Doug Robar CodeGarden11

To the UK Border Agency and/or Home Office,

We, the undersigned, sign the following letter in regard to the expedition of a Tier 1 visa application for Douglas Robar of Percipient Studios.

Doug is a fantastic member of a community of software and websites developers, who specialise in a particular piece of web software, called Umbraco (www.umbraco.com). Umbraco has a two-fold certification program - Levels 1 and 2 - for which Doug is the only Level 1 trainer and practitioner in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, his contributions to extend and improve the framework with useful and popular functionality, coupled with his ongoing and unwavering support to new and existing users of the platform, makes him an outstanding member of our community.

Doug submitted a Tier 1 visa application which was received by the UK Border Agency before the 4th of April deadline, and has not yet been granted. The annual Umbraco conference, called CodeGarden (www.codegarden11.com), is held for 3 days in Copenhagen, Denmark every year - this year it is from the 15th to 17th June.
Without a valid passport Doug cannot travel to this conference, which will detriment his commercial appeal to customers and partners alike. As a US citizen, he is able to obtain an emergency passport from the US Embassy, but if he travels outside of the UK whilst his visa application is outstanding, the UK Border Agency has advised that his visa application will be immediately null and void. Furthermore, they will not speak to him to expedite his application until 14 weeks after it was submitted - which occurs after the CodeGarden conference has long gone.

We sign this letter in support of expediting Doug Robar's Tier 1 application, and the swift return of his passport, so that he may travel to Copenhagen, Denmark to attend the CodeGarden '11 conference from the 15th to the 17th of June 2011. We also state that in submission of this letter, Doug's visa application is not withdrawn.