I have just completed 4 years employment at Verastar as a Broadband Provisioning Officer and I am looking for employment in the IT Industry where I have lots of experience as a Project Manager / Business Analyst / Programmer or alternatively looking for a simple but satisfying job that will provide me with modest income. At Verastar I was able to extend my programming skills and have been looking at Javascript / MVC and SQL Server.

My objective and personal development at Verastar were focused on programming development. In 2015 I wrote a report to my Senior Manager expressing my concern about the dynamics of the team and risk should we lose key individuals.  I expressed concern about the nature of the job and the need to develop OIS Expert Systems to support the administrators.  I looked at the training requirements for the job and developed an InfoNet called Minerva with a placeholder for all the learning that was required for the job.  Rolling on I did not allow the subject to drop and expanded my IT skills. Learning Javascript I created a decision tree called Signatures and an associated Instruction Set called Pathway to automate the provisioning process and remove the chance of errors being made.

Eventually the company did look to automating my job and implemented Zing Tree.

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I have decided to further extend my IT skills and develop a recruitment site using Google Cloud Computing for my database. 

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I like to work in the voluntary sector.I have done really well - In my voluntary work I have commenced a Software House to operate out of Hitec Computers In Cheadle and I am using my Teacher Training to establish a training college for potential Associate Consultants.

I have used my time well at Verastar to learn their systems and learn from how they do their application development and I can say that the procedures which I have adopted over 40 years in the trade are as relevant and worthy now as when we first invented methodologies some 40 years ago.

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My learning in MVC is progressing and I believe that I can now conduct applications modelling.  

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It is honest of me saying that for the last 4 years I have been involved in IT development at Verastar, Implementing project management systems in the form of Protopage and developing prototype solutions in the form of Signatures and Pathway.

In addition I have taken it on board to learn some MVC and SQL Server and will  now go about writing Package Products for Red Octopus Business Services Limited.

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It is my Ambition to employ Associate Consultants in a similar position to myself willing to volunteer their services to a Tiger Team and produce packages and Apps that will generate income for the group. 

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As a taster for my personal history here is one little story that I fondly remember.

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I have many high spots in the IT Industry.

To hear my stories you will have to join one of my teams or  buy my book.

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But for this section I will record one moment in time.

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I was based in Manchester looking after the load at the Manchester Data Centre, This involved covering Darlington and Leeds.

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I was informed that the Manchester data centre was closing and would I like to work in Birmingham training ICL staff In IBM ways.  I accepted,

Birmingham went well and I gelled with the management team. I was asked if I would like to joint them on A  Courtaulds FM Deal I accepted and was given the task of covering operations. All went well bar the last day - programming had missed a key data transfer task. At the morning meeting we had a system where people volunteered for Red Tasks this was my opportunity I said - Give me programming now and your best man and I will have a system running by the afternoon.  Looking shocked the main man accepted my offer.

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Away we went - Pull the B.A.C.S. Green Data Centre Manuals - you should have them and we will clone the procedures, I will define the record types and get them over to Courtaulds.

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The job took 1/2 day to build and ran first time.

I gained attention that day.

The following week in addition to my Courtaulds work I was requested to set up a team of 12 Graduates for an Olas Reporting System at Powergen and before that was completed i was asked to be the first man in the The TimeGate Computer Services Contract to lay the ground for the Principle Analysts.

At Timegate I was asked to lead the sales force on a new contract - we had released the sales force and it was left to me to promote our products.

Still busy the Manchester Data Centre announced its closure which meant I was redundant,

Birmingham offered me a get out the new Dairy Crest load had seen my CV and wanted me to manage their System 36 System _ I saw this as a cross over opportunity to manage mid range systems so I accepted.

But Peterborough Software stepped in as they wanted a Project Manager to scope the Royal Mail Parcel Force Project - I accepted to do this freelance. RMPF accepted my plans offering me a position on the build - I looked  to the system and submitted a revised proposal that they should drop their front end development and go with the TP solution at the central hub. They accepted this and offered me an extended contract. Sadly I had to turn down the Dairy Crest project and took my redundancy payment. A career decision that I long regret. But it was a decision driven by having a young family. Working 6am t0 8pm did little for family life plus travelling at 100 mile an hour on your dictaphone has its moments!

THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR

In The Year 2000 i had completed the Year 2k Project at Sodexo - It had taken me 2 years as the project leader  and I was shot out. I never wanted to see a mainframe program ever again.

But my future was decided for me - II    was now a Senior Designer without portlolio on a project that had been announced would no longer be developed and that 50% of the current team had to go.  

One would have thought that I would have been prime candidate to be trained up to SAP. But trueth be told i had little respect for my line manger and he had no control over me - I was my own man and had the skills and position to demand my own ways

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I decided to cross train myself with the support from the PC Division. I estalished a bootcamp in Rusholme. and attended intense training over a period of 6 month. To the point where I could develop and host my own ASP.NET / Sql Server applications.

I topped this off with a City and Guilds C Progamming Course and a part complete Open University Level 2 Java Programming Course.

The open university level 2 course was interesting - I obtained all the learning material - loaded the IDE and commenced the exercises. Happy that was consistent with the C that I new I felt confident to complete the course. I went to the first seminar with the ambition to recruit 6 coders and to form a tiger team to develop packed products.

This was not to be - I was the only one there - I made one huge complaint and we went through the whole course agreeing I had all the skills required to complete the project. At home I wrote to The Open University who refunded my payment in terms or course credited - from which I commenced my Openings Course in Health and Sociology - I had already done Management as an evaluation of my learning capacity.

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RED OCTOPUS