Opportunities of the month

 

Opportunities are listed on this page because we've recently talked with the charity and we know that they are ready to work with a volunteer. Are you that volunteer?

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Opportunity Name: Redesign of website to include CMS and database creation
Skill Type: Website
Region: South East
Locality: Tandridge
Postcode: RH8
Virtual: No

Description: This small charity is a branch of a national charity that works with and on behalf of people with a learning disability and their families. It liases with and supports like minded groups. It is run by volunteers and has no paid staff. They have a small brochure-type website developed by someone who recently resigned. They would like it to be redesigned, and be more user-friendly, have more pages and pictures and a contact form, and secure web pages so that they can maintain a database for membership, leisure opportunities and events, and display the opportunities and events on the website. They would like to be able to keep the website up to date after you've gone. You'll need to discuss their new content, change the structure and style of the website, advise them about image sizes, add new pages, incorporate the CMS, create a suitable database, maintenance pages, and display pages, and train them how to use the CMS to update their website. They also need you advise them about metadata, page titles, and for you to include it in the web pages. Much later on, they think they'll want to be able to have a forum, so if your choice of CMS can cater for a forum, this might be better.

Opportunity Name: New Website including CMS and Podcasts
Skill Type: Website
Region: London
Locality: London
Postcode: N1
Virtual: Yes

Description: This charity based near Highbury & Islington tube station provides music concerts for old age pensioners, the disabled, and those with mental health problems, and also helps those that play music to improve their skills. They would like you to build them a website that provides information about them, offers podcasts and video podcasts (vodcasts) and allows people to comment on them. They also want a secure members area to offer resources in return for signing up for a newsletter, a contact form, and to be able to collect online donations via PayPal. They need a CMS so that they can update the site, and they would like you to train them to use it. They have 2 domain names and they want both pointed at the site. They would like your advice about hosting, especially in view of the podcasts and vodcasts they wish to offer. There's another opportunity with this charity to help them create podcasts and vodcasts

Opportunity Name: Logo Design - London W6 (or remote volunteer)
Skill Type: Creative Design
Region: London
Locality: London
Postcode: W6
Virtual: No

Description: This charity working with refugees has 4 or 5 projects and is looking for help to design a 'family' of logos for them.

Opportunity Name: New brochure-type website with flash animations
Skill Type: Website
Region: London
Locality: Brent
Postcode: NW10
Virtual: No

Description: This small young charity provides services which are designed to tackle underachievement, male vulnerability and improve the emotional health and well-being of boys, young men and fathers. Some of their work is done with boys and / or their parents in children's centres. They're looking for someone to build them a mainly brochure-type website to include a links page and a contact form. Crucially they want flash animations on their website, and you'll need to create these from picture files they have prepared. They want to have site statistics too. They need to be able to update the website and eventually add new pages after you've gone, so they'll need an appropriate CMS. They have a good idea of what they want, however they'll need guidance on the layout and structure. They have their own domain name and domain email. They already have hosting but it's due for renewal soon and they would your advice whether it's suitable, or else guide them in signing up for suitable hosting. They have another opportunity for a secure staff only website linked to a database, so this might affect the choice of hosting. You'll need to: define the website content and structure in detail, create the flash animations, build the website, implement a CMS, and train them in its use, provide usercodes and passwords for access.

Opportunity Name: Secure Website with Database
Skill Type: Website
Region: London
Locality: Brent
Postcode: NW10
Virtual: No

Description: This small young charity provides services which are designed to tackle underachievement, male vulnerability and improve the emotional health and well-being of boys, young men and fathers. Some of their work is done with boys and / or their parents in children's centres. They would like you to build a secure staff only website so that their staff in children's centres can log on securely and update a database with names and addresses of boys and parents, ethnicity, services used, feedback, etc. Staff in the office will then need to access the database via the website so that they can run ad-hoc queries, to produce reports on usage, trends, and analysis of services provided for general management purposes for reports to their funders. They'll need to be able to backup the database too. They have their own domain name and domain email. They already have hosting but it's due for renewal soon and they would your advice whether it's suitable, or else guide them in signing up for suitable hosting. They have another opportunity for an public-facing brochure-type website, so this might affect the choice of hosting. You'll need to: define the database design, maintenance forms, and reports in detail, determine the query requirements, build the database, the data entry, query and reporting web pages, train staff in its use and backup, provide usercodes and passwords for access.

Opportunity Name: Online booking system for community resource centre
Skill Type: Database
Region: London
Locality: London
Postcode: N7
Virtual: No

Description: This busy community centre has a room hire facility where local groups can hire affordable rooms. They have a bespoke database that links to their Sage Accounts that enables the bookings and invoicing to happen seemlessly. They have been asked to make the booking system available online so that groups can manage their own bookings. They are looking for a volunteer who is able to help them scope and plan this project. Preferably they would like to work with someone who has had previous experience of the introduction of online bookings and payments to advise them.

Opportunity Name: Provide Training in Office and Internet
Skill Type: Training
Region: London
Locality: Enfield
Postcode: N9
Virtual: No

Description: This Edmonton, London, social enterprise provides advice, support and practical help to homeless people. They help them find accommodation, employment and training opportunities, and provide training in IT, basic literacy and numeracy. That's where you come in. From 1st April 2008, they need volunteers to train up to 7 homeless people, in MS Office XP applications and the use of email and the internet in half-day or whole day sessions while the centre is open. Their centre is open from 9.30 to 4.30 from Tuesday to Friday. They're open to volunteers who could only provide occasional training sessions, however, if you can provide a regular session, that's even better. If you have CRB clearance, that would be helpful, but it's not essential.

Opportunity Name: Advice on maintaining and managing website - London, N7
Skill Type: Consultancy
Region: London
Locality: Islington
Postcode: N7
Virtual: No

Description: This charity provides support and advice to women in the Greek and Greek Cypriot communities. They provide IT training enabling woman to improve their skills and build confidence. They can provide assistance for woman interested in starting their own business. They also provide advice on general welfare issues - housing, health, help with form filling etc. The charity had a website developed for them but are unsure how to manage and maintain it themselves as they have no documentation. At this stage they would like a volunteer to assess the current site and advise on how they should proceed. The main question is whether the site can be maintained in its current form or should be rebuilt from scratch. Issues that need to be considered are: 1. the development tools used - the charity have some Dreamweaver experience but the site has been developed in Frontpage; 2. where the source resides; 3. how to do uploads; 4. can templates be developed to simplify page creation; 5. creating multi-lingual versions of pages; 6. making the site accessible and DDA compliant. This is an opportunity for an assertive, self-managing volunteer as the charity staff have a lot of demands on their time. The initial contact will be via a Circuit Rider who has been working with the charity and will facilitate the introduction between charity and volunteer.

Opportunity Name: Database Migration - Filemaker to MySQL
Skill Type: Database
Region: London
Locality: Hackney
Postcode: E8
Virtual: Yes

Description: This charity based near Dalston Kingsland station supports and promotes contemporary and historical artists' film and video art, and the artists who make it, through distribution, exhibition, education, publishing and research. They have a website which uses a Filemaker database to hold content, and they want it migrated to a MySQL database, so that it can be used and maintained more effectively.

Opportunity Name: Help with Creating Podcasts and Vodcasts
Skill Type: Creative Design
Region: London
Locality: London
Postcode: N1
Virtual: No

Description: This charity based near Highbury & Islington tube station provides music concerts for old age pensioners, the disabled, and those with mental health problems, and also helps those that play music to improve their skills. They would like you to help them create podcasts and video podcasts (vodcasts), of the concerts and of the musicians amongst their audience. They have recording equipment but neither the knowledge nor the experience to create create podcasts and vodcasts. There's another opportunity with this charity to build a website to host the podcasts and vodcasts created.

Opportunity Name: New Brochure-Type Website including CMS and Online Donations
Skill Type: Website
Region: South West
Locality: Somerset
Postcode: TA9
Virtual: Yes

Description: This Somerset charity plans to set up a home for street children in Honduras, Central America and also to offer opportunities for UK children with behavioural problems to visit the project on an exchange programme. They've acquired land and hope to start building soon. They want you to build them a promotional website to really raise the profile of this project. They want a simple site that will showcase this project to potential supporters with a few pages of information and some simple response forms, and provide the capability for supporters to donate online using PayPal. Some of the content, logo and ideas for a look and feel are ready but som grsphic design skills are needed in the intial phase. They have a domain name but need your guidance about arranging hosting and help with signing up for PayPal.

Opportunity Name: Advice about Setting Up Internet Cafe
Skill Type: Consultancy
Region: South West
Locality:
Postcode: BA14
Virtual: Yes

Description: This Trowbridge charity runs a local village hall, and wishes to set up an internet cafe so that local residents can get access to the internet and general computer facilities. A phone line has been installed, and they have broadband internet access. They have 1 reconditioned laptop, and a printer and need advice about whether it is going to be cost effective and how to run this sort of service, and they're currently looking for more laptops. They need advice on what other hardware they need, and what software is needed. So that they can judge whether it is cost effective, you'll need to advise them on the set up cost, and estimate the running costs too, and perhaps help them calculate if they need to make a usage charge, and how much it should be. You'll need also to help them understand what day-to-day tasks are needed to run an internet cafe, and what problems might occur.

Opportunity Name: Refresh Website Design and Implement CMS
Skill Type: Website
Region: East of England
Locality: Stansted
Postcode: CM24
Virtual: Yes

Description: Here's an opportunity to put your artistic skills to use and make a real difference. This self-funding residential rural studies centre in Stansted is in the process of becoming a registered charity. They cater for school children from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, with a range of activities including pond dipping, cycle training, artwork, archery, gardening, team building. Their website is rather green and slightly spooky, and hasn't been kept up to date. Many schools find it hard to persuade parents to allow their children to come to the centre. They want you to do a design makeover to attract children as well as their parents, as well as allowing the parents to get a much better feel for the centre and feel confident that their children would be safe and have a wonderful experience of life outside London. They want you to implement a CMS so that they can keep the site up to date, add new pages, and more photos, and train them to use the CMS. They would also like your advice about the site content.

Opportunity Name: Website Advice, SEO, and Training
Skill Type: Website
Region: East of England
Locality: Ely
Postcode: CB7
Virtual: Yes

Description: This industrial and provident society based near Ely, Cambridgeshire helps vulnerable people stay at home in safety and security by carrying out repairs, adaptations and improvements. They provide a handy person service for small jobs, and apply for grants to pay for the larger pieces of work. They have a website and they have Dreamweaver with which to update it. They've noticed that their website has become very slow, and they're not sure whether that's due to the way they've updated it, or whether the pictures are too big. So they would like a bit of training to show them how to use Dreamweaver, and why/how to reduce picture sizes, so that they become confident about updating their website. They would also like some help about search engine optimisation, so that they get higher up search engine results. Some of this work could be done remotely.

Opportunity Name: Advice on Adaptive Technology [This is a short task]
Skill Type: Consultancy
Region: West Midlands
Locality: Kidderminster
Postcode: DY10
Virtual: No

Description: This charity based in Kidderminster provides a range of services to people with a disability, their carers and families and supporting professionals in the areas of North Worcestershire and Bromsgrove. Services include information, help with filling forms, home visits and outreach activities. They have 5 PCs running Vista with Office 2007. They would like to be able to offer adaptive technology facilities to their disabled users, and arrange for volunteers to train their users to use adapted facilities. They have some touch screen monitors, and they've been told that Vista offers voice recognition. They have a underspend on a funded project and they are expecting to be able to use the remainder of the funding to acquire adaptive technology devices. They're looking for you to discuss with them the range of devices available and advise them on what they could usefully buy within their budget, so that they could use them to help their users.

Opportunity Name: Develop E-Clinics, Text Support, some redesign
Skill Type: Website
Region: North West
Locality: Manchester
Postcode: M15
Virtual: Yes

Description: This national charity provides advice and support to people affected by anxiety disorders. They run drop-in sessions at their Manchester base and provide telephone and e-mail support to clients throughout the country. They can provide information leaflets, audio tapes and self-help guides and have additional services available to members. Their website was developed for them very successfully by previous iT4Communities volunteers. They are now looking for another volunteer to add some new features to the site. They would like to implement online therapeutic services, by adding e-clinics, and support for people wishing to text in. They're planning an expanded children's section, and would like it re-designed to attract children and young people, and link to a video. The site was developed using HTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL.

Opportunity Name: Audit and IT Strategy with Remote Working
Skill Type: Audit/strategy
Region: Yorkshire & Humberside
Locality: Bradford
Postcode: BD3
Virtual: No

Description: This Bradford charity provides accommodation for the homeless and has a drop-in centre. They have 2 offices about a quarter of a mile apart, in one office there are 2 old PCs hardwired so that they can share files, with wireless broadband. The other office has 3 standalone PCs sharing internet access. They run MS Office and Quickbooks. Their treasurer who lives 20 miles away would like to be able to access Quickbooks from his home. They would like someone to come and audit their IT setup and make recommendations on how the two offices can share files, and all three locations access Quickbooks. They also need recommendations on purchasing the equipment to achieve this and replacing old PCs. Finally, they would like advice on housekeeping, backup, anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, and how to secure the wireless broadband connection. One of the offices is not wheelchair-accessible.