Outgoing Chairman's message As I come to the end of my two years as Chair of BCS ELITE I'm very pleased to be able to contribute to this new format newsletter. It marks a step-change in how we can communicate with our members, who now number just under 1,800. During the past year we have continued with our high quality meetings programme, overseen by David Ferguson, and those on managing infrastructure, security and confidentiality, sport and programme management, amongst others, have all been well supported. I'm looking forward to our next meeting on 5 October where we will have senior speakers from the 2012 Olympics and Crossrail. As well as our continuing programme of stimulating evening meetings we have also continued the high profile VIP events and I was proud to be able to introduce Bill Gates to a packed meeting in October. Whilst the majority of our events are hosted in London we had a successful visit to the Royal Mail innovation centre in Rugby and we will be continuing this series of visits to ground-breaking institutions. We have started an association with the Deloitte CIO Forum which has lead to encouraging participation from members in the North of the UK who usually are not able to make meetings in London. We have also continued our association with the Gartner Midsize, Triple iii and IT Directors Forum conferences. Since its founding BCS ELITE has been one of the most influential groups in UK IT, representing as it does the senior practitioners in the user community. With increased membership, a strong programme of events, and a wide network of associations within the industry, it continues to grow in stature. As a member I look forward to supporting the new Chair and committee as they continue to develop BCS ELITE. Ben Booth New committee members Congratulations to the new incoming members of the committee - Bryan Mills, Yva Thakurdas, Chris Tiernan, John Elsden and James McCafferty. On 5 October the new Chair will be selected. Advertisement Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, 5-9 November 2006, Cannes, France Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is THE largest IT conference in Europe - over 200 sessions across 28 technology tracks. Gartner analysts and leading industry guests will focus on making IT decisions to help power productivity and growth. It's the one event senior technology professionals consider indispensable. Register by 8 September and save €300, click here or call +44 (0) 1252 776373. Featured event Now in its 6th year, Storage Expo 2006 is the UK's only dedicated data storage event. Fully supported by BCS and held on the 18–19 October, Olympia, London, this event will find you the definitive answers to your growing data storage needs. Pre-register for free now at www.storage-expo.com/bcselite New on the website Mergers and acquisitions - the IT questions M and As are back on the agenda at a level higher than at any time since the dotcom boom. The relevance of the CIO to successful M&A is a function of the centrality of IT in organizations. Read five lessons to be learned. Legislation and compliance: The compliance wonderland Andy Jones of the Information Security Forum assesses the hidden costs of compliance. Security: The Cybermen fight back 'In today's increasingly uncertain world there is only one certainty. Your security will be breached; it's just a case of when,' said David Thomas, deputy assistant director, FBI Cyberdivision, at the recent BCS sponsored World Wide Web Conference in Edinburgh. Social inclusion: Reaching the heights Geoff Busby writes about three high-flyers each of whom have a disability that they have overcome, but many of the obstacles they have faced could have been negated by creative use of IT. Consultations Consultations Consultations in progress are now on the BCS website and can be RSS'd. Air your views The Harvey Nash CIO Survey is here: www.harveynash.com/uk/ciosurvey Feedback This publication will be sent electronically on the first Friday of each month to all members of the ELITE group and BCS Fellows. Any ideas or suggestions for content are welcome, please email editor@bcs.org

ELITE EVENTS BCS ELITE Autumn 2006 Event The 5 October event will have the following speakers: Pascal Wattiaux, technology director of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, and Michael Pincher, IS director of Cross London Rail Link Ltd (Crossrail) BCS EVENTS BCS awards ceremony 7 December, London Full BCS Events Calendar OTHER EVENTS WCIT Charity Walk in aid of Barnardos 17 September, London Inter:action 06, FAST Annual Conference 4-5 October, Ascot Gov Net expo 17 October, London Documation, information management event 18 October, London Computer Journal Lecture: The Ideal of Program Correctness 25 October, London

Subscription Options I want to unsubscribe from this newsletter. Legal Information This e-mail and any files transmitted with it have come from The British Computer Society, Registered Charity number 292786, and are confidential and intended solely for the use of the intended recipient. No-one else may retain, use, copy, forward, distribute or place any reliance on all or any of it in any form. Our registered office is First Floor, Block D, North Star House, North Star Avenue, Swindon, SN2 1FA, UK. If you receive this email in error, please contact The BCS on +44 (0)1793 417417. Please note that this e-mail and any attachments have been scanned for the presence of computer viruses. However, it is always advisable to run a virus check on emails and attachments before opening them. This email distribution list is a broadcast list that is used by us to send email messages to our members. Whilst you can subscribe and unsubscribe freely using the above links, you cannot post new messages to the list.