UKriders

COMMUNITY MEDIA MATTERS Improving marketing and communication skills in the voluntary sector Beaumont Street Studios are offering the voluntary sector an exciting opprtunity to raise their organisation’s profile using local and national radio. Participants will be able to: Develop their interview technique and presentation skills Know how a professional radio studio works Create a short advert for their community group Create a recorded radio [...]

Successful Commissioning: Preparing Your Children’s Service Tenders 4-5 November, Best Western Merrion Hotel, Leeds 19-20 November, Thistle Hotel, Middlesbrough Cost: £350 or free to VCS organisations with a turnover of less than £200,000 and no more than 5 paid staff This two-day training course will enable you to enter the new commissioning process with confidence, equipped with the tools [...]

The Office of the Third Sector (OTS) and Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) are inviting Expressions of Interest for a national partner to deliver the £70m Communitybuilders programme. The programme is designed to support investment in multi-purpose, inclusive community-led organisations at the neighbourhood level. CLG is now tendering for the selection of an organisation [...]

A report by the University of Hertfordshire has confirmed that Older people are more and more digitally excluded in the Information age. Click below to read it. microsoft-citizens-online-ais-dissemination-report-071008 Posted in National Stuff      

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

The Next Application Deadline for this fund is 07/11/2008 Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs) are one-stop locations where victims of sexual assault can receive medical care and counselling, and have the opportunity to assist police investigations into alleged offences. Funding is available for existing SARCS as well as partnerships of police forces and Primary Care Trusts [...]

October 2008 sees the long awaited launch of Acid Test, the brand new free-to-access diagnostic tool for the non-profit sector - developed by Yorkshire Culture. It makes the most of web technology to generate revealing bespoke reports on the key performance indicators, organisational readiness and financial health of your organisation. They have worked with the Regional Forum to [...]

Thanks to CTT for this tip: Are you looking for a source of good quality, low cost reliable PCs? If your organisation needs low cost hardware then why not consider purchasing a low cost pc through the Microsoft Authorised Refurbisher (MAR) scheme. All computers through the scheme are cleaned, repaired and upgraded where necessary before having fully [...]

Thanks to Experts online for this alert The Equitable Charitable Trust exists to promote and support education for children and young people under the age of 25 and, more particularly, for the benefit of young people with disabilities and/or from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Trustees seek to identify and support good projects that address needs not adequately met [...]

A renewed call for everyone to make use of the great resource developed and supported by our friends over at LASA - the ICT Knowledgebase. 

On the system you will find a really excellent resource for information, advice, features and articles on just about everything ICT.  In fact according to the wonderful Miles there are over 300 useful articles to search and benefit from. So if you haven’t been lately (or at all!) then make your way over to the Knowledgebase today and learn something new.

      

Effective Assessment of Problems at Computer Workstations

An AbilityNet Workshop

Employers are required to have a process of workstation assessment for all employees who use computers. When this process identifies a problem, or the employee reports a difficulty, the employer must further assess the situation in order to recommend and implement any necessary changes. This course aims to help those involved in workstation assessments respond effectively to reports of a problem and develop suitable solutions.

“This course provided me with so many new ideas and also gave me more confidence in my ability to carry out assessments.” Occupational Health Nurse 

Dates coming up for this course are -

Monday 13th October 2008 – City University, London

Tuesday 14th October 2008 – Hewlett Packard, Bristol

For more information about the content of this course download Effective Assessment of Problems at Computer Workstations course information (PDF 491KB).

To book a place on this course please email courses@abilitynet.org.uk or call 01926 464095

Switched on Communities

Our Switched on Communities Project are also running the following course

“I.T. & Learning Difficulties”

Supporting individuals with a learning difficulty in the voluntary sector  

Computers can help an individual and tutors get the most out of their abilities whether they want to manage their work and communicate more effectively or explore their interests.  This course is aimed at voluntary sector workers on a budget wishing to equip themselves with information on software and solutions that can help those who have alearning difficulty. At the end of the course, you will have a greater awareness and practical knowledge of how the computer can be used to help address and support individuals. 

Friday 14th November

The course will take place at the following location –

Swansea Discover IT Centre (Leonard Cheshire)

Swansea Vale Resource Centre 
Ffordd Tregof 
Swansea Vale 
Swansea 
SA7 0AL 

Please call 01792 791920 for more information or to book a place 

Helen Liptrot
Administrator

Tel: +44 (0)800 269 545

Fax:  +44 (0)1926 407 425

Web: http://www.abilitynet.org.uk

      

West Leeds Walking Group have received a £650 award from O2 It’s Your Community Awards. West Leeds Walking Group runs 6 different groups in the W. Leeds area. Membership is mainly made up of elderly people (the eldest is 89) who have lost their partners and are looking for a social outlet and gentle physical activity. Each [...]

There’s been a lot going on at South Yorkshire Funding Advice Bureau (SYFAB) this summer, as their Digital Makeover project in conjunction with Charity Technology Trust has gathered speed. Their new initiatives include: using online surveys for monitoring and evaluation, an email campaign tool for communicating and consulting with service users, and online collaborative software for working together on [...]

As many of you know, I send out a monthly archive through a number of Yahoo groups in Yorkshire & Humber. Some people have emailed me recently asking to be added to my mailing list. As I don’t actually have a mailing list I have set up another Yahoo group so that those people can join [...]

The next meeting of the ITEM3 network is now scheduled for Tuesday 11th November, 11am - 2.15pm, in Derby. Please note that this is a change of date (the original date was Friday 3 October).

Network meetings are open to to those working in the third sector (voluntary sector / social enterprise) who have an interest in seeing the sector increase and improve the way that it uses ICT. Network members might, for example, be an ICT project worker (Circuit Rider), project manager, or an organisation which is looking to develop, launch or promote an ICT project. 

The network meets regularly (usually quarterly) in different venues across the region. If you would like to attend either the November meeting, or future meetings, please get in touch with Steve Webster:
Email: steve@highpeakcvs.org.uk
Phone: 07595 119182

      

At the future choices conference in skipton. My E66 continues to perform as i put it through its paces.
I have used Qik on the phone to record a couple of videos of colin harrison talking about blogs. Go over to the site to watch them.
Http://qik.com/event/315/futurechoices–live-and-local/day/2

      

The Ruralnet Conference, this year, combined forces with the Action for Market Towns Convention and took place in Skipton on October 1st and 2nd. I gave a presentation on Making the Most of Technology. Here I am talking about the session just before I gave it: http://qik.com/video/358395 Here are some of the people who attended the session; http://www.flickr.com/photos/30639638@N05/sets/72157607695698883/ Posted in [...]

Noticed a typo in the previous post. All corrected using opera mini on the phone.
Caught up with my twitter feed using twibble and even listened to a little last fm on mobbler my phone last fm client. Well i am out of work now!
All courtesy of national express free wifi on the train.

      

What has this got to do with the voluntary and community sector?
I have been interested in gadgets and technology for as long as i can remember so this and the next few posts are all about how a pocket sized computer (a Nokia E66) can or cant be utilised as part of my work. This post has been written using a program called Wavelog. There is a free version for Symbian S60 phones which seems to do the trick . . You tell me!
I will be trying these out at the Future Choices conference in Skipton. Will check the train is on time on the phone of course and off i go. Pics. Video. Audio even to follow.

      

In November 2007, Nominet announced its intention to launch a charitable foundation with a start up donation of £5m. The Foundation is still in the early stages, and as yet they have not agreed any formalised specific criteria. However, it is known that that applications should relate to the internet industry. Some examples of this could include the following: Organisations [...]