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1. Latest News
2. Project of the Month
3. Website Highlights
4. Latest Feedback
5. Volunteer Opportunities - How It Works
6. A word about your initial meeting with the charity
7. Final thoughts

1. LATEST NEWS

• Endless Summer: Summer's lease is nearly up... and what will you do on those cooler, darker autumnal evenings? How about a spot of IT volunteering? We've reached 435 opportunities available. Check out www.iT4Communities.org.uk for the full selection. Now updated weekly... unless we're on holiday.
• What's Up?: If you're currently volunteering, please let us know what's going on. We really miss not hearing from you so keep those project updates coming to Alex at info@iT4Communities.org.uk. If you're having problems, feel free to contact us at the same email address - we can't come round and fix things but we'll do our best to help. Feel free to use the discussion forum for specific topics which you think might concern other volunteers.
• Hundreds and Thousands: Over 300 charities and 1000 volunteers now registered with iT4C. 435 projects since launch.
• Strike a light: Matchmaker will soon return. Our plans for the next couple of events centre on London and Birmingham. Watch this space for more details.
• New website: While you're busy volunteering web development for local community groups, we've been redesigning our own. The new site is currently completing spec and should see the light of day in a couple of months
• Incommunicado?: Charities not talking to you? Read Keep 'em Talking! [Broken link removed]
• Volunteer Voice: Want to know what everyone else thinks? Check out Section 4 of this newsletter for the experiences of some of your fellow volunteers.
• Make a Difference Day: If you feel like doing something meaningful on the 25th October (and a week either side) why not support Make A Difference Day? We're working with CSV to support more charities in this two week period. Please email Alex at info@iT4Communities.org.uk if you're interested, and available, in this period.
  

2. PROJECT OF THE MONTH

• Project of the Month: P400 - Carers support charity needs to re-fashion and re-launch a chat-room service for carers in Redbridge. Volunteer required with knowledge of requirements and market analysis for IT-based services who can apply logical thinking to discussing carers' needs and motivations. The aim is to use IT-based tools to build a community of carers in the borough.
• Northern Project of the Month: P104 - South Manchester students seek IT professional to demystify the IT profession and explain real life in IT (gently).
• The Little Bit Different Project of the Month: P424 - Volunteer required to advise on documentation strategy including the best methods of delivering a 1000 page manual in both paper and electronic form for a housing charity that seeks to help elderly people.
• More details and projects at www.iT4Communities.org.uk
  

3. WEBSITE HIGHLIGHTS

• Online Volunteer Opportunities. Say no more, just visit www.iT4Communities.org.uk
• Choosing a Charity - [broken link removed]
• Get Intuxicated with our latest case study: [Broken link removed]
• How to keep your charity partner communicating [Broken link removed]
• Delivering Great Projects - [broken link removed]

4. LATEST FEEDBACK

• Campbell Barrow at the Washington Millennium Centre, a local community centre in North East England, was particularly delighted with the help he received: "The man you recommended to help, Olu, turned out to be a real gem. He has designed a data base for our community health project that allows us to keep a full record of our members that includes such details as; the level of exercise on joining, eating habits, ethnicity, disability/ability, general health conditions as well as personal details like their address, etc. Olu worked closely with all members of the project staff to ensure we had exactly the system we wanted and were happy to operate. This included a number of rewrites and team meetings. Olu fast became a friend and trusted advisor, he was more than helpful on a number of IT matters effecting the project, saving the project a small fortune on purchasing inappropriate software and equipment."
• Janet Miles was equally delighted with her volunteer at the Gairloch and Loch Ewe regeneration charity: "We have been delighted with the iT4Communities project. We live in a very remote area, hundreds of miles from any of the volunteers, yet have managed to benefit from the project via e-mail and telephone communication with the volunteers. Tim Ellis, who built us a wonderful website, plans to come on holiday to our area next week and will even spend a day with us face to face.We were pleased to be able to carry out the projects at our own pace doing as much of them ourselves as we could and having continuous support from the volunteers. Both projects will in due course help our organisation to become more efficient, saving valuable resources and enabling us to spend more time on practical work within our community."
• Volunteer George Nichols feels very positive about his volunteering project with Age Concern Slough: "I have found the experience rewarding and I have been surprised at the positive reaction I have from peers, friends and family once they realise that I am doing this kind of work. This recognition plus the thanks I receive from the 'clients' makes it most worthwhile."
• Steve Moore is also enthusiastic about the positive impact he had at the Royal School for the Deaf: "The project has been beneficial to both parties. The RSDM staff now have an additional source of information and can spend more time with the children rather than searching for policies and forms. I used the project to brush up on my Visual Basic skills and get to know FileMakerPro. Overall it has been rewarding to use my technical skills to contribute to the care of the children."
  

5. THE OPPORTUNITIES

All iT4Communities projects have been through a 'Project Definition' phase before they are offered to volunteers. This involves a telephone call and discussion with the contact person at the charity and we do filter out any requests which are clearly inappropriate for volunteers. This isn't foolproof but should give you better quality opportunities.

In the Volunteer Opportunities section we have included information about the type of charity, the location and a summary of the request for IT advice / assistance. If you are interested in volunteering for a particular opportunity, please click on the Volunteer button adjacent to the details of each opportunity. Over the course of the next few months, we will be putting more detailed information online.

Opportunities are categorised by location (London, North West, North East, West Midlands, East Midlands, SouthEast, SouthWest, Scotland, Wales). We're working on better ways of representing the projects/locations but all feedback welcome. Apologies in advance if we've offended anyone's geography. Please bear in mind that I'm not a geography guru and what you think is East Midlands might have been added to West Midlands. It's worth looking at other areas near you. If you're looking for quick projects or projects which might be done remotely, it's worth looking in other geographic areas.

We've classified projects by skill type e.g. website, database, strategy. This does mean that some projects don't fit easily into categories so if you're a multi-tasking kind of volunteer or have special talents, check out the ALL category and find those hidden gems.

We will respond to offers to volunteer on a first come, first served basis and we will try to respond to all of you as soon as possible. In some cases, we may provide multiple volunteer details for a particular project. We will also let you know if your opportunity has already been taken (assuming we've been told). We will deal with offers to volunteer as quickly as we can but we cannot guarantee to respond to all applications immediately.

Projects will remain listed until someone CONFIRMS acceptance. In some cases, volunteers have expressed interest but a project has not, for whatever reason, been confirmed. If you contact a charity about a project and they tell you it's no longer available, please let us know (sometimes they don't). 

If there isn't an opportunity near to you, please bear with us. More charities and projects are registered each week. If you have any specific questions, please email Alex at info@iT4Communities.org.uk 

6. A WORD ABOUT YOUR INITIAL MEETING WITH THE CHARITY

At your first meeting with the charity you will need to check out a number of issues. You will want to make sure:

• that you and the charity are going to be comfortable working with each other - you will want to check out the charity and equally they will want to make sure that you have the skills and experience that they need - [broken link removed]
• that the project in question is deliverable within your time constraints as a volunteer - [broken link removed]
• that any issues of liability and insurance are covered, both by you and the charity. What happens if you fall down a dodgy stair in the charity's office or your work ends up losing all the charity's data? (We're not being pessimistic about this - most volunteering works without any problems but it is sensible to make sure that you and the charity have discussed these eventualities.) see http://www.it4communities.org.uk/it4c/open/volunteer/resources/risk.jsp  (NB. IT 4Communities has no responsibility for any loss or damage howsoever arising from any act or omission of the volunteer or the charity who are the beneficiary of the voluntary activity.)

7. FINAL THOUGHTS

iT4Communities is a project to help the IT industry and IT professionals help communities. It depends largely on you as individuals and employees to deliver the expertise. We're here to provide the web-based resource and answer questions. We will try to provide you with introductions to charities and work with you as a group to develop best practice. You are the ones with the skills to change the lives of individuals, groups, to make a difference in your local community. If you have any suggestions about iT4Communities and / or this newsletter - do get in touch, we want to hear from you.

Let's go to work...

Simon.

Simon Davey
National Director, iT4Communities
e: simon@iT4Communities.org.uk 
w: www.iT4Communities.org.uk 

IT 4 Communities is an initiative to encourage companies and individuals with professional IT skills to volunteer these skills for the benefit of the community, and is supported by a partnership of key IT sector organisations.

We aim to achieve a significant and sustainable increase in the number of companies and IT professionals volunteering their skills in their local communities, and to maximise the effectiveness of this volunteering input in building the capacity of local charities and community groups.