On this page we publish news about the family for relatives and general interest.

What are we up to Today?

Alan after working for Northern Foods plc as Chief Information Officer – where he was responsible for the smooth operation and development of all of Northern Foods Information Services is shortly to take up the role of Chief Information Officer and Director at the Training and Development Agency for Schools. He’s also Chairman and a Director of SAP UK & Ireland User Group Ltd which is an independent body representing and supporting SAP users from companies in the UK and Ireland. After a really successful conference in London in 2008 he’s looking forward to the next conference in Manchester on 23/24 November 2009.

Shirley works part-time at Grantham College as a Nursery Assistant.. She’s become a very proficient crafter with her own little studio where cross stitch, cards, quilling and scrap booking are practiced in abundance.

Laura attended the University of Lincoln, where she has graduated with a joint degree of Law and Criminology. She is now working for Totemic in Grantham, which was awarded 16^th Best small company in the UK to work for in 2009.

James attends Grantham College in Grantham, where he is study Graphic design.

SAP UK & Ireland User Group Conference 2008

This was held in London at the Novotel West and was yet again another resounding success. It was bigger and better than all the previous years only this time I found myself having to introduce the conference and all the keynote speakers, scary at first but easier as the conference moved on. As ever the team that pulled everything together excelled themselves.

If you are interested we made a (very) short video of it this year which you can watch by clicking here.

Laura graduates

Proud parents accompanied Laura to Lincoln Cathedral for her graduation ceremony. The weather wasn’t kind but the occasion was amazing in the grounds of Lincoln Castle and Lincoln Cathedral. A young University but graduation with a traditional heritage.

Summer holidays 2008

Yet another trip in early July to Florida (you’ve probably noticed we enjoy it there!). As it turned out the timing was spot on – we all deserved a holiday, and the dollar was over 2 to the pound, plus as we went with TravelCity it was a few months before they stopped trading (phew!!). This time we were accompanied by Laura’s boyfriend who’d never been there before – I think he’s a convert now. Shirley became a Segway rider (I was jealous!). Very wet weather with stifling temperatures as well. At some point I’ll try and post some pictures in the photographs section.

SAP UK & Ireland User Group Conference November 2007

This years conference was the biggest and best we have had. A sell out! Not only did we take all the rooms in the Birmingham Hilton Metropole, but we also had to have a bus shuttle service from the nearby Crowne Plaza. Over 800 people in attendance, a great exhibition, a great conference and a great Gala dinner – the guests entertained by the Three Waiters. After two years at the Metropole in Birmingham , next year it moves to London at the Novotel.

What a summer (2007)???

Is it global warming? Who knows? But what you can say is that this has been the strangest summer to date – I’ve never seen so much water. In early July the weather dumped incredible amounts of water in the North East of England. Some of the pictures from Wakefield are below. From left the road (!!!!) from Ackworth to the A1, and then the main bridge over the Calder in Wakefield.

More was yet to come! On Friday 20^th July another storm dumped even more rain between 130 and 150 mm in 24 hours in the counties of Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire. A lot of this landed in the area where Shirley’s family live resulting in major flooding, roads washed away, and bridges collapsing in Witney. Nobody can remember anything like it. Shirley’s sister who lives in Bampton suffered flooding in her house, lost all electricity, and now has had her water turned off because the water treatment plant is under water. Top Row all scenes from Bampton, middle row all in Witney, and bottom row left is Long Hanborough, centre Witney, and right is the road to Swindon from Witney.

RIAT 2007

James and Alan went to the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford on July 14^th 2007, the weather started wet and windy (no surprise this summer!), but got sunnier, leading to two red faced individuals later in the day! One of the stars of the show was the F117 Nighthawk (stealth fighter) pictured here with its machine gun armed police guard. It was only later on when looking at the picture I noticed the two spotters with binoculars on the gantry as well. For anyone that hasn’t been, very busy but well worth a visit to the biggest military air show in the world.

SAP UK & Ireland User Group Conference November 2006

Alan is Vice-Chairman of the User Group and this year a major conference was held at the Birmingham Metropole Hilton hotel. This attracted over 400 conference attendees and ran over 2 days with multiple workstreams and keynote speakers. A gala dinner was also held with nearly 500 places taken, where the audience was entertained by comedian Rob Brydon, and music from Alpha Connection. The conference was such a success that a similar event is already planned for the same venue in 2007.

RFID Awards at the Banqueting House in London October 2006

Alan and one of his managers were privileged to take part in an award ceremony on behalf of the Northern Foods team who had been awarded the Best RFID Integration project award in Europe in 2006. The team’s excellent work also saw them as a runner up in the best implementation project. The ceremony took place at the Banqueting House in Whitehall in London. The building was a former palace and was the setting for the beheading of King Charles I during the English civil war, of note are the ceilings painted by Reubens.

Summer 2006

We decided to treat ourselves on our trip to Florida this year and went Sunshine First with TravelCityDirect – imagine our surprise when we found ourselves in the very front row of the Boeing 747 with loads of space in front of us. Shirley and James got the best seats on the way out!! Laura and I were in row 2 – but not on the way back when it was our turn to have a football pitch in front of us!

Winter 2005

After a very hot summer and the disaster in the snow, well guess what winter returned, albeit briefly, in the Christmas of 2005. The following photograph was taken on Boxing Day and shows a wintry panorama outside our house.

Alan and Winter Sports – Summer 2005

Alan has never been a great fan of winter sports – especially participation in them. He’s now extremely certain of that! At a leaving party for one of the senior managers where Alan works, in the peak of Summer (30 C) the venue was set as Xscape in Castleford, an all year round ski slope with a toboggan style slalom course. The consequences of that are depicted in the following x-ray photos! Alan is now the proud owner of a titanium pin the length of the lower leg, locked in place in the bone with gold screws at either end. Strangely though it doesn’t set off any security alarms at airports!

More on Florida 2004

Our trip to Florida in 2004 was the strangest of them all. We had our first (and hopefully last!) experience of severe tropical weather in the form of Hurricane Charley. What a date to choose to visit us, Friday 13^th August! There was much talk of the weather being bad that day but the expected storm path had Charley moving up the coast and crossing around Tampa and then heading North East to miss Orlando by over 100 miles. Things changed that morning and for the first time ever Disney started to close their parks. We went back to our villa and prepared for the storm, moving all movable objects inside, including the car. Interesting to note that the garage door said rated to 110 mph!!! Quite an afternoon and night, whilst we had power we had numerous Tornado warnings – then the power went off, it rained very heavily and it got very loud all in pitch blackness. We all got together in one room and tried to get some sleep – for a brief period in the night the storm ceased and I looked outside with a torch – within 10 minutes the wind direction changed a full 180 degrees and reached full intensity again. We’d been through the eye – at this stage a Category 3 to 4 Hurricane – when it hit the coast it had been a Category 5 but some of the sting had gone – still though wind speeds of 100 to 110 mph. The next morning we surveyed the damage – lots of trees down, damage to properties and flooding in some places. For three days we were without power and water – it gets pretty warm in August so we resorted to spending as much time as possible in the parks – which seemed to have lost most of the American visitors who had all had the sense and means to get out of the target and disaster zone – in fact at Seaworld 2 days later, the audience at Shamu was virtually 100% British.