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Angie Martin

We recently lost someone very dear to our hearts, and a key member of our team, Angie Martin.

Angie passed away on July 17th 2009, after an 18 month battle against breast cancer. She was 34 years old.

Angie was an immensely talented programmer, no doubt one of the finest programmers on the planet. She wrote the website code that powers our website, our online store, and the system that publishes the article that you are reading now.

Angie worked from her home in Cumbria, in the countryside in the north of England. The photo above was taken from the top of the hill behind Angie's and her husband Tommy's house - click on the photo above to enlarge.

Angie and her cat in a photo series called "Night Creatures" by her husband Tommy

Though she lived on the other side of the planet to us, when you find a programmer as good as Angie, timezones and physical location become completely irrelevant - she was that good. It was an absolute honour to have her help.

It's impossible to sum up in a short tribute like this just what a great person Angie was.

Her role in coding our website was absolutely critical to the success of The Tuners Group - we couldn't have done it without her.

But Angie was much much more than just someone who wrote computer code that runs our website ... she was a true friend, a fighter to the very end, the very definition of "never give up", and one of the kindest people we have ever met.

Angie was also a key developer for MySociety.org, a UK based not for profit organisation, which builds websites designed to allow the public to keep track on what politicians are doing, and which runs sites like theyworkforyou.com, fixmystreet.com, and writetothem.com.

The fact that Angie was talented enough that she could have walked into a very high paying job with virtually any company in the world she wanted to work for (and could have named her own price salary wise), but chose to use her skills and her time to help a not for profit organisation like mySociety, speaks volumes about the immense depth of her character.

There is a beautiful tribute to Angie on the mySociety site, part of which reads ...

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"With typical disgregard for cool, her CV noted that she was “known to enjoy wrangling regular expressions on a Sunday Morning”.

She didn’t see any contradiction between being a successful woman and a geek, throwing herself wholeheartedly into the Mac-toting, perlmonger ethos ...

What she achieved in terms of difficult coding during recovery from chemotherapy was incredible, breathtaking - but she wanted to change the world.

It now falls to the rest of us, and our supporters, to live up to the expectations she embodied, to continue to push every day, using skills like those that she had to help people with everyday problems.

We now have to ask 'What would Angie do ?'"

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Angie is survived by her husband Tommy Martin.

Tommy is an extremely talented photographer (he took the photos in this post) and he has exhibited at the Tate Modern gallery in London.

You can check out his incredible fine art photography at his website here (another site built by Angie) ...

http://www.tommymartin.co.uk/

Donations To Breast Cancer Research And Patient Care Organisations

Angie in the snow - always with a smile

Many breast cancer research and patient care organisations are poorly funded by government, and rely on donations to do the incredible work and ground breaking reasearch that they do.

Angie's husband Tommy wrote ... "If anyone wants to make donations in her name in UK, Hospice at Home would be very fitting. It was their nursing care that allowed Angie to remain at home right to the end. Given how little publicity they get, and the incredible service they provide I think it would be very fitting for people to donate to them."

You can read about the incredible work that Hospice At Home does on their website at ...

http://www.hospiceathome.co.uk

UK cheque memorial donations can be made at ...

http://www.hospiceathome.co.uk/memdonations.htm

You can also donate to them online at ...

http://www.hospiceathome.co.uk/onlinedonations.htm

For those in Australia, please consider donating to the Sydney Breast Cancer Foundation (The fundraising arm of the Sydney Breast Cancer Institute) who can accept donations online, by phone or by post.

As it says on the Sydney Breast Cancer Foundation Website ...

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"Where your support goes

Your donation to the Sydney Breast Cancer Foundation will help fund the work of The Sydney Breast Cancer Institute.

Based at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and Concord Hospitals, the Institute provides comprehensive breast cancer treatment and care to breast cancer patients, including surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and wide range of other treatments.

The Institute relies on donations made to the Sydney Breast Cancer Foundation to fund vital breast cancer treatment, research, patient education and specialised equipment to supplement state funding. The Foundation also provides practical assistance and support directly to beast cancer patients and their families by funding initiatives such as our Patient Support Program, to improve their quality of life."

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The Sydney Breast Cancer Foundation's online donation page is at ...

http://www.sbcf.org.au/donate/index.cfm

If you are outside of Australia, please consider donating to a local breast cancer research institute or breast cancer patient care organisation in your local region.

Rest in peace my friend. You were one of a kind, a true friend and completely unreplacable.

created on 2009-08-23 21:23:51 by adamr