It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of our friend and colleague, Brian McCauley. Brian was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer earlier this year, but unfortunately it was too aggressive for treatment to be effective. He passed away at the QEII Hospital, Birmingham, with his wife Sam and his family by his side, on Friday 8th May 2015.

Brian has been an integral part of Birmingham Perl Mongers, since JJ and I met him and Sam in Paris, flying home from the YAPC::Europe conference in 2002. He was a co-organiser of YAPC::Europe 2006 here in Birmingham, as well working behind the scenes for the QA Hackathon in 2009. He has been a director and more recently secretary of Birmingham Perl Mongers Limited. On CPAN he was NOBULL, and he and Sam attended every YAPC::Europe since Paris, and YAPC::NA 2008 in Chicago. He was previously a frequent poster to Usenet, Perl Monks and other Perl forums, so you may well have met him, talked with him, used his code or read his words in that time.

Brian also loved games, especially Fluxx. It would not be uncommon for both Brian and Sam, together with Geoff Avery, to instigate playing various variations of Fluxx at YAPC social evenings, sometimes well into the night.

Brian was not religious and would be uncomfortable to have prayers said of him. If you knew him you are welcome to join Birmingham Perl Mongers on Wednesday 13th May to raise a toast and say a fond farewell to our friend and colleague Brian McCauley. We'll be at The Dragon Inn on Hurst Street from 7pm.

Brian, you will be missed.

Brian McCauley
(4th Feb 1967 - 8th May 2015)

Photo taken at our Christmas social December 2014, by Chris Marsh.

This month's technical meeting is, as per usual, at The Birmingham Science Park, Aston on 29th October 2014. The talks start at 7.30pm, so please make sure you are there in plenty of time. Free car parking is available at the venue, and bus stops are nearby too.

This month we are delighted to have Mel Marsh presenting her experiences of Agile development and Scrum from the perspective of a Scrum Master. Other talks include a look at CPAN and CPAN Testers.

Early arrivals can meet us at The Sack of Potatoes just around the corner from around 6pm.

Apologies for the late notice, but the date of the October Technical Meeting has been changed to the 29th October. All being well we'll have the same speakers and talks lined up for you.

This Wednesday, 10th September, Birmingham Perl Mongers will be celebrating their 14th birthday. We'll be heading to our regular haunt, The Dragon Inn on Hurst Street, and will be there from about 6.30pm onwards. Feel free to join us, and raise a glass tomany more years. For directions, please see our social meeting page.

Due to the rooms being booked for our normal days for the next two technical meetings, we have had to shift both by a week. Our next technical (normally September) will be on 1st October 2014. Our normal November meeting will be on 3rd December 2014.

Both events will be at the The Birminham Science Park, Aston, at Faraday Wharf near Aston University. Once again we are very grateful to have both events sponsored by Majestic 12.

If you would like to give a presentation at one of these meetings, or a meeting next year, please get in touch (barbie at cpan.org), as we have slots available for long or short talks.

The May Technical Meeting will be slightly off topic for Perl, as we have two presentations discussing more generic points about how we put tools together, manage them, and present the techniques to the wider world.

Steve Pitchford will be returning to the rostrum after a too long absence, with Alan Stanger finally presenting a prepared presentation, after only 8 years attending our meetings. We may have a short Perl specific talk, but as both the presentations by Steve and Alan are longish, this may be deferred to next time.

As always, all are welcome, and it's all free. Just turn up. Once again may thanks to Majestic 12 for sponsoring the event.

UPDATE: Unfortunately Alan's talk has had to be delayed until our July meeting, but we hope to have a second talk to support Steve on Wednesday.

This Wednesday, 22nd January 2014 will our first technical meeting of the year. We very fortunate to have a full schedule of speakers and talks, so please feel free to come along and here some diverse topics about Perl and related technologies.

On the schedule are:

• Colin Newell - failures
• Barbie - Creating Excel Spreadsheets with Template Toolkit
• Barbie - Introducing the UK Co-Ordinators
• Tony Edwardson - RemoteLib

The talks will start just after 7.30pm at Faraday Wharf, the Science Park, Aston. Although if you fancy a quick drink beforehand, some of us will be in the Sack O' Potatoes from about 6pm.

It is with great delight, that we announce our new corporate sponsors, Majestic-12. Majestic-12 have long been supporters of Birmingham, with Alex and Steve from the company coming along and presenting technical talks to us. This year they will be sponsoring all our technical meetings. Our next meeting is on Wednesday January 22nd, we have a great line-up to start the year off.

Majestic-12 Ltd specialises in internet search technology, and have been pioneering in developing their distributed search network. Their MajesticSEO portal is for marketeers and entrepreneurs alike, and builds on their estanlished knowledge of the world wide web providing wealth of experience the worlds largest internet link map.

Many thanks to Majestic-12 for the past, current and future support.

In preparation for the London Perl Workshop, this month we have a couple of talks that may or may not get submitted. The October Technical Meeting will once again be at The Birmingham Aston Science Park, on Wednesday 23rd October 2013.

The first talk is by JJ, who will be explaining a project he and Colin have been working on. Expect more details about the talk and project before Wednesday. Our second talk is 'The Future of CPAN Testers' by Barbie. The talk will be a glimpse at some of the forthcoming projects to help authors, testers and users get the most out of the CPAN Testers project.

We still have space for another short talk, if anyone would like to present something. Please get in touch with a title and short abstract about the talk (a simple short sentence is fine), and I'll add you to the line-up.

Hope to see you there on Wednesday.

UPDATE: JJ's talk is 'Managing Multiple Git Repositories'

The next two technicsl meetings are lined up. As per usual we'll be at the Aston Science Park, Birmingham for both events, meeting at The Sack O' Potatoes beforehand for food and drinks.

The September neeting, on Wed 25th Sept, discusses Perl Golf and PSGI/Plack, while the October meeting, on 23rd Oct, will feature a talk from JJ, title still to be announced. If anyone would like to talk at either of these meetings, pleaselet me know. Whether the talk is short, medium or long, we'll be delight hear it. Contact barbie [at] cpan.org for more details.