Another year over, a new one just begun

I was sitting back staring into space and thinking random thoughts and these lyrics popped into my head:

So this is christmas
and what have you done
another year over
a new one just begun

And it lead me to take a deeper look at the year gone by and what I've done.

I've had a good year.

The London Tester Gathering is going from strength to strength thanks to the support of the testing community not only in London but UK and world wide. It's helped people learn, meet other testers, discuss situations and problems, helped people find work, raised money for charity, given people an opportunity to talk, to hear talks, I could go on.

In the coming year I'm hoping to organise a Tester Gathering day of workshops, hoping to see other gatherings appearing and hoping the ones already around get the same support the London Tester Gatherings have.

I've been able to attend a number of workshops and courses such as Rapid Software Testing and a BDD Immersion Workshop
Thanks to the generosity of other members of the community I've been able to attend workshops with Michael Bolton and James Bach.

I enjoyed a year at Channel4 and worked with a good team on a couple of projects that turned out quite well.

I've been able to work at improving my testing and my thinking by practicing both and I can see and feel the improvement. I've used new (to me) tools. I've read books and added many more to my list to be read. I've read blog posts. I've made better use of Twitter and Skype. I've coded more.
Update: One of the things I've used to improve my testing and thinking is the Weekend Testing and Weeknight Testing sessions, if you haven't checked one out please do so.

I've hopefully encouraged members of the community in their undertakings and I've appreciated the encouragement I've had.

All in all I've enjoyed my year, I just wish there was more of it! Oh well, I'm in a new one now.