Met Spenny on the very first bootcamp and a few things stick out from that week, namely, as Dee mentioned Spenny would say Dw i’n meddwl, he would put his finger in the air and it would start with a long dw i like dweeeeeeee meddwl then nothing and as Dee said we all fell about laughing.
Next thing that stands out was the first morning in the toilet part where Spneny , Colin and myself were doing our morning ablutions and it being the first morning with no english it was hilarious, it was like a scene from Mr Bean!! it went whoo arrr ohh etc and all panicking that Aran was around the corner listening as we dare not speak in english.it was a great week for miming.
All jokes aside as Aran said, Spenny was a tremendous help in the beginning with his computer and internet knowledge.
A great chap and great company.
This week’s Seren is someone I always think of as one of the great unsung heroes of the SaySomethingin project…
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:
Seren yr Wythnos #6
Jeff Lewis
Jeff is one of the most unassumingly kind people I know.
In fact, I’d quite like to be like Jeff when I grow up… 
I can’t actually remember what his first offer of help was - he has done so, so many things for SaySomethingin - so you’ll have to accept them in no particular order, and when you’ve read them you’ll understand what an enormous debt we all owe him.
Jeff is a sound engineer. He pointed out (was this, perhaps, his first offer?) that our sound files clearly weren’t done professionally. He, er, wasn’t the first person to point that out! But he was the first to offer to help fix it.
That mean, initially, advice about microphones - which was how we ended up with our faithful and much beloved Snowball! - but quickly turned into a never-ending mountain of mastering work, which has made both our Welsh and Spanish courses dramatically better in terms of their all-important sound quality.
Most people would have felt they’d given enough at that point.
But no, Jeff had more to offer.
He did a complete overhaul of our Spanish course - and helped find and organise and record Rosa, the only female Spanish voice who actually finished all her recordings! - and got it to the point where it was good enough to be published on Audible. Sadly, Audible hasn’t mean enough sales for us even to begin to cover Jeff’s efforts there - but maybe one day…
Oh, then he started coding for us.
Which was first, Jeff - the app or the Jennyware?
The app was a real rescue project - we had an iOS app that had been very kindly developed as a gift - but the developer hadn’t stayed part of the SSi community, and clearly didn’t have time for upgrades, and each new version of iOS that came out saw the app developing a few extra problems. It was becoming a nightmare for us - and Jeff built a new app and has kept fine-tuning it and helping people with it - a huge, huge contribution.
But even that may be not quite as huge as his pièce de résistance - turning the Spennyware into what became known as the Jennyware - which first of all made the work of the importing team a huge amount easier, and then actually automated the importing work - a gigantic step forwards in getting us to a situation where we can really think in terms of providing courses for hundreds of different languages.
It’s been a privilege getting to know Jeff over the years - not least because he has one of the driest senses of humour I’ve ever encountered - by now, I can spot most of his jokes…
And I really can’t think him enough for the time, money, love and friendship he has invested so generously in this project.
It’s going to be a day of huge joy at SSi Towers when we finally sell enough Spanish courses to start trying to persuade Jeff to come on-board as a staff member… 
So, even if Jeff’s unassuming nature means you haven’t really noticed what a massive difference he’s made, if you’ve ever listened to an SSi lesson and actually been able to hear the voices, now would be a great time to thank him… 
Iestyn ap Dafydd
Catrin Lliar Jones
Cat Dafydd
Dee McCarney
Spenny
Jeff Lewis
Ifan Baines
Diolch Jeff! A true star!
Oh, so now you’ve stolen my person for the Diolch thread this week! I was going to pick Jeff to say thank you for the iOS app! So I’ll just do it here…When I first started with SSiW, I would download the lessons from the website to my computer, and put them on my phone with iTunes. To keep them organized (because I’m OCD like that), this sometimes meant fixing tags and messing around in iTunes first. Then I discovered the app - SO much easier! It’s a beautiful clean app, loads of functionality, nicely organized and I am very grateful for all the work Jeff does to maintain it and add features.
I didn’t know about all the other contributions Jeff has made over the years - wow! So diolch yn fawr iawn, Jeff, for everything you’ve done, and are doing, for SSiW!
I’m worried that not enough people will thank Jeff because, like me, they haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, Aran, and therefore how much work has been involved. I’m visualising Jeff as a tiny fairy godfather, like the little people inside my radio and TV, who make something amazing happen when you flick the switch. Thank you for the magic, Jeff!
I guessed aloud when we were paying tribute to Spenny that Jeff might be imminently in line for stellar thanks. I had the good fortune of drawing on Jeff’s acoustic and software guidance as part of the processing team. It rapidly became clear that his essential skills were being offered regularly and generously.
While I’m no longer involved in processing, I’m still aware of and grateful for Jeff’s input.
My main contact with Jeff has been during that time when he was checking the scripts for the Spanish lessons and I was one of the people checking them. It became almost a game to see how quickly I could pounce on the next script and get it back to him. I could see then how meticulous and professional he was in his attitude to the work though - only perfection was good enough!
I had heard of ‘Jennyware’ but had no idea how involved it was, or how much it could accomplish. An amazing achievement!
Diolch yn fawr iawn for all your work behind the scenes, Jeff. You’re a real wizard
That’s remarkably true-to-life, as it happens…
Diolch yn Fawr Jeff!
Like Dee, I was one of the checking-team. I noticed, that Jeff did a lot work. He answered every question or every comment immediately.
But I had, like many others, no idea how much he really worked for SSiW and us all.
Diolch yn fawr iawn. Muchas gracias.
Congratulations, Jeff, on your well deserved recognition. Although I don’t know you, it is clear that your generous hard work has been instrumental in setting such a high standard for the recordings.
Oh dear, I’m a bit slow catching up on this thread, so I’ll have to say thank you to @ianspencer1 and Jeff at the same time. Thank you both!
It’s absolutely fascinating to hear how the project developed, and the amazing people and relationships behind the scenes! Great idea, Aran, to ‘out’ them all properly.
That’s a very good point, you all seem to have such a brilliant relationship! I’d love to work for an organisation like that. So, if you ever need in-house physio @aran you know where to look 
I need to say a big thanks to Jeff and the other worker bees.
The trouble with doing something useful is that you gain a responsibility! Over the years, I’ve also recognised that software people are possessive to the extreme, so as the needs for my time wandered elsewhere, it is quite a trick to escape the clutches of your creations in the world of software.
Fortunately, it seems I made the software vaguely comprehensible (I don’t do clever stuff unless I have to!) and was very grateful that other people in the world had the bravery and skill to risk delving into the spidery workings of my software. Fortunately, though you can make SpennyWare sound magical and complicated, it was a pretty simple idea - read sound files, look for quiet bits, cut and paste the bits in between into a database, the only bit of real inspiration was spotting that the structure of the lessons made chopping things up a practical task.
I am intrigued as to Jennyware, and genuinely pleased and grateful that someone has taken over the mantle. You learn in the world of software that you stand on the shoulders of those around you - those bits of software that seem so simple and obvious every time has been enabled because generations of programmers before them have worked out how to approach a step in the evolution. In fact coding now seems often more the skill in Googling around for how others have approached the same problem, so you can then concentrate on the next clever bit.
So, if you do something good, share it, don’t protect it, because the next cycle around the loop, you’ll find that your idea has blossomed and you can do greater things. SSiW has become what it is because of that idea, and a lot of the community approach can leak out into the wider world and make it a better place, which is refreshing as we live in a world increasingly dominated by the idea that self-interest is the best approach to life.
Diolch, Aran for that lovely Seren. And diolch Spenny for the lovely software that I had the pleasure to work with. And hats off to whoever came up with the punny idea of calling the subsequent iterations of the SSi software “Jennyware” - was it you @hewrop? - I just love the idea of someone years from now trying to figure out who “Jenny” was.
Thanks to whatever occasion arose that gave me the opportunity to start working on the software or the audio. It gave me the opportunity to work with a really terrific team of people with whom it was and continues to be an absolute pleasure to work.
And thanks for the opportunity to work on SaySomethingInSpanish. I had never done anything like producing an audio book before. It was a terrific experience, and great fun meeting and working with Rosa and (virtually) Gabby (and Aran, of course!). And I do have to give an extra special shout-out to @brigitte and @Deborah-SSi for all their tireless work reviewing scripts and checking recordings and catching all my mistakes
May I say to you and @ianspencer1 that, having worked on aged software in the days when moving pictures were very simple cartoonish things and sound was unknown, in fact, originally, when the word ‘database’ had not been coined, I do truly appreciate the work of you both. I know the feeling of determination to get the damned thing working and the glorious joy when it does! Then someone finds a bug and … you start again!
was it you @hewrop?
Yep, Guilty! It was either that or Spewieware. 
Thank you so much, Catrin, for your patient encouragement during those phone calls. You did put me - a very self-conscious learner - at my ease and really helped me be confident enough to ‘go wild’ :dizzy. Hope I manage to speak with you in Cymraeg at the party without getting too tongue tied. so pleased the way life is working out for you at the moment. Enjoy.
Oh you are so very welcome, Fran! I miss speaking to you and hope that one day soon we can fire this up again. We are without a reliable internet connection at the moment or a reliable office in which to work. But we’ll get there. I really enjoyed our chats and was so thrilled to see you improving so much with each session! Looking forward to seeing you at the party, @franhunni Bring photos of your newly renovated kitchen!
Sorry I’m late to the party this week, but you’ll see why …
I can’t say much (for some on here thankfully though) as I don’t actually know you. All I can say is thank you for everything you’ve done for SSiW and for us with that. Also thank you for responding as quickly as possible to every your tag by me when help was needed. These two things count for me the most. I don’t use IOS (iTechy thingys) so I can’t possibly know how much and what work was done with the app.
I wouldn’t be me … being animator by heart (not really good one though) if I wouldn’t say my Diolch my own, for me (as I do mostly animations and graphics by my own) special way …
Diolch am y popeth Jeff! You’re real star, not just of this week but of entire life because you are one of those who made SSiW possible as it is now.
Tatjana