iT4Communities - Volunteer Opportunities Newsletter
Number 10 - 17th December 2003 - Merry Christmas

[You are receiving this email because you, or someone providing your details, has registered this email address with iT4Communities. If you wish to unsubscribe from this e-newsletter, please email info@iT4Communities.org.uk?subject=UnsubscribeVols and we will remove you from future mailing lists].

1. Latest News
2. Project of the Month
3. What Your Charities Said This Month
4. Background to the Opportunities
5. A word about your initial meeting with the charity
6. Final thoughts

1. LATEST NEWS

• All I want 4 Christmas is: A project update. Or several hundred project updates perhaps? Please let us know what's going on with your projects. First ten responses get a JPEG of a mince pie by return email...
• Alas poor Alex, I knew him Santa: Alex has departed for pastures new but the rest of us are still here. We're currently recruiting a new administrator so would appreciate your patience for the next few weeks until things get back to normal again.
• The Geeks give back: iT4C has been entered into Fast company magazine's Fast 50 competition. Read more at www.fastcompany.com/fast50_04/profile/?edwards1336 
• All I want 4 Christmas (2) is: More volunteers. This festive season we're launching "find us another volunteer". If you know a friend, colleague, relation (or even someone you don't particularly like), why not tell them all about iT4Communities and persuade them to register as a volunteer. We've even written an email template for you to copy and paste ([Broken link removed]). Be extra nice to charity this Christmas. We need you, we need your mates!
• Thank you: Thanks for all your hard work, effort, persistence and patience over the last thirteen months or so. You've made a real difference to the way charities work and help other people. Let's keep it going over the next thirteen months and build bigger and better things.
• Merry Christmas: One of the advantages of being able to keep a virtual eye on things is that we can still keep up to date with things without leaving the comfort of our cosy little abode. However, we will be taking a break over Christmas (and New Year) so if you do send a web request at 2pm on Christmas Day, you won't get an instant response. We'll still reply to email queries to info@iT4Communities.org.uk between 23^rd December and 5^th January but response times will be ad hoc. Email sent to iT4C@wcit.org.uk will NOT be acknowledged between 23rd December and 5th January.
• All I Want 4 Christmas (3) is: To know what you think. We really value your feedback. It helps us make more intelligent decisions and to build a programme and community which has benefits to you as well as charities and society in general. Why not ponder life, the Universe and iT4Communities over mulled wine and a mince pie and email your hearts desire to: Santaswishlist@iT4Communities.org.uk?subject=iT4C wishlist.
• Volunteer training: Volunteers in Stroud, Gloucester and Cheltenham can now access a one year, part-time level 2 qualification, The Certificate in Community Volunteering. To find out how, contact colette@jandctraining.co.uk
• Next newsletter: We'll publish the next newsletter sometime in January.

2. PROJECT OF THE MONTH

• Project of the Month: P575- Organisation supporting foreign students living with British families needs volunteers to agree to provide occasional support, over the telephone to staff (nationwide) who may have basic enquiries about computer usage (MS Office etc) -
• Northern Project of the Month: P567- Homelessness charity needs a volunteer to redevelop and update their web-site and provide advice on design and content -
• The Little Bit Different Project of the Month: P531 - Organisation representing tenants groups in Edinburgh needs a volunteer to produce a detailed IT strategy to help them plan the development of a city-wide IT network and organise the training of users in multiple locations -
• Martini (anytime, anywhere) Project of the Month: P487 Charity providing respite care to disabled children and adults needs a volunteer to build them a website from scratch and instruct them how to maintain it -
• Snappy (quick) project of the month: P589 Counselling charity needs a volunteer to produce a very simple one page informational website to attach to the website of a partner organisation -
• More details and projects at www.iT4Communities.org.uk

Please note that some of our projects might be feasible as 'remote' projects or 'virtual volunteering' so feel free to browse projects from other areas. It never hurts to ask.

3. WHAT YOUR CHARITIES SAID THIS MONTH

"BAC has been signed up with iT4Communities for a few weeks now and we've had a really good response from your volunteers. We have met with one volunteer who gave us some useful advice as to how to proceed with planning out our management information system which we have taken on board. He has also agreed to assist us on an ad hoc basis when we need more advice.

This is definitely enough to get us started, it's possible that we could use the help of another volunteer who has a different area of expertise at some point down the line but for the immediate future we're happy that we've got some direction." - Nicole Evans, Battersea Arts Centre

"We would recommend iT4Communities as they have been very professional, fast and the volunteer sent to us was very knowledgeable, confident and generous." - Lisa Rogers, Crossroads

4. BACKGROUND TO THE OPPORTUNITIES

We have had telephone conversations with these charities (or the brokers providing the opportunities), and have filtered out any requests that were clearly inappropriate for volunteers. 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. This DOES NOT commit you to the project at this stage but will enable us to send you further information.

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.

We've also 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 but this may take a few days depending on the number of responses and other activities. Your patience is appreciated. 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

5. 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.)

Getting this stuff right at the outset is worth the time spent and makes sure that you can then concentrate on delivering a great project

6. 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... but have a great Christmas and New Year in the meantime!

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.