iT4Communities Heads North for Community Conference

iT4Communities will be exhibiting at the International IT in the Community Conference 2007 in Sunderland University (UK) on the 5th and 6th July 2007.

We will be showcasing recent successful projects as well as explaining the benefits of volunteering to both charities and volunteers.

Anticipating the Sunderland event, John Davies, iT4Communities Programme Director said  “We are a small team working mainly by Internet, email and phone so we are really looking forward to meeting charities and IT professionals - face to face. Our presence at the exhibition is a chance for them to tell us about their experiences with IT and with our IT volunteering services and for us to match up charities with IT professionals who can help them. We have contacted over 100 charities and volunteers in the North East but we would like to invite all charities and IT professionals to see us at the show - bring your needs and your talents and we will help you get together and do good things for causes and communities."

We already have many North East-based volunteers and they’ve contributed to helping charities and community groups both UK-wide and locally.

St Oswald’s Hospice in Gosforth has recently received help from a volunteer with managing their data. Henry Pearce assisted their IT department in making their system more reliable and helping staff access information quickly and easily. Darren Harvey, IT manager for the charity, said that the project had been very successful and “Henry had exceeded their expectations in the project”.
Volunteer Colin Edwards helped Sedgefield & District Citizens Advice Bureau put together a website. An important criterion was that Bureau staff would be able to update the site themselves. They were thrilled with the result. Sandra Richardson from the Bureau said, “Colin did a marvellous job. The website is spot-on. We’ve had no problems with it and it even came with a manual so we can easily make changes ourselves. The site is proving to be a very useful and informative resource for our clients.”

Colin found the challenge of volunteering with a charity very interesting. “It was good to work in a different sector to usual, seeing first hand some of the problems charities deal with on a day to day basis, and I gained great satisfaction from helping to solve some of those problems.”

Why not come along to the free exhibition - details at  www.itevent.org/itworks - and drop by our stand for a chat.