Ed Edward Loach
Picture Age: 45
Date of Birth: 2nd January 1970
Location: Clacton-on-Sea
Nationality: British

Education: Saint John's College, Oxford University
1988-1991
Mathematics BA
Saint Peter's Collegiate School, Wolverhampton
1981-1988
A-levels: Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Geography, General Studies
O-levels: English Language, English Literature, French, History, Chemistry, Biology
To download the OFSTED report on St. Peter's Collegiate School, Wolverhampton, click here.
See also: My FriendsReunited entry (Registration required)

Work experience Protronics Limited
2002 -
Programmer. Position involves software development predominantly of the SAGE 200, MMS, Line 100 and Line 50 accounts products, using Retrieve 4GL and Microsoft C#, Visual Basic.NET, and a small amount of Visual Basic 6.
While at Protronics I have passed the Microsoft Certified Professional exams:
(70-229) Designing and Implementing Databases with Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition,
(70-306) Developing and Implementing Windows-based Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, and
(70-305) Developing and Implementing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET
I am currently studying for exam (70-483) Programming in C#
Woolvant Limited
1991 - 2002
Systems Developer. Position involves software development predominantly of the SAGE Line 100 (formerly Sovereign, formerly Sky) accounts range, using Retrieve 4GL and Microsoft Visual Basic. Consulting with the client to determine their requirements plays a major part of the development process. A technical and working knowledge has also been developed in the areas of PC hardware and Novell Netware 3 and Microsoft Windows NT 3.5, 4 and Windows 2000 networking systems, as well as all Microsoft desktop operating systems from DOS 3.3 through to Windows XP.

Hobbies Amateur Radio
I have been a licensed radio amateur since 1984, passing the morse examination for a class A licence in the same year. From 1993 to 2000 I was secretary of MAXPAK, the Midlands AX-25 Packet Radio Users Group.
Reading
I enjoy reading and have a growing collection of fiction, mainly science-fiction and fantasy. I have a large collection of books particularly by authors such as Asimov, Terry Brooks, Clarke, Stephen Donaldson, David Eddings, Heinlein, Frank Herbert, James Herbert and Terry Pratchett. I particularly enjoy the humour of the Discworld novels.
Mensa
Since 1996 I have been attending numerous Mensa meetings and weekend gatherings. There used to be a separate section on this site listing those I'd been to, but since becoming webmaster for the Party SIG section I've not been keeping it updated, so have incorporated the few reviews into the Party SIG site. By late 1997 I had become the local secretary for the Black Country area, being a first point of contact for new members and taking overall responsibility for meetings in the area.
Since writing the above I have stopped being the webmaster for PartySIG which has been at www.partysig.com and www.partysig.co.uk but now seems gone. After moving from Wolverhampton to Clacton I became the local secretary for the Tendring Peninsula area (since 2000) as well as the Regional Officer for East Anglia (also since 2000).
Another update: I stepped down as Locsec and Regional Officer after 10 years. I am currently Pubs Officer for Tendring CAMRA (since 2009). I have also been editing OpenStreetMap as a hobby since August 2008.