uProfile February 2025 - Terence Burridge
A Tribute.
Written by: The Umbraco Community
Terence holding his MVP award in his home office.
A dedicated community contributor
Terence was a well known, well loved member of the Umbraco Community, as well as the wider .NET community. His interests spanned everything from sustainability best practices to old computer tech and maintaining a TV archive website, cataloguing lost Teletext data and channel idents.
As an avid Umbraco user from 2012 / v4.7, Terence was a prolific blogger, sharing his knowledge and expertise in the hope of helping others, via his 'CodeBunTes' blog, as well as giving talks in-person and virtually at various events, including this one for UMBRAAD in May 2024, on accessibility improvements.
Terence was also a keen meetup and event attendee, travelling far and wide, or sometimes not so far for virtual meetups, in order to spend time with his community pals, either from Umbraco or the wider .NET community, soaking up new learnings and sharing insights into the things he was working on.
In 2024 Terence was made an Umbraco MVP, an award given to those who go above and beyond to enrich the community, help others and contribute back to Umbraco. Terence embodied what it means to be an Umbraco MVP, not only through his contributions but with his positive attitude, open mindset and kind-heartedness. We loved to see him write and give talks about the technical side of things, but we also loved to see his comedic wit on display, no more so than in this video he created to celebrate Umbraco's 19th birthday, where he whisked us all the way back to 2005 - you can watch it back here.
Terence during the video he created for Umbraco's 19th Birthday.
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A few memories from friends
I have known Terence for around a decade, our first meeting was at Dot Net North, he welcomed me and we just got chatting, he asked me what I did and before you knew it we were swapping stories about Umbraco, and then life as a developer.
He came to my first talk at MaccTech, and when he was well he supported me in all my talks. It was lovely to look up into the audience, feeling nervous and seeing his friendly face smiling back at me. Terence was a perfect gentleman, if it was dark in Manchester, after a meetup, he would stay to escort me to the car park where my car was parked. Terence was a genuinely lovely, down to earth, guy with a passion for learning and for sharing knowledge. His love for open source software saw him give a talk on how he learned accessibility through the code commits done in GitHub. Whilst the talk was aimed to show how he learned about accessibility, it actually showed how much the community can teach, it was an inspiring talk. We also, on a more personal level, swapped tips on Christmas decorations and shared photos of our pets.
As someone else so eloquently put it, F**k Cancer!
Rachel Breeze, friend and fellow MVP, Manchester/North West Umbraco Meetup (organiser), MaccTech and DDD speaker and attendee.
Terence attending one of the umBristol Meetups.
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Terence was a regular at our Manchester events, indeed he was present at the very first "Dot Net North" branded event in 2016. Always enthusiastic, we would often chat over pizza during the networking sections, about the event, other events, work and life in general. He'd usually be sporting one of his own brand "CodeBunTes" T-shirts too.
On a personal level, I recall Terence once travelled with me on the train over to .NET Liverpool, where I was doing a talk. We had a great afternoon and evening either side of the event together. He attended so many events across the country, that his travel advice was often a great asset too.
Back in 2023, Terence delivered a really interesting talk on running .NET Workloads on Oracle Cloud, at our Lightning Talks event. Terence last spoke at the MaccTech event in Macclesfield in October 2024. He will be missed tremendously in the Manchester Tech Scene.
Mike Irving, Co-organiser, Dot Net North.
Terence speaking at Dot Net North in November 2023, wearing one of his self-designed t-shirts.
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I only really got to know the lovely Terence over the past year. As he travelled the length and breadth of the country for meet-ups and events of all kinds, I’d assumed - despite him being a regular at the Manchester meet-up - that (given the accent) he lived in the North East of England. So imagine my surprise when, on the school run one day, I spotted him at my local bus stop. I thought, That’s Terence - what on earth is he doing here?
It turned out he’d been living just a few roads away from me all along, in a small suburb of Stockport called Davenport. Since then, serendipity took over, and I naturally started seeing him all over the place. We were both made MVPs last year, potentially making Davenport statistically the most MVP-dense town in the world - with 1 in 3,884.5 people being an Umbraco MVP!
I feel truly honoured to have known Terence, and my only regret is not getting to know him even better. He was an inspiration, a pillar of the community, and he’ll be deeply missed.
Adam Prendergast, neighbour, friend and fellow MVP.
Terence attending the Umbraco Manchester x Dot Net North Christmas dinner 2023.
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Terence was a massive help with getting the H5YR website up and running and he was also so kind and helpful when bugs were reported. He would jump on fixes with no hesitation. He also added a number of features to the site, without prompting, just because he wanted to help.
He attended also many of the Umbraco Edinburgh virtual meetups and was always welcoming to all those who attended. He even once travelled all the way up to Edinburgh for a meetup just to say he had been and then he caught the last train home again! A massive journey.
And even when is wasn't able to attend an event, he still managed to be a presence. Last year, since Terence couldn't attend Codegarden in person, he joined the Lego version - The Secret Stage (https://thesecretstage.vip/). Being Terence though, he didn't just send a Lego form of himself to the stage, he also crafted the Umbus to travel in so that he and his Bunny friend could travel in style.
He was such a valued member of the community who really did go above and beyond. He will be greatly missed.
Owain Williams, friend, community owner of H5YR website, Edinburgh Meetup organiser and fellow MVP.
Minifig Terence and the umBus at the Codegarden Secret Stage 2024.
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Terence has been a figure of support and goodwill throughout my tech career. He was in attendance at my first ever tech talk at DDD South West 2023. He then made sure he could see my sequel talk the year after. He even saw one of my talks twice in two days, once at UmBristol, the next at UmbraCymru.
He was an exemplar of being consistently kind, eager and, most of all, friendly.
Richard Jackson, friend and fellow MVP.
Terence watching a talk by Rich at DDD South West 2023.
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I became more friendly with Terence during the pandemic. He would come along to our online events with some old CRT's in the background, which always intrigued me as I like old tech too. He was always cheerful and keen to contribute to the discussion.
Post pandemic Terence became a more regular attendee of Umbraco Manchester Meetups, as well as DotNet North and other local events. As time went by and he became ill, he became more a fixture of the local community. Always present, always cheerful, always there. I really don't know where he found the energy or the courage.
The more involved in the community I became, giving more talks at events all around the UK, Terence was always there and always came to see my talks. He became a constant, supportive, friendly face... the always there, support from home.
After the event, Terence's blog / event review was the one I read first, I wanted to specifically know what he thought about what I said. I really valued his opinion and the feedback he gave. Terence only ever did one talk for Umbraco Manchester, which was a demonstration of how Umbraco worked on old tech. He turned up with a suitcase full of computers. It took 45 mins to setup and we had to RDP through to one of our machines to get it working and as such we went way over time. But, it was brilliant! So funny and very entertaining, well worth the wait. It's a shame he didn't do more talks.
That's what I will miss the most about Terence, he was this constant in our lives and our community. I'm devastated that he is no longer with us. I know that we will all sorely miss him at our events. Last weekend we lost a part of the magic of the community.
Phil Whittaker, friend, fellow MVP and Umbraco Manchester/North West Meetup attendee (and organiser).
Phil's photo of Terence and friends at a Manchester/North West Umbraco Meetup.
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Terence was a valued member of UmbraCymru and a regular attendee of our virtual meetups. He attended nearly every single one since we started them in 2020!
And whenever I saw Terence, on the attendees list, I instantly knew two things: One, that it was going to be a good meetup. Two, it meant that the meetup was likely to run way over the originally planned 2 hours, as we never seemed to run out of things to talk about when Terence was there! He always brought interesting discussions and made everyone feel welcome, he was an absolute pleasure to know, our meetups are honestly not going to be the same without him.
I'm also super thankful that he got the chance to attend one of our in-person meetups last year, when he travelled all the way down to do a doubleheader of the Bristol and Cardiff meetups to see Richard Jackson's Astro talk tour - what a dedicated friend and supporter.
Thank you, Terence, for being you and making our meetups shine.
Owain Jones, UmbraCymru organiser, friend and fellow MVP.
Terence attending various UmbraCymru virtual meetups with his fellow Umbracians.
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I can’t accurately remember the first time I met Terence but I know it was online, and during the Pandemic, when the passage of time had no meaning, and it was normal to socialize on zoom and every day, which brought an underlying fear for the safety of our friends and family. Those of us lucky enough to live through such times came back to a new, changed world which we’re still all trying to figure out, but one of the things which kept me going was the community, and I know Terence felt the same.
As the pandemic faded, meetups and real world events started returning, we got to see more of Terence, both online and increasingly at in-person meetups and it didn’t take long to spot a fellow nerd with a love of experimenting. I really enjoyed his posts on the performance and efficiency he could get from a running Umbraco on arm or low power mini PCs, of the trials and tribulations of running on Linux, of using bleeding-edge software on large, complex sites. He also had his humorous side, and his 19th birthday tribute video was hilarious and must have taken a LOT of effort to pull together, but that spoke of the depth of his experience and his love of learning and sharing.
It wasn’t unusual to see Terence travel great distances to come to meetups and conferences, but even when he wasn’t there in person, he’d frequently be online, participating in some way. He was never brash, or pushy, he was just as happy in the background as he was being the centre of attention. Here made one such journey down to DDD South West, just 11 short months ago, in Bristol - a trip of many hours which he made on more than one occasion for various events.
It very quickly became the norm to see Terence at meetups and conferences far and wide, but during all that time he was quietly undergoing treatment for Cancer, but he didn’t hide it - he was quite open about what he was going through, approaching his treatment the same way he approached the community - as a place to share his experiences openly.
Despite knowing about his health battles and reading about his latest health update just 3 weeks ago, which explained that treatment was no longer an option and it was now about making him as comfortable as possible in the time he had left, it still came as such a shock to hear of his passing so soon and so young.
I keep thinking back to the real-world events where I’d seen Terence over the last 2 years, DDD South West, UK Fest, Umbraco Spark and at hackathons, and I’m reminded that for a lot of people Community is more than just the people we see from time to time; it is the shared experiences, support systems, and deep connections that bind us together, even when we aren’t there. Terence will remain a part of this community, and the people he interacted with and inspired with his content, which will go on to inspire others. I like to think he’d be quietly happy about that. Thank you Terence.
Carl Sargunar, friend, fellow MVP, DDD SouthWest organiser.
Terence at DDD SouthWest with his fellow Umbraco pals: Carl, Poornima, Rachel, Joe, Aaron and Rich.
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A message from Terence
After Terence passed, his lovely wife Angela shared a message from Terence, where he talks about what it has meant to him to be part of the Umbraco Community.
"Without a doubt being able to contribute back to the Umbraco community, finding things that helped others really made a positive difference and provided a beacon of light in what was a difficult and often dark final time. Not just from the technical side of things either, but in terms of forging true friendships with other people both local and afar across the globe. Without a doubt continuing to bring out the virtues of contributing back to such a wonderfully friendly community to everyone else going forward is very dear to me."
We're thankful to Angela for sharing this with us.
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Donations in Terence's name
While Terence was still with us, community members reached out to him to involve him in plans to create a lasting memory and support a charity of his choice, by raising funds from the community.
Our good friend Carl Sargunar set up a Just Giving page, raising money for The Christy Charity, a service who helped Terence during his illness. So far the target has been well surpassed and looks set to continue to grow.
If you would like to make a donation, please head to https://justgiving.com/page/codebuntes
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Terence will be terribly missed from our community, his presence was always welcome. He brought an enthusiasm for learning, was always ready to lend a helping hand and genuinely just loved to be at as many events with his peers, who turned out to become friends.
As ever, what we know to be true, is that while it's a CMS that brought us together, it's the people, the connections, the friendliness, the support and the love in our community that endures.
Rest in peace Terence, you will always be remembered.
🖤 H5YR! 🖤
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