UKriders

SCIP has been down the DreamWeaver route for many years, but right now I think wordpress is the best short and medium term solution. I'm now looking at the progression route for an organisation starting without a website and would welcome views on what I'm thinking of:

1. Brand new org or never built a website before:

• wordpress hosted site to learn basics of posting stories, creating static pages, working with images, sharing tasks within a group, editorial issues, etc
• build test site to learn basics then rebuild launch site
• budget = 20 hours training + zero for website + 20 hours for group to launch site

2. Second generation site

• hosting wordpress on your own server [ie paying for hosting]
  
• want specific look and feel not available in word-press hosted themes, or functionality only available in specific widgets
• this requires some degree of expertise in managing and updating the site software, plus a decent host familiar with wordpress
  
• budget = 10 hours training + £100 pa hosting + 20 hours for group to re-launch site

3. Third generation site

• take control of the code on a self-hosted site
• buy in or learn CSS skills and other wordpress-related magic, eg to integrate site fully with a database, calendar, map, whatever
• budget = ? hours training [eg CSS] + £100 pa hosting + 40 hours for group to re-launch site

4. Moving on

• depending on the size of the organisation and its needs it may be necessary to move onto drupal, or some similar CMS, which will probably mean buying in much more expertise and support
• by this time the org should be muchy better at specifying and administering an appropriate solution, and therefore pay less and get more for their money.
• budget = ? £3k for group to pay agency

Any thoughts based on your experience?

I also wonder whether this model holds for small businesses?

I'm planning a training course to help a community association learn how to build and run its own website. And I'm using a hosted Wordpress.com site as the platform for this training, as opposed to other possible solutions, suich as self-hosted Wordpress, Typepad, blogger, drupal, joomla, build your own in dreamweaver, etc. But why Wordpress?

After years if patiently explaining ftp to people who didn't want to know about ftp I'm hoping that choosing a theme and agreeing what pages to have on their site will be more useful, engaging and fruitful to most people than having to work through the back end techie bits or get to grips with html. It seems an ideal way of helping people understand the process from the front end side of things, like what it looks like and what it has on it, with more time to explain some of how it works and play with the CMS-style administration interface.

I run a wordpress-hosted site as ICT Champion, having previously used blogger for some time. I should say that I've also set up a self-hosted WP site and I did it in about an hour but that included 45 minutes finding and configuring an ftp client. Then I spent a lot of time downloading themes and widgets and wotsits and fixes and then uploading them and installing them and remembering passwords and whatever else. Then the latest version was released and I had to carefully back everything up, save everything in then right place and reinstall blah blah

Simple enough stuff to be sure, and offering a great deal of flexibility and control which I may well need at some time in the future, but I can't I can't tell you how much happier I am since I started using a wordpress-hosted site and working within its limitations.

The trickiest techie bits were working out how to have the blog entries appear on a page with a menu tab [by no means intuitive to me but actually just a couple of menu items in different parts of the system] and fruitlessly seeking ways of embedding javascripted stuff like google maps.

Aside from posting I now spend most of my time thinking about categories, which I realise need to drive my navigation much more than the page structure, and re-categorising old stories as I fiddle with my categories. [On which point Blogger has a much easier way of retro-categorising batches of stories than wordpress, which requires you to do one at a time.]

I can also look at promotion and content and editorial issues with a much clearer eye than when I used dreamweaver, when I seemed to spend a lot of time tidying up folders and playing with plugins etc.

By the way I have used Typepad, and I liked it, but it costs, which Wordpress doesn't, so it feels like a safer option for first timers. And I also tried blogger and it doesn't support static pages, so I think it's less interesting to people who want a website, not a blog.

And so I favour Wordpress, both as a nursery slope for people new to building a website, but also because it's probably good enough for most organisation's relatively modest needs.

And in case anyone needs evidence of people's modest needs I leave you with a link to a site which has been used to create a web site/presence by more community organisations than any other in our area - perhaps five times more than we have worked with ten years:
http://www.communigate.co.uk/sussex/viewgroup.phtml?group=3

This is a layer in the internet's geology which is technically outdated but remains a useful reminder of just what people in community organisations want to do on the internet and where they have to start if they're ever going to do it.

More soon on this as I start preparing the notes...

I'm planning some workshops for a local community group that wants a website. Rather than selling them a website they've asked for some training in how to build and run their own. Now we have to work out what to teach them. Here's an update on progress.

I'm working with Libby Davy for the first time - a local social media person who crossed my path in various ways and seemed like a good choice when the person I've worked with before on web design sessions said she was a bit too busy. Turns out she's a great choice: we're both full of ideas, and have complimentary skills and experience, so it's been a very creative and enjoyable early process.

We'll be working with a neighbourhood group in Brighton - a resident's association with no staff, supported by a community development worker who has been the link to SCIP until now. They have a Council grant to fund this - £1000 - and we'll be working in a swanky new library building on an estate on the edge of town [which shall remain nameless as I'm not working with them yet].

Now Libby and I are planning the sessions in detail, as we have the beginnings of a timetable, with two sessions planned in November to be followed by four or five sessions in Jan/Feb/March. Yesterday we had a great time mapping out topics we want to cover, so here's my version of what we've got in our long list [in no particular order]:

• how to use wordpress.com [our chosen software solution]
• passwords, permissions, getting a webmail account
  
• storytelling skills
  
• teamwork/working with others/collaborative skills
• getting to know the internet - trends, demystifying, searching, etc
• why do it? how can a website help a community association
• roles and responsibilities of a community web site team
• planning: aims, milestones, processes, resources
• planning your site: what it has on it - page structure
• planning your site: what it looks like - pictures, colours, fonts, logos
  
• promoting your site
• working with pictures
• working with sound
• a guided tour of someone else's community website and how they run it
  
• working with video
• building links with others/community networking
• how to get other people involved
  

I've got some really good stuff via the UK Circuit Riders email discussion forum and another regional ICT Champ who has run wordpress training, but none of it encompasses such as broad set of training outcomes. So Libby and I need to work out how to teach that lot in six two hour sessions and we're now working on lesson plans, course outline and handouts.

More soon.

I'm organising a regional ICT Forum for people who are working on ICT-related projects in the voluntary and community sector in the south east. Please come along to discuss what you're doing and share ideas with other people, interested in similar activities. Full details below.

South East Regional ICT Forum:
Surrey Community Action, Guildford,  GU4 7HL

11am – 3pm, Monday 3 November 2008

1. Agenda:
11.00   Welcome
11.05   Brief intros
11.15   Regional ICT Strategy: Feedback and issues arising
11.45   Working with funders: Update on progress
             > Includes discussion with Louise McGrath, regional Policy and Partnership Manager for Big Lottery Fund
12.30   Lunch and networking [veggie-friendly food provided]
1.30     Working with suppliers – review of previous workshop, proposals for future sessions
2.15     Round robin – news, views, ideas
2.55     Proposed date for next meeting
3.00     ENDS

2. About the Forum

I am organising this Forum as ICT Champion for the south east, a post funded by Capacity Builders to help develop ICT Support for frontline organisations across the region. I am based in Brighton and am supported by Lucian Borcanescu, who lives and works in Slough.

3. Regional ICT Strategy
The work of the regional ICT Champion work is linked to a regional ICT strategy.

The aim of this strategy is:
To ensure that voluntary and community sector organisations have access to trusted sources of ICT support and guidance at a ChangeUp consortia level.

We are working towards the following goals for April 2011:
Funders ensure the best possible investment in ICT when funding VCOs;
VCOs get the best value from ICT suppliers;
VCOs get the best value from volunteers with ICT skills;
Appropriate ICT skills and signposting knowledge are embedded in the support networks available to VCOs;
ICT training courses are available to help VCOs make the best possible use of their investment in ICT;
Existing social enterprises that deliver ICT support services flourish and new social enterprises emerge to meet the needs of the sector;
ICT Health Checks are used to help VCOs understand their current use of ICT and identify options for update and improvement.
Better understanding of how ICT can form part of shared back office services.
ChangeUp Consortia include relevant ICT activities in their business plans.

4. Progress
I am making good progress on several parts of this work:
Meeting with the regional funders forum to help them provide better information to applicants about ICT budgets
Planning workshops on how to buy web sites and databases
Developing a volunteering campaign on the Isle of Wight
Planning and delivering workshops for development workers and helper agencies that work with front line organisations
Promoting the inclusion of ICT in the regional social enterprise portfolio
Building new IT training courses on a BASIS-funded programme managed by SCIP

5. Who is it for?
In the past year or so I have identified several organisations and individuals who I hope I will be able to support over the next few years. I see you as the people already doing things that could help deliver this plan, not reinventing the wheel. I hope the Forum can help raise your profile amongst your peer group, guide my work by identifying the sort of support you want, and enable you to share ideas for further development.

You’ll see from the invitation list below that I am hoping that this will be a small but diverse group, including local organisations, sub-regional interests and people with regional roles including the Big Lottery Fund and Capacity Builders. I hope this approach can help generate new relationships and build links for you beyond the scope of my own work.

6. When/where?
I am proposing that we meet twice a year, with an emphasis on practical sessions that encourage information-sharing. I have chosen Guildford as a venue because although previous meetings have been moving around the region I found this meant we ended up with a very localised attendance. If absolutely necessary I can help with travel expenses [although I don’t have a big budget for this].

Feedback on this approach is welcome either now or at the meeting.

7. What next?
You can read more about the ICT strategy on the ICT Champion website at www.seictchampion.org.uk
Please confirm whether you can attend and, if not, whether you would like to receive papers and be invited in future
I will circulate notes for the meeting in the next couple of weeks – and full directions
Or just get in touch to say hello and talk about how I might be able to help you
Send me any news and updates about your work that I can circulate beforehand
Please pass this invitation onto other people you think will be interested

Thanks

Mark

Invitations will be sent to lead contacts at all ChangeUp Consortium in the region, plus:
Kathryn Williamson   RAISE   
Paul Webster   NAVCA  
Mark Hummerstone   The Really Helpful IT Company  
Warren Feagins   Slough CVS  
Lucian Borcanescu   ICT Champion  
Amanda Bowens   Ladder 4 Learning  
Ed Baker   Surrey Community Action  
Chris Deeney   Oxfordshire Voluntary Action  
Maureen Covacic   Basingstoke Voluntary Services  
Charlie Fox   Voluntary Action West Kent  
Jackie Horne   Southampton CVS   
Minesh Patel   Acorn House IT, Milton Keynes  
Sarah  Bridges   UK Online  
Peter Southcombe   Hope in the Community  
Kat Pearce   Capacity Builders  
Kevin Jennings   Hope in the Community  
Paul Bramwell, Working Together Project  
Iain Lucas,  RISE Computers 
Peter Mason, SCIP
David Guthrie, SCIP
Peter Smith, Surrey Community Action
Anne Stafford, IT4Communities
Dave Ahlquist, South East Social Enterprise Partnership
Miles Maier, London Regional ICT Champion
Nigel Parrish, Isle of Wight RCC
Helen Snashell, Isle of Wight RCC
Helen Gibbons, MLA south east



--
Mark Walker
Project Manager and South East Regional ICT Champion

SCIP: IT Services for Charities and Communities
Community Base, Queens Road, Brighton BN1 3XG

Tel: 01273 234049 Email: mark.walker@scip.org.uk
Web: www.scip.org.uk Mobile: 07956 627116
ICT Champion: www.seictchampion.org.uk
Blog: www.scipmark.org.uk

We've received lots of entries for the SCIP Awards but we only really gave people a week's notice, so we're extending entries until midday Friday details below. Please please please ask me if you think you want to give it try. Because it's the first time we've done this I want to get lots of ideas submitted send up to 300 words about how technology is doing good in your community
** SCIP Award 2008: Technology for Good **

Are you using the web, mobile phones or computer games to make a difference in your community?

Sussex Community Internet Project (SCIP) is proud to announce a new award that celebrates the creativity and innovation of the not for profit sector in Sussex and surrounding parts of the south east.

Entries are required by email by the midday 24 October 2008. Full details below or atwww.thedimas.org.uk

* A new showcase for innovation and inspiration

This new Award, Technology for Good, is part of the first Digital Media Awards South a high profile showcase for the creative talents of people building and using digital media tools for business and the wider good of the community.

SCIP has worked with not for profit organisations for more than 12 years, helping them use the internet, mobile phones, email and other technology to tackle disadvantage and make positive changes in our communities. We want our Award to help raise the profile of the not for profit sector, recognise the hard work of staff and volunteers and share stories that inspire others.

* Who will win?
We want to know how digital media has changed the way you work with your communities. It could be the web, email, mobile phones, computer games, social networks or any other digital technology.

It could be a way of using brand new tools to meet an age-old need, or a creative way of integrating established digital media into a community project.

It could be linked to campaigns, service delivery, community engagement, fundraising or any other aspect of your work. The key thing is that it is used to deliver real benefits for the good of the community.

It's not about how much money you've spent, or how big your organisation is. You may have paid staff, or rely entirely on volunteers. We're looking for stories that will inspire and inform others.

Here are some examples which we hope will encourage you to give it a try:
* A local history website that is run entirely by volunteers and has hundreds of new stories posted every year;
* An older people's organisation that uses exercises on a Nintendo Wii as part of its well-being campaign;
* An organisation that uses digital video to build creative projects with people with learning disabilities.


* Who should enter?

Any not for profit organisation from Sussex or the surrounding parts of the south east. This could include voluntary and community organisations, charities, social enterprises and public bodies.

Please contact Mark Walker if you need any clarification on eligibility.

Agencies may enter work on behalf of their clients as long as the entry clearly shows the consent of the client.


* How to enter

Please complete a 300 word (max) submission explaining your project and how it benefits people in the community.

Email this to dimas@wiredsussex.com no later than 12noon Friday 24th October.

Please send any supporting material on DVD or CD clearly labeled with your name, company name, contact number and award category name to: Nish Dhailwal, Wired Sussex, Studio 8, Level 4 South, New England House, New England Street, Brighton BN1 4GH


* More information on the DiMAS

The Digital Media Awards South is a prestigious new Award Ceremony, which builds on the Web Awards, which SCIP has organised for the past seven years. The winners will be announced at a glittering event in Hove on the evening of 27 November.

Take a look at all the categories to see what other Awards you could be eligible for:www.thedimas.co.uk


* Any Questions?

Please ask Mark Walker at SCIP. Email him on mark@scip.org.uk or call 01273 234049

=

The Digital Media Awards South 2008 are organised by Wired Sussex, SCIP and Midnight Communications, in association with The Argus, SEEDA and Sussex University.


--
Mark Walker
Project Manager and South East Regional ICT Champion

SCIP: IT Services for Charities and Communities
Community Base, Queens Road, Brighton BN1 3XG

Tel: 01273 234049 Email: mark.walker@scip.org.uk
Web: www.scip.org.uk Mobile: 07956 627116
Blog: www.scipmark.org.uk

A quick and easy guide produced the lovely folks at Tactical Tech  [one of their staff is a Trustee of SCIP]  provides an excellent overview of tools such as Flickr [share photos online], Shozu [upload video direct to the web] and Google Maps. The guide offers feedback on privacy concerns as well suggested uses for all the tools mentioned. Browse their site for other goodies, including links to manuals for open source software.

Online Advocacy - Quick 'n' Easy Visualizing Tools | Tactical Technology Collective

Ordnance Survey is launching a campaign to raise awareness among third sector organisations of their ability, as contractors to government, to gain access to mapping data under existing licences. Maps are an important way of communicating information and many community organisations are starting to use them to publish data and advocate for specific strategies. The cost of using maps can be prohibitively expensive, so this is good news.

Ordnance Survey and the third Sector

A really interesting short film has been produced by what I think are Government-funded consultants to promote the use of blogs by local Councillors. A DVD version of the film and short booklet about the value of blogging has apparently been sent to to the Chief Officer of every local authority in the country and generated positive response from lots of people. I recommend checking out the videos on the CivicSurf website., but I'm also less

It's interesting to see Councillors as the interface between the bureaucracy of the local authority and local people. And I'm also reminded of the role they can play in interacting with the community-based organisations which I more typically spend my time with. As with many e-democracy projects, however, I am concerned that the whilst the 'e' stuff is becoming more accessible the democracy bit is inching away from us.

Of course a Councillor is going to be pleased to have an unfettered channel to people to explain themselves, with the ability to turn on and off the comments of others. Check out this 'debate' about allowing dogs on Brighton's beaches, which took place in a forum on a local newspaper, to see how bonkers that can be [http://forum.theargus.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=558]. A blog can hardly fail to produce a more reasonable discussion than this - it starts off posing the question and descends into recipes for roasting cats...

Whilst Wordpress may be democratising the world of 'publishing your views online' it seems to me that the decision-making within most Councils remains flawed - dominated mainly by national policy, local in-fighting and proscribed funding packages, rather than bottom-up, identifying local problems and searching for solutions.

And most public organisation's themselves are too large and unresponsive to be able to deal with even small amounts of user feedback via these new tools - this problem seems especially acute in PCTs and other NHS-related organisations. Check out www.patientopinions.org.uk for direct feedback from users about services, which I'd consider equally 'democratic' as being able to monitor my Councillor's movements, but which sits outside the NHSs ponderous and largely bureaucratic 'consultation' processes.

We have had a Councillors blog page in Brighton for several years - and an e-democracy.org supported forum - as well as a welter of other local projects and initiatives and launches and awareness-raising campaigns. We've also had Neighbourhood Renewal Funding - long term investment lurching forward on annual budgets - New Deal for Communities and projects big and small, e-enabled and not. We have email lists, blogs, online forums, YouTube videos and a network of people able to share information and ideas and opinions more openly than ever before, but I'm not sure we have less poverty, better healthcare services or more democracy...

CivicSurf » CivicSurf - the documentary in full

Every post I read from Idealware has me firing off messages to contacts who are involved in delivering IT solutions to not for profit clients. The latest post about when to build your own content management system is no exception. It's simple, straightforward and opinionated - what's the point of blogging if it's not all of those things?

This is good stuff for people like me who sit between supplier and client - offering advice and support to people who say 'I want a database that I can update myself, with x, y or z specific functions' and tryin to work with our team of web developers and programmers who don't know whether to build their own solution or jump on the latest open source or Software as a Service [SaaS] solution.

The conculsion from this post?
"From my perspective, exhaust all of the "buy" options: open source/proprietary/SaaS out-of-the-box, customized open source/SaaS, or integration of already existing components, or building modules on top of open source tools, before you take on building something new from the ground up. You'll save money and time, as well as be able to take advantage of an upgrade path as web software changes and improves, meaning you won't have to build whole systems again."

Idealware

A new YouTube video shows Vint Cerf, internet guru and vice-president of Google, adding his support to the work of IT4Communities [IT4C], a UK-based charity that recruits and places IT professionals to support projects in the community.

Hosted by the Worshipful Company of IT professionals in the City of London, IT4C sits between the voluntary sector and a network of IT professionals. It receives requests for help from charities across the UK, and uses a telephone-based project definition process to create a brief for each piece of work. This brief is then circulated amongst its network of volunteers, who can log onto the central website to follow up and offer themselves.

Cerf was recorded by Anne Stafford of IT4C at a meeting in late September 2008. I'm working with Anne on a project to promote IT volunteering on the Isle of Wight, which I hope will lead to production of a new toolkit to link IT4C with local volunteering networks in the south east.



YouTube - Vint Cerf at iT4Communities

Looking for inspiration for your presentations? Now you can check out the world's best presentations at www.Slideshare.net who have announced the results of the Best presentations Contest 2008. The winning entry is called Thirst [see below] does an excellent job of explaining the impending global crisis in water resources.

Slideshare is an excellent website that hosts your presentations for free. It's a useful tool for sharing presentations before and after events, and it's also a good place to look for ideas when planning your own presentations.

Take a look and see what you think of the winners. You'll see how they all use strong graphics, and it's also interesting to note that many of the slide shows selected relate to not for profit activities and campaigning. Perhaps they're easier to judge than the typical sales-oriented business presentation?

Results of the World's Best Presentation Contest 2008 - SlideShare

THIRSTView SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: design crisis)

Google is about to launch a new open source web browser. Read about what it does - and why - by reading their comic book style story, and then sit back and see whether the might of Google can dislodge the monster that is Internet Explorer.

Google Chrome

A Facebook group has been started by a campaign in Brighton that wants to close down Starbucks newest coffee shop in the city. As well as rejecting the corporate giant in favour of the numerous small independent coffee shops the group is also raising awareness of the fact that Starbucks is choosing to ignore the fact that it doesn't have planning permission to be there.

This is one of many campaigns being developed through new social networking sites, but it remains to be seen whether it can make a difference when faced with an intractable corporation. It's also worth noting that facebook funds itself through advertising - and when I visited it was a credit card company paying for my eyeballs to cross its path.

Facebook | Stop Starbucks from Opening on St James Street

In classic self-referential style I'm blogging about Blog Action Day, which takes place on 15 October and has a theme of Poverty. There are 2,709 blogs signed up so far, and it all seems very worthy, but I have yet to make sense of how I can participate and what will change as a result of it...

It's all very blog-tastic - have a look and see what you think...


Blog Action Day 08

Have you created or implemented an initiative that has used Information and Communication Technology (ICT) or digital technology to positively impact socially disadvantaged or digitally excluded communities? If so, you should enter the European e-Inclusion Awards 2008.

The Awards are open to organisations in the public, business and voluntary sector or civil society. There are seven competition categories:

• Ageing Well
• Marginalised Young People
• Geographic Inclusion
• Cultural Diversity
• Digital Literacy
• e-Accessibility
• Inclusive Public Services

Entries will close on the 12th September 2008 and five finalists in each category will be invited to exhibit at the Ministerial Conference on E-Inclusion to be held in Vienna in December 2008 For more information on the Awards or to register, contact the awards team on:
+44 207 234 3538 or visit the website www.e-inclusionawards.eu

More details on the e-inclusion Awards website

Digital Unite is the organisation behind the annual Silver Surfer Day, which helps promote the use of computers and the web by older people. They’re now running a workshop in November to show voluntary and community organisations how they can help their clients and communities to bridge the digital divide.

“In today’s world being able to use Information Technology is as vital as reading and writing. Yet some people miss out on this vital skill, whether because they retired before learning for work, slipped out of the education ‘loop’ for some reason or simply felt too daunted at a crucial time in their lives. Bringing IT literacy programmes to these groups can feel challenging but it’s also a tremendous opportunity to work communicatively and pro-actively and in a life-changing way with your clients.

You will spend a constructive, creative day with like-minded others finding out about the highly successful ‘DU way’ of bringing sustainable IT programmes into all sorts of communities. We’ll also explore how to use outreach opportunities like Silver Surfers’ Day to encourage people to join in and try new technologies.”

Dates:

• Liverpool, Wednesday October 29;
• Brighton, Thursday November 6;
• Burton-upon-Trent, Tuesday, November 11;
• Exeter, Monday November 17.

Costs:

GBP75 per head or GBP120 for two from same organisation.

Refreshments:

Hot and cold drinks and biscuits but please bring yourself something for lunch.

Timings:

Exact times depend on locations but roughly 9.30-4.30pm.

Recent years have seen many voluntary and community sector infrastructure bodies spend five figure sums on database projects. Some have been successful, others have not.  The flood of such projects is now slowing to trickle, which may explain why one of the biggest suppliers has pulled out the market, leaving its customers across the UK without support for their products.

Such projects are always complex, especially when the client has little experience of how to get what they need. The databases being commissioned are shared information systems, helping to promote better co-working between agencies in a local area. They may also be linked to shared website systems, which include the ability for member organisations to build and manage their own sites.

I'd estimate that at least £1m has been spent in the UK on similar products in the space of three years, and one of the most popular suppliers has been Uniservity.

Not only did they have a good product and recruited staff with experience of the sector, they came with an endorsement from NAVCA, the lead body for CVS Chief Officers in the UK. Now they've pulled out of the market, and suggested that their customers switch to other suppliers for product development and support.

Informal research suggests Uniservity has a reasonable share of the market, so this will be a big problem for lots of people who thought they were investing in better information systems for the long term. NAVCA's decision to give them its blessing could also be seen as a dent in the reputation of the sector.

Below is a message from the NAVCA Chief Officer which explains its position. It's good to see someone so senior saying sorry, and let's hope others who backed Uniservity - and other suppliers - will be just as candid about the perils of their national clout skewing the market.

Procurement and investment
On the other hand this is a complex issue that deserves ongoing attention, well beyond a review of NAVCA's relationships with suppliers.

From the supplier side Uniservity certainly seemed to be a credible option. I assume that there are financial reasons to withdraw from a market in which they are a leading player, which perhaps reflects a lack of ongoing income from their initial sales. There are very few new clients beyond the Consortia which had ChangeUp funding for these projects, and few of them will have budgeted for spend beyond years one or two.

I'd suggest Uniservity's withdrawal is a symptom of bigger problems on the client side. These include unrealistic funding deadlines, lack of focus in the face of a blizzard of "urgent" issues, and the shortcomings of the procurement and project management expertise at a local level?

I have also been surprised at how few people spending the money have spoken to one another either before, during or after the procurement process - and there are suggestions of large discrepancies between what was paid for similar products.

Leaving aside whether the money would have better spent on projects other than databases or websites, this is a very common problem when budgets do not follow through the implementation process. Even if implemented perfectly first time [ha ha] all databases and websites need to grow and change as they are used, which means more money in years three and beyond.

The current problems also shows how valuable independent advice and support is for the sector - and how carefully that independence needs to be patrolled at national, regional and local levels.

What next?
The network of regional ICT Champions is being asked to help review the situation and support organisations affected by Uniservity's decision. I hope we can look beyond Uniservity's clients to all similar projects and how they're progressing.

We can help quantify the size and nature of the problem, share best practise, create a collective voice with the remaining suppliers, encourage peer support amongst people with the same issues and identify key factors that make such projects a success.

Amongst the support available is a popular workshop I delivered in February about how to choose a database, as well as the wealth of guidance about choosing and using databases in the ICT Hub Knowledgebase. I'm sure we can also come up with more help specific to the ongoing implementation of these complex systems, perhaps involving volunteer support through IT4Communities.

Expect to see more on this over the coming year...

= = = =

Dear Chief Officers

I gather from a recent email conversation with Steve Place, Chief Executive at Dorset Community Action, that support from Uniservity is becoming more and more difficult to obtain.

NAVCA's relationship with Uniservity over the past four years was discussed at the recent Trustee Board meeting in the context of new "guidelines for ethical business development" agreed by Trustees.

I would like to offer my personal apology for the way Uniservity turned out. I was responsible for the early discussions with Uniservity and for the subsequent "partnership" with NAVCA.

At the time of the early discussions Uniservity was highly recommended to NAVCA by two members in the North West. They had both bought the Uniservity database product and were very pleased with its implementation. In presentations to NAVCA Uniservity representatives were convincing - they had a real grasp of the needs of NAVCA members and seemed committed to developing and sustaining the product.

Hindsight is always a great thing as we know. However, it is fair to say that I should have been more circumspect about the Uniservity offer. It was a small company with a limited track record outside the NAVCA members in the North West.

It has turned out badly for too many NAVCA members. The learning we have taken from this sorry story is that we will not enter into a partnership of this sort again with a database supplier.

Good wishes

Kevin
______________________________

Kevin Curley       
Chief Executive
NAVCA (National Association for Voluntary and Community Action)
The Tower
2 Furnival Square
Sheffield S1 4QL   

Jill Ferguson at Hastings Voluntary Action [HVA] has posted a useful reminder that grant funding from Government remains a vital part of the funding mix at a local level. She welcomes a recognition of the role of grassroots activity at a neighbourhood level but fears that the emphasis on contracting services and tendering for funds will undermine funding for work which is best delivered on a small, very local scale.

This echoes a campaign being led by NAVCA called Sustaining Grants - why local grant aid is vital for a healthy voluntary and community sector and thriving local communities.

Jill's article can be found on HVA's website: HVA - paper_030

More details of the NAVCA Campaign can be found on its site http://www.navca.org.uk/publications/sustaininggrants/

I love email and I get loads of it every day. I filter it off into various folders and try very hard to only read messages that require an action - and leave the rest until I have set aside 10 minutes or so for catching up. And now I love SendMeRSS, for sending RSS feeds sent straight to my email in-tray, giving me all sorts of news and updates as they're added to the web.

I love mailing lists and discussion forums because I can dip into specialist networks and keep track of trends and ideas, just by running through a folder full of emails. I also love having email on my Blackberry because I can ignore stuff as it comes into my in-tray on my computer at work, but then catch up later [usually as I put the kids to bed].

I also love pootling around websites but find that time goes very quickly and I always end up promising to go back to something - and then never do. So I've signed up to a load of RSS feeds, that mean I can see the latest stories as they're added to a website. The RSS Feed Reader built into my browser [Flock] is fine, and you can also get RSS or News Readers as standalone applications. But I want all the information I can get coming into my one place  - and in my case it's my email in-tray.

Some websites offer an email subscription, so you can receive news regularly. But many sites don't have this facility, which means you  need to check your RSS Reader or go off surfing on the off chance that something's been added.

SendMeRSS lets me sign up to receive emails every time a website is changed. So I can keep track of any page that has an RSS feed [which is a lot of them these days] and then receive an email containing the story as it is added.

There are other tools like this out there - www.rssfwd.com and FeedMailer.net amongst them - but this has worked the best so far. I get an account lsting my feeds and they come through nice and promptly. Oh, and it's free...

Send RSS feeds to your email | Home

Drupal is a powerful open source tool for creating websites that can be managed by people without a high degree of technical skills. It is a very popular tool with a large community of users, and it is free.

Many people around the world use Drupal to set up sites for not for profit organisation - we've been using at SCIP for several years, including our own site at www.scip.org.uk. The initial set up stage still requires a specialist web developer, but once it's in place it can offer very powerful features to anyone with basic keyboard and mouse skills.

These sites are becoming increasingly popular for small and medium sized community organisations, alongside the growth of personal sites such as Blogger. You can change content quickly and easily, add photographs and useful links to other sites, add news stories and tidy up loose ends, such as when staff or job titles change.

Drupal has developed thanks to the commitment and collaboration of a wide range of people across the world. This conference in Coventry in late August is for web developrs with a specific interest in creating sites for the voluntary sector. It's just £15 and is being organised by Illuminate ICT.

Our Drupal Conference | www.illuminateict.org.uk