Hi from MK (also, there's a 15 char min on this field)

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Hello :slight_smile: I’m Stu. Been attending TestBashes for some years now but new to The Club. Testing around 6 years in total. I’ve met a few of you through all that, if I’m known at all it’s probably as “that guy who complained Brighton '17 felt cliquey”, for which everyone was super lovely and supportive, so much so here I now am.

I’m Test Manager for an actually-pretty-agile-no-but-seriously development team based in Milton Keynes. I’m a very passionate software tester first and foremost and I’ve been implementing exploratory techniques, targeted automation and (for want of a better term) shift-left for some years now, since having my mind blown clean open by James Bach. Recent projects include building and growing a Community of Practice for Test, something I’m finding endlessly fascinating. I occasionally blog at WildTests and frequently don’t. I scarcely shut up, however, on twitter. I also once ran a meetup, Test:MK, which I am hoping to revive at some point.

TW for brackets: I like to travel (Scandinavia = my second home), read, walk, explore, discover, grow. I am a wood warden in my spare time, maintaining some local woodland for public use. I’m interested in Norse Mythology (this may be something of an understatement) and spent several years of my life training others in something much like Taoism. I like all the usual TV (the good good stuff and the bad good stuff), I’m currently box setting Bosch on Amazon Prime and I recently (last few years) got into soul music, although my favourites have been and will always be Springsteen and The Gaslight Anthem. My favourite film changes with my mood, but my favourite author is always Virginia Woolf. I have a BA in Philosophy and English Literature. Crowning all this, I have developed two small humans (4 and 6), for whom I am eternally excited, grateful and humbled, and I am hoping to marry a (specific) lady in about 7 months time.

I really, really suck at meeting people and getting connections going, hence networking is kind of a problem for me :sweat_smile: but I am continuing to work on that. Despite my preference for smaller conversations, I aim to be authentic in everything I do, something which serves me well as a manager, a tester and, I hope, as a human being.

I’m working up an idea/agenda/manifesto I’m currently calling “Quality Activism” which may be ready to share at some point or other.

Pleased to meet you, and excited to learn with you all.
Stu :leaves:

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You can get around the character minimum by filling the remainder with empty Unicode characters. Don’t tell anyone.

You sound like someone with a solid basis for becoming a famous tester. I mean in terms of one everyone’s heard of because they know their stuff; if that’s what you want from life. I don’t say that lightly.

I also have some Viking in my heritage which I like to learn about and had my mind blown open by JB, so now I’m going to try Bosch on the hypothesis that it follows that I’ll enjoy it.

Welcome :smiley:!

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Welcome to the community!

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