Branch News Archive
Our January speaker, Sverker Griph, gave us a brief rundown of the history of fission and fusion, starting with the failed
physics teacher, working in the Bern patent office, who published four ground-breaking papers in 1905 and introduced e=mc**2
to the world.
JET was set up to pursue the goal of clean electricity from nuclear fusion. It provides many challenges: for the IT people
the huge amount of data which the experiments generate in a very short time, and for the national grid the challenge of handling
a sudden demand for up to 1.2GW to power the experiment.
longer write-up to follow
On Tuesday February 5th there is a rare chance to hear Professor Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. from the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill who is the guest speaker at this Oxford University Computing Lab seminar.
Fred Brooks, who delivered the 2005 BCS/IET Turing lecture, is the author of the seminal "Mythical Man Month" and an excellent and entertaining speaker.
 In our well attended Christmas lecture, Tom Ilube, CEO of Garlik (www.garlik.com), explored the rapidly emerging wave of identity theft hitting Britain, and the impact on and attitude of individual consumers.
Garlik's first product, Data Patrol, which was launched just over a year ago, is aimed at reducing the risk of identity theft. In a lively Q&A session after
his talk, Tom explained how and why Garlik are using semantic web technologies to help them.
Two days after our meeting, The World Economic Forum announced that Garlik was one of 39 visionary companies from around the world selected as their Technology Pioneers 2008. Also on 29 November, Garlik launched a free service called QDOS which is aimed at getting consumers engaged with their own online digital presence.
meeting report
BCS Oxfordshire hosted a free evening to celebrate our 50th anniversary, showcasing many of our services and achievements
and having some fun at the same time. Food, locally sourced from Millets Farm shop with a selection of Wines and fruit juices
were also available and we welcomed over 30 people including 16 non-members.
See the poster and event description and reports page for more details.
 Access Grid is an advanced collaboration environment which has been described as "videoconferencing on steroids".
In this Joint Session with Chester & North Wales branch, Michael Daw, Head of the UK Access Grid Support Centre at the University of Manchester, delivered his talk from the Daresbury Lab using
live Access Grid video links with the OERC escience building in Oxford, the Rutherford and Appleton Lab and Bangor University.
slides
Liam Newcombe is secretary of the BCS Data Centre Specialist Group, which is raising the awareness of just how "Green" we are in the IT industry.
It may not be a surprise to many that we are not particularly efficient in our use of energy. Liam gave us the real  facts and figures with information about what we as an industry are doing and can do about it.
The pre-meeting refreshments were sponsored by One-Click, a new UK company offering intelligent switches to help reduce electrical waste. Demo models were on show on the night, and
One-Click are offering a special discount valid for one month from the meeting.
We've lined up what we hope is a great programme for 2007/8. We've just posted the details to all BCS members of Oxfordshire
branch. Mouseover the image to the right to see the committee hard at work stuffing the envelopes.
This year, as well as the annual chairman's letter and the A4 poster which you might like to put up in your workplace, we've included a handy folded business-card sized programme
summary which should fit in your wallet.
The meeting programme is also available on our meeting page, to download and print, and as iCal entries.
 The evening started with a brief session to conduct the business of the AGM, preceded by cheese and wine refreshments for
those who arrived early enough.
With rumours and speculation about road user charging frequently hitting the headlines, our talk was highly topical.
The London Congestion Charge scheme was grounded on a very successful IT project exploiting many technologies. Our speaker,
Derek Turner CBE, told us about the technical and the political challenges faced, and the lessons learned in delivering and
getting road users to accept the congestion charge and similar schemes.
Derek was Transport for London's Managing Director of Street Management and the chief architect of the Congestion Charge,
and is now National Traffic Operations Director at the Highways Agency.
This event was organised in collaboration with the Oxford Internet Institute.
Agenda and 2006 AGM minutes
full description and meeting details
hide Ruby on Rails was top of Computerworld's March list of Five Technologies You Need to Know about in 2007.
Previous feedback had indicated that our members appreciate technical sessions: Jonathan Conway of New Bamboo Web Development certainly threw us in at the deep end with lots of code examples to demonstrate why Ruby on Rails is fast becoming a platform
of choice for rapid Web2.0 application development. In the question session which followed, Jonathan explained some of the
problems which remain to be solved before Rails-based solutions become fully scalable.
If you were hoping for a more introductory level talk on Ruby, have a look at this page of screencasts and presentations. Try building a weblog in 15 minutes.
This was a joint meeting with the BCS Open Source and Internet Specialist Groups.
...meeting report
As a change from the normal lecture-based format, our March meeting was a visit to the Unipart Logistics Centre in Cowley
where we had a privileged opportunity to see their test-bed for assessing the impact and benefits of Radio Frequency Identification
(RFID technology.
meeting report
 Security ABC - T is for Trojan
Thanks to one of our sponsors, Sophos, we were able to give copies of their A to Z of computer security threats to each Oxfordshire school that filled in the no-obligation sign-up form for the 2007 Web Competition.
Worried about reports of browser vulnerabilities?
hide
Continuing reports of Internet Explorer and IIS vulnerabilities - which can lead to keystrokes being stolen when you visit
some commerce sites or malicious code being downloaded - have led several experts to recommend using an alternative browser.
This website runs on an Apache server. It has been tested and works fine with Mozilla Firefox, Netscape 7.1, Opera and the
KDE Konqueror browsers as well as Internet Explorer.
Whichever browser you use, be sure to check for security updates.
Dr Andrew Simpson from the Oxford University Computing Laboratory reviewed the activities of the Software Engineering programme, which have included many grid computing projects, with support for climateprediction.net, CancerGrid, Integrative Biology and e-DiaMoND, and then looked in detail at the DTI-funded GIMI (Generic Infrastructure for Medical Informatics) project.
Meeting report to follow.
meeting report and photos
Stuart Taylor (right), who heads the UK centre of SophosLabsTM, discussed the rapid rise and changing nature of threats to IT security.
His session covered the
various issues that businesses face in protecting themselves, and the
reality of providing a rapid response against the unknown threat.
Full report to follow.
hideSophos is one of the world's leading providers of integrated threat
management solutions. With worldwide visibility of emerging security
threats, SophosLabs delivers the crucial capability that is at the core
of all of their solutions. Critical to the service that SophosLabs provides
is the 24/7/365 global analysis of threats as they spread across the
internet and via email.
As the computer security landscape changes,
SophosLabs remains committed not only to providing swift, global responses
to the latest threats, but also to proactively educate the public on safer
computing practices to protect against viruses, spyware, spam and phishing.
full abstract and meeting details
hide Our speaker was Igor Aleksander (right), Professor of Neural Systems Engineering at Imperial College.
Professor Aleksander is a well known author, frequently appearing on radio and television, and a much sought-after speaker.
We were delighted to welcome him to give our 2006 Christmas lecture, to discuss advances in Artifical Intelligence, the meaning
of consciousness and emotions, and speculate whether one day a machine might be built that could enjoy Christmas..
meeting report and photos
Our speaker was Stef Coetzee, Senior VP International, NetMotion Wireless
meeting report and photos
About 30 branch members and guests met at the Rutherford Appleton Lab for this joint meeting with Chester & North Wales branch held over a video link to the CCLRC lab at Daresbury.
hideAt RAL, Keith Norman spoke about Climate Change modelling using spare cycles on users' PCs (following the trend set by SETI).
Then we switched to Daresbury from where Peter Lloyd, also of Tessella, talked about the challenges of preserving digital
records in an era when storage technology is evolving so rapidly. Peter pointed out that while we can still read the 900 year
old Domesday Book, we have trouble reading electronic records from a decade ago on media such as laser discs or 2400 ft mag
tape.
The meeting was held in the Pickavance lecture theatre near this impressive dish.
meeting report and photos
Tim Lambertstock, Technology Strategy Manager at Voca, spoke about the increasing use of cashless payments, the pressure from
the OFT for same day clearance, and new options for small value "contactless" payments. He finished off the evening with a
demo of the kit that may be used in a new Voca trial and showed how easy it couild be to make payments.
...full report
For several years, BCS Oxfordshire has sent branch members a personally addressed email to remind them of each month's meeting.
For 2006/7 we have followed the lead of the eBCS newsletter and started sending it in the more attractive to read HTML format.
For those of you who prefer plain text emails, the monthly newsletter contains both HTML and text versions. If you have a
text-only email client, or can configure your graphical email client to display it, you can view the plain text version. Email
clients which give you the option to display the plaintext of emails include Thunderbird, Opera and Outlook 2003.
Our meeting programme for 2006/7 is now available.
We hope you will find the programme varied, interesting and useful. Topics include the cashless society, climate prediction, wireless security, RFID, machine intelligence, Web2 development with Ruby, Viruses and Malware and the technology behind road pricing.
Details of the first few meetings are in the box on the right. Full details are on the programme page.
In early September we posted a handy summary of the programme to everyone on our branch mailing list.
After the usual pre-AGM light cheese and wine buffet, our chairman, Sheila Lloyd-Lyons, gave her review of the branch's activities in 2005/6 and conducted the other business of the Annual General Meeting.
Our speaker was Dan Zambonini on the Semantic web.
"The Semantic Web is the natural next evolutionary step of the Web. By adding computer digestible semantics and logic to the
currently available information, we can create software that helps us work more efficiently and discover new patterns and
relationships."
...more
AGM Agenda, 2005 AGM Minutes and Chairman's report
The computer games industry is a significant force, contributing £200 million to the UK balance of payments in 2004. Simon
Prytherch, Head of Internal Development at Empire Interactive, gave us a look behind the scenes at how our favourite games
are put together.
meeting report
Branch Members and guests enjoyed a fascinating day at the Science Museum. See Reports Page.
Have you run any noteworthy, successful projects this year? Why not enter for the 2006 BCS Professional IT Awards?
Many thanks to all who took part: the draw was made at the Christmas meeting, and you can now see the tabulated results. If you haven't filled in the form, we are still interested in your views on how well our branch is meeting your expectations.
You've missed the prize draw but you can still give us your feedback by filling in the survey.
hide We were delighted to welcome back Professor Neil Barrett BSc PhD CEng FBCS CITP to give our 2005 Christmas lecture on the subject of Computability and Crime: How Information Security Affects Criminal Prosecutions
About Neil and the talk..
hideNeil is visiting professor of computer crime at Cranfield University, appearing regularly in the media, in radio and press
interviews. He has a column on Criminal IT at silicon.com. He is frequently in court as an expert witness and was recently appointed to monitor Microsoft's compliance with the European Commission's antitrust verdict.
In his talk, Neil explored the practical and theoretical limits of information security, and showed that - at least in theory
- a perfect solution is impossible and that we will therefore always be faced with 'judgement calls' in this crucial forensic
arena.
meeting report, abstract, a
press release and poster
hide Alan took us on a fascinating tour of the history, benefits and challenges of open source; with his background in sociology
he gave us an interesting insight into the mindsets of the people who develop open source code, and some surprising anecdotes
about meetings with gurus of the open source movement.
meeting report
hideThe next meeting of the OSSG is entitled "An Introduction to Open
Source" and is being held at the BCS Central London Branch (Southampton
St.), on December 12th from 1800 until 2015.
To register for this event, please send an email to padams@ossg.bcs.org
with your name and stating which track you would like to attend: "Open Source for Developers" or "Open Source for IT Managers
and Procurers".
Full details and speaker-provided abstracts are available at ossg.bcs.org/events.
Space is limited, so please register early.
We also hope to have some edible incentives available for the close of the meeting.
"An Introduction to Open Source"
What is Open Source development? How does it work? How can it work for
me? How can I contribute?... If you have questions about open source
then this is the meeting to have them answered. This meeting of the
OSSG is designed to introduce Open Source software development to those
with little background in the area.
The meeting is divided into 2 tracks, tailored to specific needs:
- Open Source for Developers
In this track, Barry Cornelius, Sebastian Rahtz and Stuart Yeates of OSS
Watch introduce the basic principles behind Open Source software
development, an overview of Open Source software communities and the
interaction mechanisms within these communities. Although aimed
specifically at developers, this track will be suitable for anyone who
wants to know what Open Source is and how it works.
- Open Source for IT Managers and Procurers
In this track, Mark Taylor, CEO of Sirius Corporation Ltd., introduces
Open Source development from the business perspective. This track will
show Open Source software can work within your organisation and how Open
Source can become and integral part of your business model. If you want
to know how Open Source software can work for you, then this is the
track you need.
---
Open Source in Tertiary education
The Open Source Specialist Group is pleased to announce an extra meeting
in our Winter Programme.
In "Open Source in Tertiary" education, Daniel German of the University
of Victoria in Canada and Cornelia Boldyreff of the University of
Lincoln will introduce their experience of teaching and creating courses
in Open Source and the specific challenges that these courses create.
Although aimed at those working in academia, this event is available to
all those who wish to attend.
Title: "Open Source in Tertiary Education"
Speakers: Cornelia Boldyreff (University of Lincoln), Daniel German (University of Victoria in Canada)
Date and Time: 5th December 2005, 1600 to 1800
Location: Room CS103, Computer Science Building, University of York
To register for this event, please send an email with your name to
padams@ossg.bcs.org.
This was very different to the usual branch meeting. Instead of being able to sit back, relax and listen to the talk, members
present were given a pen and exercise book and asked to work through several examples.
Peter Quentin, shown here helping people with the exercises, used this technique as a very effective way to introduce the
concept of "State Transition Testing". A lively discussion ensued, continued afterwards in the Lamb and Flag.
...full meeting report and slides
The first meeting of the 2005/6 season got our programme off to a good start.
Our speaker, Robb Mann of QVIP, took us through the pitfalls waiting for
those unwary of outsourcing as well as the benefits. He proposed potential
solutions for the shortcomings in the process.
...full meeting report and slides
The programme cards for 2005/6 were posted to branch members in the fourth week of August, together with the annual chairman's letter.
If there are any meeting topics you would like to suggest for future years, please use the contact form or add a comment to our wiki programme page.
Branch honours Ted Murphy
hideAt a dinner, held on 24 August 2005, to mark his retirement from the branch committee, Geoff Stone, branch vice-chairman and
himself a previous chairman, presented Ted with a specially commissioned souvenir of historic electronic components mounted
in acrylic.
Robert Ward, branch chairman, thanked Ted for his 33 years of service to the branch.
Ted remarked that he had seen the branch through some ups and downs during that period, adding that he was very happy now
to leave it in the hands of such a lively committee.
hideThinking of running a similar competition? Have a look at our project Mind Map.
The results of this year's competition were announced on 23 June 2005 at the Shrivenham Campus of Cranfield University in a grand prizegiving
event attended by a record number of schools and students.
It was great once again to welcome Ali Jones from Fox FM to give out the prizes to all the winners, and BCS President David
Morriss to present the silver Challenge Cup to St Birinus School Didcot.
 Also in attendance was a very large mouse, PC Mouse, who greeted the competitors as they entered the auditorium.
The event is described in a BCS press release. The results are summarised on the competition website; full details of all the entries, their awards and the judges' citations are on the results page.
If you took part, we'd welcome your feedback via the branch wiki.
Working with other branches - the BOG
For several years, BCS Oxfordshire branch collaborated with the neighbouring branches of Berkshire and Guildford in a semi-formal group familiarly known as the BOG.
Our mission statement explains what we were trying to do and how we could complement the existing formal structures of the BCS.
Autumn 2005: In the absence of any ongoing work projects, the BOG decided to suspend activities. The Yahoo Group mailing list
will be retained for occasional contacts between members and to allow reactivation of BOG should the need arise.
hide .. the new qualification from the British Computer Society: it's flexible, easy to understand and gives people the confidence
to access the online world...more
Even if you missed the AGM, we'd welcome your views on the past year and your suggestions for next year. Please use the chairman's survey form for detailed comments about the meeting programme or use the feedback form and select the AGM option.
A summary of the AGM is available on our meeting reports page. You can read the Chairman's letter online or as a
PDF, which includes the summary of branch accounts. The
chairman's slides and Charles Hughes' slides on IT Professionalism are also available.
Many thanks to Jennifer Pierce for supplying some notes in answer to a question, about criminal prosecutions in cases of copyright infringement, that was raised at her lecture on
Intellectual Property to the branch on 21 April, 2005.
With a keynote address from Sir Edmund Burton, former Director of the Police Information Technology Organisation, this year's
conference will again play an important role in disseminating cutting-edge knowledge. For registrations and further details
see the conference website. Discounted delegate rates are available to BCS members.
Have you run any noteworthy, successful projects this year? Why not enter for the 2005 BCS Professional IT Awards?
See the press release for details of the award categories, submissions deadlines and entrance form. The first deadline, the Technology Awards category,
was 24 March. The latest is 24 June 2005.
What do the intellectual property terms of software licences mean in practice?
...abstract and meeting report.
The 2004/5 annual visit was a fascinating trip to the Science Museum's Large Objects Storage facility at Wroughton, near Swindon
...more
The emerging RFID technology can help reduce theft and fraud, but what impact does this have for Civil Liberties? See our
reports page for meeting notes and photos.
To coincide with JANET's 20th birthday, our speakers took a look at how we got where we are and what may be coming in the
future.
More details on the meeting reports page.
Christmas Lecture
As advertised in the programme card, we had hoped to run another in our series of Christmas Lectures this year, but unfortunately
none of the high profile speakers we were hoping to invite has been able to come, so there will be no branch event in December
2004.
If you have any suggestions for future years, please let us know using the contact form or, preferably, add your suggestion to the 2005/6 programme wiki page.
Our Windows/Open Source debate on November 11th proved to be lively, enjoyable and very well-attended. If you missed it, there's
a brief write-up on our meeting reports page. And feel free to contribute to the wiki Open Source page which we created as follow-up to the debate.
Page down for details of how to tailor the newsfeed displayed at the right of this page.
The call for papers has been issued for the British Computer Society Quality Special Interest Group's Annual International Conference, being held from Monday 21st to Wednesday 23rd of March 2005
at The University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK.
Programme cards for the 2004/5 academic year have now been printed and are being mailed to branch members, together with the
annual Chairman's letter.
The committee used our wiki during the programme planning. You are welcome to add your comments and suggestions to the wiki.
Bulletin Board pilot
 We installed a pilot bulletin board running on phpBB to help assess how useful this would be for branch members, visitors to the site and committee members.
This pilot was not much used and was discontinued in August 2006.
The 2004 annual trip - an all-day visit to the Bletchley Park museum took place on May 20th.
See the branch wiki for a report of the visit, with photos.
At the AGM, the chairman reviewed the highlights of another active year, and summarised the BCS membership changes due to
come into force on 1 May.
The committee were re-elected en bloc, and welcomed Tim Lambertstock as a new committee member. We were then treated to a
fascinating talk by Christopher Burton of the Computer Conservation Society....more details
Becca Loader, UK programme manager, described this leading summer vacation programme where handpicked students get to work
on exciting high-tech projects and have fun in the process.
...full report
Come and meet branch and committee members over snacks at the Lamb and Flag in St Giles. Members and non-members welcome.
See the River Thames Guide site for a photo showing the entrance through an archway.
The fluid nature of the web means that pages or entire sites frequently change or disappear, often without leaving any trace.
Web archiving initiatives are required to help preserve the informational, cultural and evidential value of the World Wide
Web ...full report
Internet Explorer Spoofing vulnerability
On 9 December 2003 Danish Security company Secunia reported a vulnerability in Internet Explorer 6. By using a suitably crafted link, a malicious site could display a fake
URL in the address bar and potentially con people into entering confidential information such as credit card details.
Secunia has a full description and a test which you can use to see whether your browser is vulnerable.
The Opera and Netscape 7.1 browsers do not exhibit this vulnerability.
On 2 February 2004 Microsoft released a cumulative security fix for this and other vulnerabilities. See Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-004 and Microsoft Knowledgebase article http://support.microsoft.com/?id=833786
BACS is the world's largest automated clearing-house for electronic payments. Our January speaker, Tim Lambertstock, joined BACS
in 1999 to develop the vision and architecture for NewBACS. The first Phase of NewBACS went live in October 2002. It has won
a number of awards for innovative use of technology, including first prize for Technology Services at the 2003 BCS IT Professional Awards ceremony.
 We were delighted to have Steve Grand OBE, NESTA research fellow, who has also been called Britain's most intelligent man, to give our Christmas lecture. Steve was the architect and lead
programmer for the popular computer game Creatures. His book, Creation: Life and How to Make It was described as "arguably one of the most important science books of the year". Steve's current project is developing Lucy, an intelligent living machine which he hopes will grow like a human baby.
Lucy is seen here helping Steve draw the Christmas raffle.See the meeting report for notes and more photos of Steve's lecture.
Anti-spam legislation - do you comply?
The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, covering the use of unsolicited e-mails and cookies,
came into effect in the UK on 11 December 2003. The full text is available from HMSO. According to research by webabacus, 98% of the UK's top 90 e-commerce sites do not comply with the new cookie regulations.
Schools Poetry Competition
 BCS Oxfordshire Branch provided the main individual prize in the National Poetry Day competition run by the Oxfordshire LEA
ICT team.
The photograph, which is used by permission, shows the overall winner, from St Birinus School, receiving his prize from poet
James Carter. More details of the results and the text of the winning poems are on the ICT site.
"The OxIT Cluster promotes the sharing of knowledge between businesses and research bodies". Details of the launch meeting on 3 December at the Oxford Science Park are on the OxIT website.
BACSTEL-IP was the Technology Services winner at the 2003 BCS IT Professional Awards ceremony
BCS Governance and Membership changes endorsed by a large majority
2003/4 meeting programme (August 2003)
The programme has now been published, and, accompanied by the annual letter from our chairman, posted to branch members of record.
New for this year - Autumn and Spring Symposiums.
Schools Website Competition 2002/3 (June 2003)The competition, which finished at the end of June, was featured in BCS e-Bulletin 53, dated 23 July 2003.
A big "thank you" to all the students who worked so hard on their entries and to the teachers who encouraged them.
The winners were announced at the prizegiving at Cranfield University Shrivenham Campus on 26 June, where the presentations were made by Steve and Ali from FOX FM, one of the competition's sponsors.
In all we received 6 entries in the junior section, 12 in the Senior section, and 8 individual efforts.
There were good points about all the sites - some made us laugh, some taught us things we didn't know, and some showed
us new or different ways of presenting information.
The Senior winners were S-cubed from Didcot Girls School.
Vicky from Wychwood School won the new Senior Individual category.
The Junior winners, and new holders of the Schools Computing Challenge silver cup, are the School Web team from Hagbourne CofE Primary school.
More details on the competition page and full results on competition website
Branch Committee for 2003/4
The first meeting of the committee elected at the 2003 AGM was held on 12 May.
Robert Ward was elected branch chairman for the coming year.
..all committee roles
Spam Alert
Since this site went live at the start of the 2001 academic year, the committee and webmaster e-mail
addresses have been receiving an increasing amount of SPAM e-mail.
In an attempt to make it harder for robots to harvest addresses, the e-mail addresses used on this site have been altered
to use the characters (at) instead of the @ symbol. To use the address, simply change this in your e-mail program.
This follows the advice given in Click Online(Spam Defences - May 1 2003) on BBC World and BBC News24.
2003 AGM - May 2003
At the branch AGM last month Judd Flogdell stood down from the committee because of an impending move to Bath. The other committee
members were re-elected en bloc.
The committee met on May 12 to appoint its officers for the coming year. Robert Ward was elected chairman in place of Geoff
Stone who stood down because of pressure of work. Geoff took over Robert's role as Vice-Chairman. Brian Day was elected Secretary
to free up Neill Lawson-Smith to spend more time helping the BCS at a national level. Tony Cox is continuing as Treasurer.
..full list of committee roles
After the business of the meeting, Anna Machin from Nominet spoke about their name resolution process
Web Competition Adverts on FOX FM- January 2003
FOX FM, one of our sponsors for the web design competition have been advertising the competition.
Listen in for the soundbite, or click on the link below to hear the advert.
 |
These files are in MP3 format. Click on the link to listen.
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Christmas Lecture 2002 - Trevor Baylis December 2002
The Christmas lecture was again a success, with a strong attendance by almost 100 members.
The presentation explained how ideas become inventions, and explained who the winners and the losers
have been in history, with relation to their inventions.
Trevor also explained how his new project, The Trevor Baylis Foundation, is
planning to help all new inventors, and to stop them only being able to talk to themselves.
The lecture was thoroughly enjoyed by all, then the evening closed with a drink at the Lamb and Flag pub, at which
some members were able to quiz Trevor Baylis further.
Trevor Baylis OBE, Pipe Smoker of the Year 1999
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Neill Lawson-Smith introduces our Christmas Lecture
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Trevor explaining the difference between people who specialise, and those who have a good general knowledge.
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New web site - August 2002
The new web site has been launched, the result of the hard work by Robert Ward to get
all the data uploaded to the site.
The site has been tested against the latest Internet Explorer and Netscape browsers,
but please contact the webmaster if you encounter any problems, especially with
older browsers, as it is difficult to test against all browsers!
Committee for 2002 - June 2002
The new committee met for the first committee meeting, and it was difficult to find a meeting
location big enough! The committee met to put the plans together for the new program, and to decide on
the activities the branch would undertake for the following year.
Geoff Stone was voted as the new Chairman, and Robert Ward was voted as his deputy. Read more about the committee
on the committee pages.
Meet the Committee Evening - March 2002
The planned Meet The Committee evening happened on Thursday 7th March 2002, and was attended by a good number
of branch members. Some of the people attending were interested to find out who the committee were, and others had not yet
attended
any branch meetings.
The meeting was held in the Lamb and Flag public house, who laid on a very good buffet for us, and made us very welcome.
The evening was very enjoyable, and the committee feel it was a good chance to speak with some of the members. Following
from this success, we hope to repeat the event in the next years calendar.
Christmas Lecture - 13 December 2001
The Christmas lecture from Professor Heinz Wolf was a huge hit. Heinz Wolff kept everyone amused by setting
himself on fire, gluing sausages to himself and by freezing balloons in liquid Nitrogen
The evening was enjoyed by all, and Oxfordshire Branch had a record turn out of almost 100 people attending
the lecture.
Professor Wolff before the presentation
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The meeting was well attended, putting the Wolfson building under some strain!
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Mince pies and sherry were provided before the meeting, as has become a regular feature of the Christmas lectures
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Professor Wolff started his talk with an impressive display
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He demonstrated the effect of liquid Nitrogen on balloons
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After the presentation, everyone could play with the liquid Nitrogen
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Web Competition Prize Giving - 29 June 2001
The presentations were made at Cranfield University.
Neill Lawson-Smith hosts the ceremony
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The children sit with their prizes, waiting for the best newcomer announcement
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After the presentations, a tour of the Gun Sheds was arranged.
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Thursday 18 January. Viruses and Malware, How many more threats are there?
Branch e-newsletter
Thursday 27 April
BCS 2006 Professional Awards
Champagne survey results
BCS 2005 Professional Awards
Branch visit to Wroughton Science Museum)
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