I started to work for Glass Training back in 2001. When Allan formed Glass Qualifications in 2012 and the companies split into two, I wasn’t expecting Allan to ask if I would like to join him and Sarah Thomas (was Office Manager) and work with them as an Administration Assistant for Glass Qualifications but I am so glad I got the opportunity. Over the years I have had different roles at GQA but my main role has always been to manage our GQA internal administration system. I’ve worked on our old system called Omnis and two years ago set up our new system GQA On-line. As you would expect over the years there has been some stressful times when updating and improving our system for GQA. Allan would always trust my judgement on what i thought would be best and in 2004 i turned part of our internal system On-line so that Centres could register candidates onto our qualifications via our website. It was a big step for us and at the time not many awarding bodies had this facility. There were some teething problems as there always is with systems but Allan always supported me and encouraged me not to get down when something wasn’t working like I wanted. One day there was a small parcel delivered to work from Allan. Allan knew I used to love Bagpuss when I was a young girl and in the post was a mouse from the cartoon and a little note saying “together we will fix it” the small mouse when pressed sang the mending song ‘we will fix it’. This made me smile and I thought it was so thoughtful of him. Over the years our system has got bigger and better and its Allan’s support from the very beginning that has gave me the confidence to have done this. Allan has always been my boss but also a friend and someone I had grown to care a lot about. We had become a small family at GQA and Allan was the reason. The telephone call from work telling me Allan had passed was unexpected as I was off on maternity leave at the time and had only just received messages the previous week from Allan asking how me and my new baby girl was. I would have loved Allan to have met my daughter Betsy Mae. I have never met anyone like Allan, from his facts on Michael Jackson that made us chuckle, thoughtful gifts that made us smile, knowledge of the industry that made us wiser and a very supporting boss that encouraged us to do our best, he will be missed but never forgotten by all of us at GQA.