---
title: NWRUG's (Manchester, UK) October 2026 meeting — It's time to bin your VCR
teaser: Learn about imperfectly better ways to stub your external requests with Rob
  Whittaker at NWRUG this month.
tags: rails,ruby,community,events
author: Rob Whittaker
published_on: 2026-10-02
---

The next North West Ruby User Group in Manchester, UK is in a fortnight on 15 October at [Colony, One Silk Street](https://colonyco.work/one-silk-st). Rob Whittaker will take us through one of his hot-takes: VCR does more damage than good, and there are imperfectly better ways to stub your external requests.

Rob Whittaker is Director of Software Development at thoughtbot. He has over two decades of professional web development experience and has worked with Ruby and Rails since 2012. (He's also the co-organizer of NWRUG!)

We’ll be at the venue for pizza from 6:30pm with the talk starting at 7pm. Afterwards we’ll retire to The Crown & Kettle for a drink. The venue, pizza, and drinks are kindly provided by NWRUG's sponsors [Fatsoma](https://www.fatsoma.com/) and [thoughtbot](https://thoughtbot.com/).

[Register here](https://www.fatsoma.com/e/jiagqfp3/it-s-time-to-bin-your-vcr) if you would like to attend. Full details on this (and all NWRUG events) over on [NWRUG's website](https://nwrug.org/events/its-time-to-bin-your-vcr).