You may have noticed some changes....

We moved to a new website and system on 24 April 2007. This is the first phase of some major enhancements to the system built by our new suppliers, Spiral Arm (www.spiralarm.com). Here's a quick summary of the changes:

Look and feel has been improved - not least to make our site more accessible. We aim for W3C AA standard. Our menu structure should be easier to use with all the active links to manage both opportunities and volunteers up at the top of the list on the left hand side. We'll be improving the menu layout again soon - adding sub menus, for example.

Terminology has changed - Most importantly Work Packages become Opportunities: We decided that "Work Packages" was an obscure way of defining volunteering opportunities. "Opportunities" is more descriptive and less technical (Work Packages was derived from project management jargon).

Virtual opportunities - We have had a special region in the past called Remote. This means the same as Virtual now - a project which could be done over the phone and the Internet, Thurso to London for example. The old way meant that the real region was lost and that opportunities could not be both virtual (or remote) and local (with a real region). Now charities can say to us "We don't mind if our volunteer is just down the road or at the other end of the country but we would still like to hear from local volunteers".

Short Task Opportunities - Some opportunities (Work Packages) need no more than a phone call or an hour or two of time so even the busiest of us can help. The upgrade will allow for opportunities to be marked as "short tasks" and many of these will also be "virtual" (working remotely from the charity). We hope this will help you to get simple jobs done quickly, contributing small but vital amounts of expertise. So, if you are a busy IT professional (like the iT4C team!) you can still get involved.

We'll be asking for more information about volunteers such as qualifications and age range, useful information for us. Can the "old hands" please update via the "My Account" link? None of this information is mandatory.

Please let us know what you think and tell us how else we might improve the system or any other aspect of our service. As we always say "If you like what we do, tell your friends, if you don't, tell us!". There is more to come and new ideas are very welcome.

As always - reach us on info@iT4Communities.org.uk or 020 7796 2144