eBCS Oxfordshire October 2009 Welcome In this month's newsletter, a whole new look, coming events in the Oxfordshire area, overseas BCS and lots more. Agile Project Management Oxfordshire Branch Meeting October 15, 2009 Iain McKenna CSP MBCS CITP BCS Oxfordshire will have Iain McKenna giving a presentation subtitled "The Prince of Scrum" on the 15th of October at the Oxford e-Research Centre. In his talk Iain will give us an introduction to the real world application of agile project management using Scrum. Iain will also be including a discussion on how one could apply Scrum in a Prince 2 environment. You do not need to be a project manager to benefit from this presentation as Agile Practices are making inroads in a variety of practices and professions. A New Look BCS Rebranding As you are no doubt aware, BCS has gone through a rebranding exercise as part of its ongoing transformation and, as a result, the BCS Oxfordshire website and email newsletter are also getting a fresh coat of paint. The first completed rebranding to be published is this newsletter and hopefully it is offers an easier to read structure than the old one. As always, we are open to comments on what you would like to see in this newsletter. Security: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow November 7th, Bletchley Park On November 7th 2009, the ACCU will be holding a one day conference at Bletchley Park, home of the legendary World War II ‘Enigma’ code breakers, and the site at which the world’s first digital computer went operational. The Conference will be held in the elegant Victorian Bletchley Park Mansion, at the centre of Bletchley Park itself, allowing conference attendees the opportunity to visit the exhibits on show at the National Museum of Computing and the rest of Bletchley Park. Bletchley Park is home to a number of unique artifacts, including the Colossus, the Bombe (including the mock-up that featured in the film 'Enigma'), original Enigma machines, and a Lorenz coding machine. The Bletchley Park web site is at http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/. The National Museum of Computing web site is at http://www.tnmoc.org/ The conference is organised by the ACCU. The ACCU is an organisation of programmers who care about professionalism in programming and are dedicated to raising the standard of programming. The proceeds of the conference will go to the Bletchley Park Trust to help with the upkeep of Bletchley Park. Conference rates are £85 ACCU members/ £95 non-ACCU members. The ACCU web site is at http://www.accu.org/. For further information contact: Astrid Byro astrid.byro@googlemail.com , or Alan Lenton alanlenton@gmail.com For tickets:  http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/ shop/index.rhtm/130872/cat.html Items of Interest Branch Meeting Programme Our full meeting programme for 2009/10 is on the branch website. If you want a PDF for printing, that is also available. We are working on restoring the ability to automatically add events to your calendar through links on the website. Christmas Lecture Speaker Announced We are very pleased to announce that our Christmas speaker will be Professor Fred Piper, with a talk entitled Cryptography: From Black Art to Popular Science. Fred gave the BCS Turing lecture in 2004 and is recognised worldwide as an authority on the subject of Cryptography and IT Security. More details on this exciting talk will follow in later Newsletters. Specialist Groups 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. Oxford Geek Nights Oxford Geek Nights offer a chance for web developers and designers in the local area to get together, share their skills and talk about new ideas, techniques and technologies. To learn more please visit their website. BCS Overseas Did you know that you do not have to live in the UK to attend a BCS lecture or meeting? For example, the US chapter of BCS is going from strength to strength. If you know if any ex-pat BCS members, be sure to let them know. About this Newsletter Want to know more about this newsletter? There's an article on the branch wiki. [ FEEDBACK ] We'd love to hear your comments, views and opinions on this newsletter and on the branch programme. Please use the feedback form on the branch website. Oxfordshire Branch meetings are open to BCS members and non-members. Unless otherwise stated, there is no charge and you don't have to book. For other events, check the links. 15 October 2009 Agile Project Management 20-21 October 2009 BCS Wiltshire Branch IET/Electronics Weekly 5th Annual Seminar for Programmable Systems 7 November 2009 ACCU Security Conference at Bletchley Park 12 November 2009 Innovative ICT in Oxfordshire 3 December 2009 Christmas Lecture 3 January 2010 Is IT a Profession? 18 February 2010 An Introduction to Geospatial Systems 11 March 2010 Testing Software Quality 29 April 2010 Visit to UKAEA Fusion & JET 20 May 2010 Sciences in Oxford's History - An Afternoon Guided Walking Tour Oxford Internet Institute events OeRC events Science Oxford BCS Events Calendar Subscription Options You are receiving this email because: as a BCS member you have chosen BCS Oxfordshire as one of the three branches the system lets you belong to, and you have opted to receive email communications. as a non-member you asked to join our branch mailing list by personal request, by registering on the BCS Oxfordshire website at www.oxon.bcs.org/contact-us or by supplying your email address at one of the BCS Oxfordshire branch meetings. 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