About

It may be a generalisation, but Voluntary or Community based organisations across North East Lincolnshire (including charities, social enterprises etc) are not well equipped when it comes to IT & technology – either in terms of equipment and software, IT skills, IT support and particularly in terms of using IT well for organisational development and sustainability.

IT for our sector is often underused, introduces unnecessary risks, is a barrier to development or is simply overlooked.

ICT is only useful if…

It helps your organisation do things better or do better things…

People…

No matter how much equipment you have, it’s the people around IT that makes it work, brings in benefits, removes barriers and changes the way you work.

How your staff, volunteers, trustees or management committee members interact with and understand your IT makes a big difference.

So those who look after IT within our sector have a critical role – but are very often under resources and ill equipped.

Supporting the Supporters

Those who look after IT within voluntary and community organisations are very varied.  They may be a full time IT manager or administrator on the payroll.  More often though, they are a staff member or even a volunteer who spends some part of their time looking after IT, either just as a component of their role or even as an ‘accidental techie’ just because they have a little more knowledge than others.

So VANEL runs this IT Supporters Network to help provide support to those whose role involves supporting IT in our sector.

By supporting and empowering the supporters, we hope also to cascade support also to end-users, staff & volunteers and to help with strategic development through management levels and trustee/committee levels.

What does the IT Network do?

Provides an online networking opportunity (this website) to give IT supporters the chance to interact with each other, share knowledge and ideas and problem solve

Provides an email information network to keep members (IT supporters) up to date with local IT news and news from the Network itself

Provides face-to-face networking opportunities via our events - people learn from each other!

Provides signposting to knowledge and information useful for those supporting IT in the sector – mainly through the communication channels above

Technical briefings to help IT supporters learn about real IT issues that affect them.  In 2011 these sessions are currently free, run approx twice a month and are supported by expert IT support from Virtual Riders.

Quarterly half-day workshops keep the networking and knowledge transfer going and are free to members of the network

A well-equipped IT training suite based at Melbourne House available at low cost for training options

Weblab - facilities in our IT suite to help you when developing your websites (scanner, webtools, software, media editing)

IT equipment available to hire – we have a range of laptops and other IT equipment which can be useful for groups to hire at low cost

IT training programme – training for end-users which IT supporters can promote at low cost to staff & volunteers.  Programme for 2011 will include beginners IT, advanced IT, Word, Excel, Powerpoint and will be run as depand dictates

What else are we looking to do?

As the network continues to evolve during 2011 we’re looking to do more.  Ideas and plans include…

coordinating IT volunteering opportunities

developing more resources around IT development that can be shared across the sector

IT recycling opportunities

Social Media workshops

What else do you need?

Useful resources

coming soon