Dear Branch Member,

In this month's newsletter, details about our September meeting on how we can control energy use in the home, the calendar of events for the coming year, an update on our new Website, and a hello from your new editor.

Our first meeting of the year kicks off with a thought provoking presentation by Neil Watson, Technical Manager at Digital Living Ltd.

The 26m homes in the UK account for 27% of the carbon emissions according to the 2007 Energy White Paper. Do we know where that energy is used and can we reduce it? Monitoring and automatically reducing energy usage is very topical: energy will become more expensive as stocks shrink so it is not solely a matter of conscience. What can we do about it and how?

We announced the winners on the 24th of June at a presentation ceremony hosted at the Shivenham Campus of Cranfield University .

Read more about the winners on the BCS Oxfordshire website.

BCS Oxfordshire is holding a joint meeting with the BCS Geospatial Specialist Group at the Holiday Inn, Bridgefoot, Stratford Upon Avon, CV37 6YR on the 23rd of September.

This is a special event based around the Association of Geographic Information (AGI) exhibition. The first part will be a presentation on the key issues and challenges for geospatial systems and data. The presentation will be followed by a visit to the AGI exhibition – this will provide a great opportunity for attendees to get up to date with what is happening in the UK geospatial market.

The Oxfordshire Economic Observatory is currently conducting a survey of labour mobility and networks of BCS members in the Oxfordshire and East Anglia branches. This builds on an earlier study of the highly skilled in the two regions.  

We would be very grateful if you could complete our questionnaire following this link.

 http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=0EHO8LOZ2XRo3RXO_2b0j8jA_3d_3d  

A prize of a £50 Marks and Spencer's voucher will be given to the person whose name is drawn at random from the completed questionnaires.  

We have had over 200 replies from the East Anglian Branch. We are hoping for the same from our home county.  

Any questions should be directed to Professor Helen Lawton Smith, AcSS, Director of Research, Oxfordshire Economic Observatory, School of Geography & the Environment, Oxford University, email helen.lawtonsmith@geog.ox.ac.uk, Tel: 01865 766163, http://oeo.geog.ox.ac.uk

The 2009/2010 Calendar of Events for the BCS Oxfordshire Branch has now gone to the printers and you should find your copy in the post in a few days. Please note that the first meeting is scheduled to take place on the 17th of September. Make a note in your diaries now!

The 2009/2010 year starts with a fresh face taking the reins from Adrian Walmsley as the newsletter and website coordinator.

My name is Gerry Rohling and I will be working hard on continuing the excellent work Adrian has done in the past as well as trying some new ideas to improve the website and email newsletter.

In the short term I expect there may be some bumps but I hope the end results will be worth the journey.

As a start we have upgraded the website to use a CMS system for page maintenance which will allow for faster delivery of news items as well as open the door to allowing more members of the committee to contribute to the site.

I welcome ideas on the newsletter, the website and how we communicate with members. If you have any comments please use the feedback form on the branch website.

Our full meeting programme for 2009/10 is on the branch website.

Did you know that BCS members can join up to five BCS Specialist Groups online?

Just sign on to the Members' secure area, and click on "Specialist Groups" in the box headed "Manage your membership". You should then be able to join several Specialist Groups.

BCS members can manage all their BCS email subscriptions online by logging on at https://wam.bcs.org/wam/lsm.aspx.

Want to know more about this newsletter? There's an article on the branch wiki.

You can now subscribe to the text-only version of this newsletter. The BCS online interface doesn't support this option - see below for how to request it.

NOTE: The text-only service has been temporarily suspended as we upgrade the mail delivery systems.