of rugged COTS (Commercial-off-the-shelf) VMEBus computer products, subsystems, and support software for defense and aerospace applications. Customers include NASA, Boeing, BAE Systems and DERA.

Simon has been involved in both Product Development (porting real-time operating systems to VMEBus hardware) and Customer Support roles over many years. He holds a B.A. (Hons) in Computer Science and is a Chartered Engineer (working so close to the hardware!).

He remembers saving up his pocket money to add RAM to his first 6502-based home computer (approximately 1Kb every 6 months or so) !

Simon joined BCS in 1994 and has been a member of the Committee of the Oxfordshire Branch since 1999

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Brian has over twenty years practical experience in the design, implementation and support of database and information systems. This grew out of research work in physics where analysis of accelerator experiments involved compilation and support of a worldwide scattering database.
Since then, projects have ranged from space satellite and air pollution data to administrative, personnel and financial databases. He wrote early relational software in Fortran as well as working with modern products such as Oracle Financials. Always receptive to interesting data management challenges, a current project with a research student is data mining of Stock Exchange data.

A member of BCS since 1989, Brian has organised database conferences and has participated as a Supervisor in the Professional Development Scheme.

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Geoff has worked in the IT industry for over 20 years performing both customer facing roles and design of systems and products.

Originally working in Data Communications he has more recently moved into security and e-commerce.

He is currently specialising as a software test analyst, developing software test strategy primarily in the field of complex software applications testing, on Windows and Unix based platforms.

Geoff has been actively involved on the Oxfordshire BCS committee since 1998 and is a member of both the Institute of Analysts and Programmers and the British Computer Society. Geoff also sits on the BOG regional group committee (the Berks/Oxon/Guildford - Think Tank).

"I thoroughly enjoy helping to run the branch and liaising with BCS HQ on operational and policy issues. A recent highlight which was very rewarding to work on was our special project to run the schools Web design competition."

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Adrian's first brushes with computing were as a vac student in the mid 1960s with the Martin Marietta Corporation in Baltimore, Maryland (Fortran and punched cards) and with ICI Research (Algol and paper tape).

Since graduating, he has worked in the IT industry for over 40 years, much of the time in a variety of technical roles with IBM in the UK and USA.

He is now running his own IT consultancy company, having taken early retirement from IBM at the beginning of 2003.

At IBM, from the mid 1970s onwards, he was widely known as an expert in IBM's VM/370 virtual machine technology, running courses, advising clients and speaking at conferences in three continents. So he notes with interest the current trend for virtualisation, and uses virtualisation on a daily basis himself.

Prior to leaving IBM he was a practising IT architect in IBM Global Services and later the IBM Software Business, specialising in internet and e-business infrastructure, and is the author of several technical redbooks. He was always keen to mentor younger professionals. He sat on IBM UK's IT architecture professions board which handled cases for certification and triennial recertification of IBM IT Architects.

In 2004 he led the BCS Information Systems Examinations Board (ISEB) working party which defined the syllabus and examinations for the new Certificate in IT Architecture.

In his local community he is in his fourth term as a Parish Councillor, having first been elected in 1992. During that time he has held a number of posts, including that of chairman for 6 years. He also serves as webmaster. Although he is proud that, back in 1995, the parish was one of the very first to establish its own website, he is also aware that its design is now rather dated and it is overdue for a facelift. Pending an overhaul of the whole site, he has established a sub-site based on pmwiki.

Adrian joined BCS in 1997 under the scheme for senior professional entry. He has been an active member of the Oxfordshire Branch committee since 2002, branch webmaster since May 2003, and was a keen participant in the BOG.

He played a key role in organising the 2002/3 Oxfordshire Schools Website Competition, chaired the branch 2004/5 Schools Website Competition committee, and was co-chair of the 2007 Schools Website Competition.

He is particularly keen to encourage productive use of online collaboration tools within BCS. To this end he is an active member of several Yahoo! Groups and the Specialist Groups' SGnet. He set up an experimental wiki for the branch, and served on the Streaming Media Working Party commissioned by the Member Services Board in 2004.

He was invited to sit on the BCS Knowledge Services Board in November 2003 and elected a Fellow of the Society in October 2004.

In January 2005 he took on the role of Forum Manager for the BCS Engineering and Technology Forum and its Strategic Panel.

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Robert is a QA Manager at Site Intelligence Limited, based at Harwell in Oxfordshire.

His working career has seen him as principal QA resource on various projects, from Telecoms and Energy billing to a range of financial projects including internet banking systems and online credit cards. He has also been involved in the QA and testing of E-Procurement, E-Billing, and Electronic Document Management (EDM) solutions. With over 8 years software testing background, he has a strong knowledge of business process, and the business needs for quality software and the impacts when this does not happen.

Robert holds a bachelors degree in Software Engineering, and a Masters Degree from The University of Leeds in Distributed Multimedia Systems. His industry qualifications include the ISEB practitioner in Software Testing, which is the highest certified qualification in the IT testing industry. His undergraduate thesis, entitled 'Developing Internet Sites for Cross Browser Compatibility' was the start of his interest which led him to his current position.

He is married with one child.

Robert has been a member of BCS since 1995, when he was a student member with the West Yorkshire Branch. He has been on the Committee with the Oxfordshire Branch since 1999. He became a full member of BCS in October 2001, CEng in October 2003, was accepted onto the FEANI register of European Engineers (Eur Ing) in July 2004, and FBCS in February 2007.

Robert served as branch chairman from 2004 until November 2006, when he stood down because he was finding it increasingly difficult to combine the role of chairman with the pressures of his new day job.

In addition to roles for Oxfordshire Branch, at the Spring 2004 Branches Congress he was elected to the BCS Branches Management Committee (BMC), which is the national committee for BCS, supporting and managing the activities of the branches. At the conclusion of his three year term on BMC, Robert agreed to take on the role of Branch Vice-Chairman.

In autumn 2007, Robert was elected to a three year term on BCS Council.

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