Jonathan Graham HARSTON

70 Camm Street, Walkley, SHEFFIELD S6 3TR
jgh@arcade.demon.co.uk
mdfs.net/jgh
Tel: 0114 281-8708

PROFILE

I offer over 25 years in systems programming and IT administration and ten years experience of working at the public face of local government. I have chaired public meetings and given presentations as well as organising meeting agendas and coordinating with council officers. I am looking to resume my career in IT or the public sector in roles that use my skills and allow me to develop them further.

HIGHER EDUCATION

Chartered Institute of Environmental Health. July 1996 Health and Safety Certificate

Sheffield College, Loxley Centre. September 1994 to May 1996 City & Guilds Electrical Installation Part 1 and 2

University of Stirling, Scotland. September 1987 to September 1990. Computing Science BSc Major, taking Environmental Science and Japanese Language as a subsidiaries.

KEY SKILLS

  • Managing and administering computing, IT, database and networking resources with in-depth experience of working with multiple systems, protocols and architectures.
  • Experienced in C, Pascal, Modula 2, Cobol, Visual-Basic, Basic and BBC BASIC; ARM, PDP-11, 6809, 6502 and Z80 machine code, and of UNIX, VMS, MSDOS Windows and BBC operating systems, with specialist knowledge of Econet and co-processor systems.
  • Writing computer programs and designing and building computer hardware; writing much of the software that I use.
  • Able to translate object code back into recompilable source code and recreate schematics from hardware.
  • Skilled in technical and cartographic drawing, including maps, plans and electronic schematics and circuit board layouts, and technical writing and HTML authoring.
  • Administering and organising back-office support, organising agenda, coordinating meetings and taking minutes.


    CURRENT EMPLOYMENT

    May 1999 to May 2010
    Elected Member of Sheffield City Council for Walkley Ward
    Member of the Licensing Board, deciding on applications for alcohol premises, hot food, street trading, gaming facilities, sports stadiums, taxi driver and vehicle licenses. Member of the Schools Admissions Board, determining entrance to schools, school transfers and supported travel applications. Cabinet Assistant for the Environment and member of Environment Board examining and exploring council environment policies.

    Party membership secretary and city-wide Data Officer, maintained party membership and electoral databases, analysed and used data for targeted and untargeted mailings, organised and mapped optimal delivery rounds. Ran the party print shop with high-speed high-volume printers, folding and stuffing machines, coordinated with suppliers and external print companies. Set up and ensured correct operation of server systems, on per-user and shared basis.

    PERSONAL BACKGROUND

  • Am interested in cartography, drawing many of my own maps, including the ones listed below.
  • Member of the Society of Genealogists and the Sheffield Family History Society. Have traced my family in Sheffield and Whitby back through 12 generations to about 1700 and across more than 15 families, identifying over 1100 members.
  • While at University, co-wrote, produced and presented a breakfast-time news and current affairs radio programme.
  • Have been a school governor for 12 years, chairing the Buildings & Site committee at Myers Grove, my former school.
  • Was a board member of South Yorkshire Housing Association for three years and continue as a shareholding member.
  • Qualified electrician, have had Health & Safety training and property management experience.
  • Member of the Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society.
  • Conversational fluency in Japanese, French and German.


    PUBLICATIONS

  • Rockall and Hasselwood Rock, map, pub. J.G.Harston, 2009
  • Planning Appeal supporting refusal of listed building consent, 163 Church Street, Whitby, J.G.Harston, May 2008.
  • 1er mai 1707: Qui s'en souvient?, Genista Informations, June 2007.
  • Submission to the Local Enquiry on the Sheffield Parliamentary Boundary Review, J.G.Harston, 2005.
  • Sheffield Parliamentary Boundary Review Submission, J.G.Harston, 2004.
  • Comments on the Sheffield Ward Boundary Review, J.G.Harston, 2003.
  • Sheffield Ward Boundary Review Submission, J.G.Harston, 2002.
  • Genealogy of the Old Testament, pub. J.G.Harston, 1995.
  • HADFS Reference Manual, pub. J.G.Harston, 1992, 1994.
  • Life in the Fast Lane (Game of Life), Acorn User, January 1992.
  • Climb aboard the Carousel (GetPages), Micro User., September 1991.
  • Suss out the Symbols (VLIST), Micro User, July 1990.
  • Program Lister (PRLIST), Micro User, June 1990.
  • Inside Story (MDUMP), Micro User, September 1989.
  • The Yards of Whitby, map, pub. J.G.Harston, 1989.
  • The Treaty of Union of the Kingdoms of Scotland and England, pub. J.G.Harston , 1988.


    PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT

    January 1997 to May 1999
    Sheffield Liberal Democrat Group, Sheffield City Council
    Deputy Office Manager/IT Manager.
    Setting up and maintaining shared and segregated user areas. Configuring software to correctly function on a per-user basis. First point of contact for Group members for IT problems.

    July 1996 to January 1997
    Channel 5 Broadcasting
    Television Reception Engineer. Retuning and testing video equipment as part of the Channel 5 retuning project. This involved working in people's homes ensuring that the new transmissions would not interfere with existing equipment.

    March 1994 to April 1994
    Owain F Carter Information Services, STIRLING
    Programmer. Consultant to debug a WordPerfect filehandling enhancement program. Reconfiguring a PC system to use the Cyrillic character set to BS2979, optimising memory-management and disk cacheing under DOS and Windows, and installing the hardware and software for a communications link.

    November 1993 to December 1993
    IT Department, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, SHEFFIELD
    Programmer. Rewriting medical information systems designed by medical students with little computer knowledge; and rewriting systems to use Windows from Visual Basic.

    July 1992 to July 1993
    AFE Computer Services (Acorn Far East), HONG KONG
    Network Systems Manager/In-house Technician. Responsibilities included installing, customising and maintaining software, and installing and maintaining hardware. Managing a mixed Acorn UNIX Ethernet and Econet network of RISC OS and PC computers, liaising with the English schools in Hong Kong and installing and teaching staff about new software and helping them with problems, and coordinating service and maintenance requests.

    June 1992 to March 1993 (part time)
    May 1991 to June 1992 (full-time)
    Tokyo Kyoei Gakuen, HONG KONG
    Maths, Science and English TEFL Teacher. Teaching 'O' level Mathematics and Science to mainly Japanese and some Chinese secondary school students. Teaching Geography and French, and conversational English to adults with a wide range of abilities.

    January 1991 to April 1991
    Watford Electronics, WATFORD
    Technician. Responsible for taking telephone enquiries and orders, doing minor computer repairs, and dealing with mail returns of microcomputers and peripherals.

    September 1990
    Dept. of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Stirling, STIRLING
    Computing Consultant. Responsible for the installation of software for an RISC OS Network system, installing and setting up programs, and preparing a connection to the campus Ethernet system to connect to JANET; Beta testing of pre-release software for Unix workstations.

    June 1988 to August 1988
    Camp Beaumont, Albrighton, SHROPSHIRE
    Computing Activity Instructor. Teaching children in the 5 to 16 year range how to use various computer applications including word processors, databases, spreadsheets and graphics packages. Assisting 14 to 18 year olds in programming activities; looking after children of foreign nationalities and some informal experience of TEFL teaching.

    June to Aug 1987, 1986, 1985
    Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Medical Physics Dept., SHEFFIELD
    Technician. Designing and building, and writing control programs for, electronic computer hardware for sensing medical data.