Opportunities of the Month - February 2012

Opportunities are listed on this page because we've recently talked with the charity and we know that they are ready to work with a volunteer. Are you that volunteer?

If you think you can help click on the link on the opportunity name below to go directly to the opportunity - you'll need to sign in on the way

This page will be updated monthly with opportunities to help organisations that we know are struggling to find a volunteer. If you access this page later in the month you may find that the opportunities are no longer available. If so, feel free to search for opportunities in the normal way or to sign up to our RSS feed

Opportunity Name: Configure Outlook 2010 for 5 Mailboxes [This is a short task]
Skill Type: Network
Region: Scotland
Locality: Sanquhar
Postcode: DG1
Virtual: No

Description: This charity based in Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire, is a community arts and crafts initiative with an arts centre, a small theatre, and a retail outlet for crafts and holds crafts workshops. They have a peer to peer network of 2 PCs running Windows 7 and MS Office 2010. Their ISP is BT Internet and they can't get Outlook to work. They would like a LOCAL VOLUNTEER to configure Outlook to work with 5 mailboxes using their own domain name. There is an associated project to resolve a problem with the file share and implement remote access.

Opportunity Name: Resolve Problem with File Share and Implement Remote Access [This is a short task]
Skill Type: Network
Region: Scotland
Locality: Sanquhar
Postcode: DG1
Virtual: No

Description: This charity based in Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire, is a community arts and crafts initiative with an arts centre, a small theatre, and a retail outlet for crafts and holds crafts workshops. They have a peer to peer network of 2 PCs running Windows 7 and MS Office 2010. The files available on the file share are only accessible as read only and that's a nuisance. Also they would like to be able to access files over the internet when they are at home. They would prefer a LOCAL VOLUNTEER. There is an associated project to configure Outlook for 5 mailboxes.

Opportunity Name: Install / Configure Shopping Cart for Website
Skill Type: Website
Region: North West
Locality: Manchester
Postcode: M15
Virtual: Yes

Description: This charity's mission is to create a humane and sustainable future for all, through partnership and participation. They work nationally and internationally to enable individuals, organisations and communities to work together to bring about positive change.They have a Joomla-based website. They would like people to be able to book courses (about 20 to 30 per year), and buy goods (about 20 items), and membership and pay online. They have installed the HikaShop Joomla module but not configured it, so they would like you either to configure HikaShop for them or to install and configure a different Joomla module shopping cart. There is an associated project to configure part of their CiviCRM system.

Opportunity Name: Complete Implementation of CiviCRM
Skill Type: Database
Region: North West
Locality: Manchester
Postcode: M15
Virtual: Yes

Description: This charity's mission is to create a humane and sustainable future for all, through partnership and participation. They work nationally and internationally to enable individuals, organisations and communities to work together to bring about positive change.They have a Joomla-based website. A previous volunteer installed CiviCRM but didn't have enough time to complete the configuration and implementation. They would like you to add membership data structure and functionality, implement mass emailing, do any other bits of configuration and help them get the rest of the staff up to speed with using the system. There is an associated project to install a shopping cart for their website.

Opportunity Name: Create High Resolution Images of Re-Designed Branding [This is a short task]
Skill Type: Creative Design
Region: London
Locality: Yiewsley
Postcode: UB7
Virtual: Yes

Description: This community centre offers a wide range of activities and functions, with the aim of reaching and catering for the needs of as large a cross section of the community as possible. They provide opportunities for empowerment, decision making and skills training, and raise awareness of the needs of others and encourage the community to engage in activities and projects in which they can make a difference.They have a small network of PCs running Windows XP and Vista and Office 2007.They have designed a new branding around their logo and need someone to create high resolution images for two different headers and a footer to be placed and used in all MS office applications. They would like both a portrait and a landscape version for A4 of all three images. They have a specification that has been made in MS Word but have not managed to create it as a quality image. If you can also create the new image for their website that would be a bonus.

Opportunity Name: Create File Management, Retention and Archiving Strategy
Skill Type: Strategy
Region: London
Locality: London
Postcode: E8
Virtual: No

Description: This charity works with people, aged 11-25 years, who live, work or study in Hackney and whose mental health and well-being need support. They provide a range of counselling and therapeutic services supported by psychosocial support in the form of advice, information and guidance. They have a staff team of 17 plus volunteers. Their current shared hard drive needs reorganisation. There are discrepancies in the way it is organised. Staff find it difficult to access certain files as over time different conventions for naming and placing files have been employed by different people, partly due to the lack of a shared vision of how to organise the network. This has led to version control problems, with staff saving versions of key documents in places that make sense to them but may not to others. They would like a LOCAL volunteer to help them create a file management, retention and archiving strategy including file naming conventions; and help them implement it, help them gain staff acceptance and agreement, and possibly some help with training. They will want to thoroughly test the revised structure on their backup server. Their premises are not wheelchair accessible.

Opportunity Name: Migrate MRBS PHP/MySQL to New Version and Apply Customisation
Skill Type: Programming
Region: London
Locality: Ealing
Postcode: W13
Virtual: No

Description: This charity provides office space and IT infrastructure for 20 charities each with 1 to 15 staff. They use the open source MRBS room booking database using PHP/MySQL on a Windows web server. Their Moodle system shares the same web server but uses a newer version of MySQL. They would like you to update MRBS to the latest version and make modifications similar to those in their existing system. The upgrade will require upgrade of MySQL, too. Part of the customisation was documented and part wasn't; however by talking to key users after you've updated the system, you should be able to identify the undocumented customised changes and re-apply them. Of course, it would be sensible to update the customisation document so that it's all known when they need to update it in the future.

Opportunity Name: Provide Advice on Creating a Virtual Tour for a Website
Skill Type: Creative Design
Region: London
Locality: Ealing
Postcode: W13
Virtual: No

Description: This charity provides office space and IT infrastructure for 20 charities each with 1 to 15 staff. They want to produce a "virtual tour" of their facilities for their website, They tried using VR Worx but the result was far from professional - possibly because they don't have a good camera ! They would like someone who has experience in doing this to discuss how to do it, what equipment is needed, and possibly to go and do it for them.

Opportunity Name: Identify Website Requirements and Create Invitation to Tender
Skill Type: Website
Region: London
Locality:
Postcode: WC1N
Virtual: No

Description: This long established charity based near King's Cross champions what matters most for children, by finding adoptive families for vulnerable children, providing creative therapies for traumatised children or supported housing for children leaving care. To support this vital work they need their website to really work for them and this requires a rebuild. They are looking for help with the procurement of the right CMS for them. Can you help them write a specification and help with selection of supplier? You will be working with a good team who know what they require for their charity, and who have good experience in working with other websites. They are very keen to have a technical advisor during this procurement stage. Do you have time in February 2012 to help with this?