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For 2023 (and 2024 ...) - we are now fully retired from IT training.
We have made many, many friends over 25 years of teaching about Python, Tcl, Perl, PHP, Lua, Java, C and C++ - and MySQL, Linux and Solaris/SunOS too. Our training notes are now very much out of date, but due to upward compatability most of our examples remain operational and even relevant ad you are welcome to make us if them "as seen" and at your own risk.

Lisa and I (Graham) now live in what was our training centre in Melksham - happy to meet with former delegates here - but do check ahead before coming round. We are far from inactive - rather, enjoying the times that we are retired but still healthy enough in mind and body to be active!

I am also active in many other area and still look after a lot of web sites - you can find an index ((here))
Our changing world

Time moves on.

My Dad passed away in January, and is sorely missed. He was quiet and unassuming, yet very wise and very generous; any wisdom I have comes from him. His passing was sudden; he was living on his own, happy and healthy though slowing a little in his final years which is hardly surprising in his early 90s. Completed the crossword on Saturday, took himself upstairs to bed, laid out his clothes for the morning ... then passed peacefully in his sleep. That's the right way to go, though a shock for the rest of us.

Time moves on.

When we opened Well House Manor in 2006, around 80% of our training work was for our public courses, with 20% on site. But thats changed right around, and it's now 80% on site and just 20% at our place. Rooms at Well House Manor now attract a good occupancy rate - somewhere over 70% of available rooms sold from July t December 2016, but the businesses hav diverified.

Time moves on.

Daily blogging and following of blogs has become old-fashioned, with people keeping up to date via Facebook and Twitter.

Time moves on.

None of us is getting any younger; my loss of an ear (can't hear, no balance) in the summer of 2015 threw me for a while, and I'm still only three quarters back to where I was, with frankly little prospect of getting any hearing back, or getting back to the workload I was able to handle.

Time moves on.

Paperwork and admin gets ever more complex. Workplace pensions add another layer to the workload, and extra costs. Being able to offer a good income to staff gets harder, and we've spend a huge amount of time in the last three months learning about inheritance tax and probate. Little point in involving a solicitor as we would spend just as long instructing them. And there's much more to be done over coming months too with clearance and sale of Sunnyside.

Time moves on.

Five years ago, we were in "campaign mode" looking for an improved train service for our home town of Melksham, with the barricades up at officialdom to maintain the status quo and not risk any improvement that might not work. Now there's a much better train service - good enough to be useful, and indeed busy enough to have passed though three year trial and become permanent, with every indication that it can carry on growing if the capacity's provided at the times that people want to travel. We have move from "Save the Train" to an organisation we labelled as a "Community Rail Partership" to a partnership that's recognised by the Association of Rail Partnerships and the train operator to the official community representation of a "designated service" - just one of 19 designated services - at the Department for Transport.

Time moves on.

Computer programming is become more specialist; fewer people are programming, and those who are now often write major systems which are used by a massive number of people who apply them. The programming languages themselves have not moved on quite so quickly as there's little appetite for writing software in a language that's going to go out of date quickly, and the principles are well established. However, there are changes and progress, and new facilities added which make the languages much easier to use, and render older and more complex alternatives out of date. Perl, Python and PHP all have major new releases (Perl 6, Python 3, PHP 7) which require or will very shortly require the major revision of course materials.

Time moves on.

Computers have become very much smaller. Almost everyone who's involved in IT in a significant way has their own laptop. Internet connectivity (usually WiFi) is virtually universal, as is the provision of big screens or projectors in conference and training rooms around the world.

Time moves on.

There's still nothing quite like a book or a printed manual, but the first source for technical knowledge these days is through your computer. Resources are available worldwide, and usually easily searchable and fairly well indexed.

Time moves on.

The Chambers of Commerce (I'm the President of the Melksham Chamber) are generally having difficulty in attracting new members, with much of the work they have previously done now being over a wider geographic area, or through specialist and specific networking groups. No longer do you need to source your services locally, though certain things (such as haircutting) cannot yet be done via the Internet.

Time moves on.

The world is changing. Local and unitary authoritys are being squeezed financially by central govenment, and at the town and parish level there's a lack of good candidates for elected roles, which involve little or no financial reward for a very great deal of hard work and admin, with a vociferous public often fast to criticise and slow to forget negative issues, while slow to say "thank you" (or not to thank at all) for good hard work done, and fast to forget really positive achievements.

Time moves on.

The world is changing too. The UK held a referrendum on leaving Europe; move votes were cast "leave" than "stay" and as a result we're on our way out. The USA elected a president with less knowledge of world politics than almost any of his predessors, and so far there seems to be a serious gap in matching up promises to policies, and indeed serious questions as to whether those promises could be achieved.

At Well House Consultants, we set up our training centre in Melksham in 2000, and we added our accommodation at Well House Manor in 2006. My "Horse's Mouth" blog started in 2004, and I've written some 4,700 articles since then. I've also started some 2,800 topics on the Great Western Coffee Shop forum which I helped found in January 2007; that forum continues to attract around 50 messages a day with around 27,000 viewing sessions from 11,000 users per month.

As time moves on and so much changes, it's time for Lisa and me to look forward to the next ten to fifteen years, like we did in 2006 when we opened Well House Manor. We both remain very active indeed and indeed there's no way that we'll be disappearing - in fact Lisa is standing for Town Council next month. Hoever, there will be changes for us to simplify what we're involved with and let us move on concentrating on what we're really enjoying and remain capable of doing at our current age and health and in our brave new Brexit and Trump world.

We have utterly enjoyed the last 10 years and it's not coming to a sudden end - rather developing forward so that we - and those around us and in our community - can enjoy the next 10 years too. Further posts will follow, although the future of "The Horse's Mouth" is more as a repository for reference articles than for a daily magazine of life. Please do sign up as a Facebook friend or follow us there if you want to keep informed of the daily flow, email us, call us, say "hi" in the street, come to the Town Hall meetings should you elect Lisa on 4th May.
(written 2017-04-17)

 
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
Z700 - People
  [207] Canteen Dragon - (2005-02-09)
  [388] BBQ Season - (2005-07-24)
  [392] No Smoking - (2005-07-27)
  [423] A Victorian Lady - (2005-08-23)
  [530] Perl course during the week, getting married at the weekend - (2005-12-16)
  [543] The world didn't stop for Christmas - (2005-12-26)
  [584] Loosing breath with Gerald - (2006-01-31)
  [601] A fond memory of Sir Freddie - (2006-02-11)
  [611] Look out for the motor cyclist - (2006-02-17)
  [650] A person of few words - (2006-03-18)
  [704] Erin Brent - rest in peace - (2006-04-29)
  [763] Much more that the world cup - (2006-06-15)
  [771] From cat breeder to Cobol to Perl - (2006-06-21)
  [794] Perl delegate - much more than just a delegate - (2006-07-06)
  [820] Robert and William Whitworth - (2006-08-01)
  [1064] Light and shadows at Beach - (2007-02-04)
  [1065] Graham Ellis - an Introduction - (2007-02-05)
  [1107] Weekend Visitors - (2007-03-13)
  [1119] The Last Word on the road - (2007-03-26)
  [1151] Gordon Dodge, R.I.P. - (2007-04-16)
  [1197] Back off home with our best wishes - (2007-05-21)
  [1238] The kind spirit of Melksham - (2007-06-21)
  [1279] The Gdansk fireball - (2007-07-27)
  [1303] Heading Upstate New York - (2007-08-14)
  [1385] Delegates of all shapes and sizes - (2007-10-09)
  [1522] Paging Martin Noke, who petitions for more trains from Trowbridge to Swindon - (2008-01-28)
  [1570] London Midland ... Merrymaker ... Percy Danks - (2008-03-10)
  [1627] Amazing family members - (2008-05-02)
  [1916] Why I remember East Grafton - (2008-12-02)
  [1980] Michelle - (2009-01-06)
  [1988] Melksham, Wiltshire. Town Crier Competition, 2009 - (2009-01-11)
  [2078] A lot has changed - but the memory lingers on - (2009-03-12)
  [2100] Visiting Family - (2009-03-23)
  [2132] Learning about Lurchers - (2009-04-18)
  [2503] Melksham manslaughter case concludes - sort of - (2009-11-14)
  [2795] Simon says - (2010-06-05)
  [2846] Catching up with an old friend - (2010-07-01)
  [2886] Congratulations, Kimberly - (2010-07-25)
  [3008] Dulwich College Preparatory, and Sevenoaks, Schools - (2010-10-21)
  [3034] Birth Notice - Aeryn Cassandra Ellis - (2010-11-07)
  [3055] Zyliana Kyrei Cox - (2010-11-16)
  [3125] The family is defunct. Long live the family. - (2011-01-09)
  [3184] Visiting relatives - (2011-02-26)
  [3268] Baby Pictures - (2011-04-27)
  [3297] A long day, a long journey, and families and similarities the world over - (2011-05-22)
  [3298] Quiet Monday in - (2011-05-23)
  [3355] Family Pictures - (2011-07-12)
  [3466] Passing of Steve Jobs - R.I.P. - (2011-10-06)
  [3512] A colleague and friend who changed my life - (2011-11-07)
  [3775] Alan Turing - 1912 to 1954 - (2012-06-23)
  [3905] How should we choose our Wiltshire Police and Crime Commissioner? - (2012-10-27)
  [3981] Melksham - a town of some remarkable people - (2013-01-19)
  [4193] Using our non-found page to help look for missing persons - (2013-10-18)
  [4349] When I am old, what will worry me? - (2014-12-11)
  [4482] People in New York - (2015-05-02)
  [4646] Sometimes you wonder about people. And perhaps you should not. - (2016-02-13)
  [4728] Visiting Los Alamitos Bay Yacht Club - (2016-11-23)


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Revisiting - should I stand for Melksham Without Parish Council in May?
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or
Horse's mouth home
Forward to
Why you should vote for Lisa in Melksham Central
Some other Articles
Labelling images
A year of changes for Lisa and Graham Ellis, and Well House
Melksham Chamber of Commerce - my final Presidents report
Why you should vote for Lisa in Melksham Central
Our changing world
Revisiting - should I stand for Melksham Without Parish Council in May?
Thoughts on the new Blackmore Ward of Melksham Without Parish
Python examples - updates under way
Reviewing TransWilts performance 2015-16
To Oceanside and San Clemente Pier
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This is a page archived from The Horse's Mouth at http://www.wellho.net/horse/ - the diary and writings of Graham Ellis. Every attempt was made to provide current information at the time the page was written, but things do move forward in our business - new software releases, price changes, new techniques. Please check back via our main site for current courses, prices, versions, etc - any mention of a price in "The Horse's Mouth" cannot be taken as an offer to supply at that price.

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