CHAIRMAN’S ANNUAL REPORT 2007/08

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the fifth AGM of the British Computer Society Jersey International Section. I am pleased to be able to report to you the activities and success of the section over the last twelve months. I will reflect on the last twelve months of the section’s activity as I am proud of what has been another excellent year for BCS Jersey.

Since its launch almost five years ago, we have managed to maintain an enthusiasm and commitment, which has been demonstrated by both regular events and committee meetings.

During this period, we started by celebrating the 50th anniversary of the BCS by working with the community with the Schools web-site competition. This was followed by some very high quality events in 2008 that ensured the Jersey IT sector continually raises the bar regarding continued professional development.

Our monthly committee meetings have been consistent and with good attendance. I am pleased with the governance of the Jersey Section and I owe a debt of gratitude to the BCS Committee.

Let’s remind ourselves of the events during 2007/08...

26 June 2006: Schools Web Site Competition prize giving

This competition marked the 50th anniversary celebration of the BCS. The competition itself ran from 14th September 2006 until Friday 11th May 2007 and culminated in this prize giving ceremony for children, teachers and parents at the Jersey Arts Centre. The ceremony was attended by Professor Nigel Shadbolt, (the then) BCS President.

The professional organisation and production of this event, together with good press coverage and a very excited audience made this an extremely memorable event.

26 June 2006: The Future of the Web in Business and Society

To finish the 50th anniversary celebration of the BCS, the Jersey BCS hosted a dinner at the Jersey Pomme Dor Hotel. We were honoured to have Nigel Shadbolt as our guest speaker. Nigel is a Professor at the University of Southampton's School of Electronics and Computer Science, and a Fellow and (then) President of the British Computer Society.

Nigel described current and future developments of web technology, the various trends that are shaping the future Web and the drivers that are determining how it might be exploited by business and society.

25 October 2007 : Using Microsoft PowerShell to make a System Administrator's life easier

This was the first of a two part technical workshop, presented by Jersey BCS Committee member Keith Fox MBCS CITP. The workshop covered the PowerShell fundamentals including scripting, and was aimed at systems administrators.

These type of events take a lot of preparation and we are very grateful to Keith for his work. The second part of this event is planned for the summer of 2008.

24 January 2008 : Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

BCS Jersey were delighted to be able to partner with Accenture to host this lunchtime event at the Jersey Archive. The speaker was Graham Massey, Chief Technology Officer of Accenture.

Service oriented architecture is pre-eminently a new way of conceptualizing the role of IT, to ensure it supports the enterprise's strategic business goals better. In this event, we learnt how businesses can use SOA enabled solutions to successfully respond to market shifts, reduce costs, enhance productivity, meet client needs and boost their return on investment.

13 March 2008 : Trading in a Virtual Environment

BCS Jersey partnered with the Gartner Group to host an ambitious dinner event held at the Jersey Grand Hotel, discussing ‘Trading in a Virtual Environment’.

The key speaker was Steve Prentice a Vice President of Gartner Research and a Gartner Fellow. In April 2007 Steve published a prediction "that by 2011 80% of active Internet users would have a presence in a virtual world" - which has been picked up and repeated in articles all over the world about the subject of virtual worlds ever since. Steve remains one of the leading experts in the field.

We were fortunate to have the presence of John Harris, the Director General of the Jersey Financial Services Commission. This event provoked a lot of interesting discussion into the evening.

29 April 2008 : Information Security Management: ISO 27001

During the year we tested different venues and timings. This was a breakfast briefing held at the Jersey Museum.

The speaker, Mr Vernon Poole, is a representative on the IT Governance Institute and sits on ISACA’s Information Security Management Committee as the global ISO 27000 series representative. In January 2008, he gained the new ISACA certification – CGEIT (Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT). Vernon’s delivery style made this a very interesting and relevant event, receiving positive feedback.

05 June 2008 : Enterprise Content Management

This was the last event of the ‘BCS year’. Our speaker, Duncan Williams, is a Director of Deltascheme and for the past 17 years he has been specifically involved in the document and content management marketplace and regularly speaks at industry events.

Committee changes

Brett Sumner, the Chairman at the start of the year was fortunate to secure a promotion in his work. Unfortunately for the BCS it was in New Zealand. Brett therefore stepped down from his role as Chairman on 15 January 2008.

Brett started the Jersey BCS in 2003 and has chaired it since then. We are immensely grateful to Brett for all his hard work and wish him and his family well in their new life.

On 15 January 2008, I (Tim Bullock) was voted as Acting Chairman for the remainder of the period. I had been performing the role of Secretary and Neil Merritt kindly volunteered to take on this role for the remainder of the period whilst also maintaining his Membership Secretary role.

Membership

Membership numbers have continued to steadily grow and we now have 218 members. This growth is very encouraging and we are now comparable in size to other professional industry bodies on the Island. We have plans to increase the membership numbers significantly in the next period.

Financial Statement

I would like to thank Dr. Ian Jauncey, BCS Jersey Treasurer, who again has maintained an accurate and up-to-date financial position throughout the year.

The opening balance for the financial year 2007/08 was £9,957.02 and at the end of the financial year (April 30th 2008) the book balance for BCS Jersey is: £2,308.53. The total income being £5,404.10 with a total expenditure of £12,814.09. There are outstanding creditors of £288.50 (now paid) and outstanding debtors of £50.00 (members unpaid event attendance).

The expenditure is higher than the income largely because we closed the previous year holding funds for the 50th Anniversary events, which were actually spent in this period.

…. And finally ….

This just leaves me to express my thanks to the BCS Jersey committee who, yet again, have given up their free time to support the goals of the local society over the last 12 months. In particular this year I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Brett Sumner, who, as already mentioned has emigrated to New Zealand. Brett started the Jersey BCS and we are immensely grateful to Brett for all his hard work and wish him and his family well in their new life.

I will be standing for election as chairman for 2008/09 as will Ian, our Treasurer. There are some vacancies on the committee this year including our Membership Secretary. I am particularly looking forward to driving the BCS into it’s next phase, to influence the IT profession on the Island, with both existing and new committee members.

Helen Long from the BCS HQ has provided excellent support for us for the year, so a big thank you to Helen. Similarly my thanks go to all of the IT professional members of BCS Jersey who continue to support and attend events.

I look forward to the next chapter of BCS Jersey.

Kind Regards,

Tim Bullock
Chairman BCS Jersey

[You can download a printable version of the Chairman's Report (PDF file)]