Vale Tim Gething
It with is with great sadness that I have to report that Tim Gething passed away last week.
Many of you will have benefitted from Tim's contributions to this forum and the OpenVPMS community as a whole but not so many knew of the health problems he has had over the last 18 months and to which he has finally succumbed.
As a retired IT professional with a son and daughter-in-law owning a successful veterinary practice in Hong Kong Tim developed a passion for making OpenVPMS a much better and much more usable practice resource for all of us in the user community. His preparedness to help out users at a moment's notice, spend long hours writing critical documentation, creating reports and dreaming up enhancements to OpenVPMS have created footprints that will remain in our organisation for a very long time. He really was the embodiment of the committed open source community member that OpenVPMS seeks to foster and has relied on since its inception.
We wish to pass on our sincerest sympathy to Tim's family and friends at this sad time.
Re: Vale Tim Gething
I don't receive postings from the users list in my mail box, and so only just now came across this while researching an issue. I am incredibly saddened by the news of Tim's passing. While we never met in person, I truly considered Tim a friend.
I'm sure that all of you know how tremendously generous Tim was with his time. As just one example, I remember having written him about some small problem I was having and he immediately wrote back that he was sorry that he wouldn't be able to answer in full as he was on his way to the airport for a family get-together and quite pressed for time. Nonetheless, he continued on with a full answer to my question, complete with annotated screenshots and step by step instructions! Good Lord Man! Just get to the airport!
It was a joy to work with Tim on various issues in OpenVPMS. He was an absolute whiz at MySQL queries and would often ask me to test and provide feedback on his current project. Our emails would frequently drift off-topic and I would get hints as to his extensive experience and knowledge. We all owe him a huge debt of gratitude for his contributions over the years.
Tim truly will be missed. Thoughts and prayers to Tim's family and those fortunate enough to have known him better than I. So as I would often end my emails to him...
"Well done young man!"
Samuel Longiaru
Kamloops, Canada
Re: Vale Tim Gething
Thank you for letting us know Peter.
Tim's generosity with his time was peerless. His recent support for the Melbourne User Groups meeting by flying over was only one example. He will be in our thoughts every time we use a feature he championed or a documentation he single handedly wrote.