If you would like to volunteer for any of these Projects of the Month, please go to  Volunteer Opportunities. 

Buckinghamshire Training Project of the Month

P1418         Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire

This organisation provides residential care to people with varying physical disabilities. The residents are very keen to acquire IT skills in order to access the 'outside world' via the internet/email, which would greatly enhance their lives. The organisation requires an experienced IT trainer to carry out a Training Needs Analysis (TNA), design and deliver tailored basic IT Skills training to both members of staff and residents with varying degrees of disabilities. It is hoped that after the staff have received training they will be able to support residents and members of the local community who use the facilities. The role would suit someone with knowledge and experience of delivering training in an environment where IT accessibility issues are addressed.

Training

South East Technical Support Project of the Month

P1414     Reading, Berkshire

This homeless project provides training and development as well as assisting people to secure permanent and independent accommodation. The project aims to enable people who are homeless to move on to a fuller and more independent lifestyle. They have a popular computer facility which is used by clients to search for jobs, create CV's, work on training, and also give a window into a world which as become increasingly distant from people as homelessness has taken over their lives. They are looking for a volunteer to get the current donated and elderly computers that clients use running smoothly. They currently have 7 PCs that have been donated and are not highly specified, probably running Windows 97. User access rights may need to be implemented to minimise problems associated with some downloading. Establishing a consistent desktop set up so that the computers were as similar as possible may also help. The volunteer would also be required to implement a regular maintenance procedure appropriate for the staff to use to enable them to keep the machines running. The volunteer will need to be enthusiastic and skilled in getting the most out of older machines and have a good knowledge of anti-malware software, computer maintenance and an appreciation of the issues of having computers *publicly* accessible. Maybe you have worked in a commercial Internet Café for example and can apply appropriate knowledge?

London Website Project of the Month

P1390     London

A community charity that supports adults suffering, or recovering from long term mental health problems, feels their current web site is very convoluted. In order for them to bring this back into line. The charity would like a volunteer to help them give their site a complete overhaul. Included in the overhaul the charity envisages online forms and a way for them to manage the site for themselves. They would like to hear from any volunteer with web design experience, who can best advise on ways of making the site more dynamic and professional.

Website

Surrey Strategy Project of the Month

P1374    Thornton Heath, Surrey
This charity provides supported housing to single homeless people in the Croydon area. They provide advice and support to the tenants and also work with the local council to run a drop-in advice centre. In recent years the charity has expanded their IT infrastructure and over the next few months are having websites and intranets developed for them. The charity has 15 PCs on a LAN at their head office and 25 PCs at seven other sites. The remote PCs connect to the server using terminal services over broadband. They have an external support contact that they are very happy with. The IT co-ordinator has put together the outline of an IT strategy and would like a volunteer to help him to complete this document. They also have an IT acceptable use policy document that he would like to review and complete. He hopes that the process of working through these documents with an experienced volunteer will help him identify areas of weakness and ways of making better use of their IT facilities.
Strategy

South East Website Project of the Month

P933    Gosport, Hampshire

Volunteer centre has a website maintained by an existing long-term volunteer. The existing volunteer is still learning about website techniques and is slightly socially withdrawn.  This is an opportunity for a website developer who can mentor the existing volunteer through a number of sessions of an hour or two . This can be, by arrangement, Wednesday or Friday 11am-3pm. The charity is also being required to conform to new national guidelines.

Website

London Technical Support (Network) Project of the Month                                   Back to Top>>

 P1383      London W1

This charity promotes community-wide access to live orchestral music in the eastern counties of England. Funded by Arts Council England and working in partnership with local authorities and other organisations, they initiate and support community projects and performances with professional orchestras. The charity's head office is in Central London but some of their five staff regularly work from home. They would like to set up a VPN so that they can store all their data in a central e-filing system. They currently have a peer-to-peer network and all PCs are running Windows XP Pro. All users have broadband access. The data that they would be sharing would be utilising MS Office Pro applications. The charity contact is fairly IT literate but would appreciate some guidance from a volunteer with network experience. She would like help in specifying the correct system to implement particularly with regard to security and cost implications. She would then like to work directly with the volunteer to implement the system so that she has a good understanding of how to maintain and troubleshoot the system in future.

Technical support (network)

West Midlands Website Project of the Month

P1356     Worcester, Worcestershire.

This charity based in Worcester city centre aims to help young people broaden their horizons and experience new opportunities. They provide support and sessional activity workers to local youth-based community groups and run workshops for young people. Recent workshops have included film-making, a Ray Mears-style survival course and environmental activities. They also provide opportunity grants to talented, but financially challenged, young people to enable them to pursue their interests. The charity would like to develop a website to promote their activities and to provide a voice for young people in the area. They'd like the website to be integrated with a magazine project that they are developing. They have no current website so would need something developing from scratch and they would need advice on all aspects of the project. They would like to be able to update the site on a regular basis with details of the projects and activities that are taking place. They would like young people to be able to register their interest in an activity by filling in a form on the site and they'd like to be able to include polls to ask young people's opinions of projects and future activities. They would appreciate any other suggestions for interactive features on the site to make it attractive and useful to young people. They charity would like to take on the maintenance of the site themselves but will require advice on this as they have no formal IT skills in house.

Website

Another West Midlands Website Project of the Month

P1416    Walsall, West Midlands.

This newly established charity aiming to protect the health of and relief of financial hardship amongst children in Bangladesh, is looking for a volunteer to build a website for them. They have lots of photos and video footage to support their cause that they would like available online. The skills they are looking for would be someone to create a simple site that would include these graphic and video images. They would also require the setting up of a ‘click to donate’ from the website.

Website

East of England Training Project of the Month

P1242     Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire.

This Grimsby-based charity provides services for blind and visual-impaired individuals and their family and carers. The charity's aim is to improve individual quality of life, combat social exclusion and encourage personal development. They do this by organising social and sporting activities and by operating an IT Training project. Training courses include general IT, pre-CLAIT as well as specific software for the visually impaired. Some individuals require one-to-one training to bring them to the required level of competency to join a regular course. Volunteers are needed to assist with this one-to-one training. No specialist knowledge of software for the visually-impaired is required as all training will be given. All that is required is a good all-round IT knowledge and a willingness to work on a one-to-one basis although some training experience would be useful. Complete support would be given to the volunteer. This project would be as long or as short as the volunteer wished as they'd be assigned to an individual depending on the needs and commitment of both the individual and the volunteer. This is an opportunity to work with people of all ages, backgrounds and levels of IT knowledge and help them improve their quality of life.

Training

London E-marketing Website Project of the Month

P1408         Islington, London

This is a charity providing care and rehabilitation to survivors of torture and other forms of organised violence. As part of their awareness raising strategy, this organisation is seeking some advice and assistance in implementing an interactive e-marketing strategy, incorporating ideas such as questionnaires, games, e-cards and other forms of viral marketing campaigns whereby recipients can forward this to others and they in turn are redirected back to the organisation’s website. This would be ideal for a volunteer with knowledge and experience in e-marketing.

Website.

Wales Training Project of the Month

P1244        Merthyr Tydfil, Mid Glamorgan, Wales

This children’s charity has just taken delivery of a complete PC suite and would like a number of volunteers to give basic training/support to their 400 young members in the general use of the computers and software (MS XP). As this suite has only just been installed there may be some technical issue to resolve along the way.  The charity will be open every day of the week.

Training.

Scotland Training Project of the Month                                                                       Back to Top>>

P1388     Glasgow, Scotland

A charity that provides formal and informal courses, including IT programs, to women under 30 would like support in managing there new PC suite. The charity is looking for a volunteer who is able to pop in once a week (usually a Monday) to manage their network and the 15 computers running Windows XP. However the charity would be happy if a volunteer could train them to manage their systems for themselves, from general fault finding through to a good PC maintenance plan. This would be an ideal opportunity for a volunteer with PC hardware and software skills and able to give clear and concise instructions in order to train the volunteer's onsite.

Training

West Midlands Strategy Project of the Month

P1384     Coventry, West Midlands

This Community Centre aims to have a lasting impact on the lives of people from different communities by engaging hard to reach groups and promoting community cohesion. The organisation currently has 3 networked computers and would like to add more computers onto this. They are experiencing some network problems. They have recently been awarded a grant for additional computers and software. They need assistance to:

• Resolving problems around current network
• Advice on cost effective purchasing of computers and software
• Once the computers have been purchased, these need to be networked
• Review and advice on current security, anti-virus protection issues
• Maintenance and support on an ad hoc basis

Strategy and Technical Support

Wales Advice Project of the Month

P1375     Mold, Flintshire, Wales

This organisation based in Flintshire provides services and advice to local charities. It can help charities with funding applications, legal issues, etc. and also puts potential volunteers in touch with charities. One of the services the organisation provides is a print shop where charities can get high quality printing at cost price. They have recently received a grant for extra equipment and have some money left over. They would like to spend this on a high quality wide format printer so that they can increase the facilities available to charities. The organisation would like a volunteer to advise on the purchase of this printer which would need to be connected to a network of MS PCs and a Linux server.

Advice

If you would like to volunteer for any of these Projects of the Month, please go to  Volunteer Opportunities.               
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