ICT RSS Feeds

I am only just able to raise my head above the sea of emails on this subject long enough to write about it all. There has been alot of discussion online and in meetings nationally about this programme since the CLG launched an invitation for Expressions of Interest to deliver the programme over the next two years. 

Digital Mentors, an idea launched in the Empowerment White Paper earlier this year, and intended to give a voice to members of deprived and disadvantaged communities through the use of ICT and social media. The Department for Communities and Local Government have now launched a tender for an organisation to act as project co-ordinator to run some Digital Mentor demonstrators and there’s been a huge amount of discussion about how this should develop on http://digitalmentor.org/ 

UK Online and Citizens Online are working together to develop a bid, and there will no doubt be many others looking at this opportunity to play a key role in the digital inclusion agenda in the coming years.

I have been discussing with the other Regional ICT Champions and our co-ordinator at NAVCA how we might work together on this programme and support the development of a national network of community-based digital mentors through the existing networks across the third sector. Tomorrow (Wednesday 19th) there is a meeting in London for those who are interested in submitting an EOI and our group will be represented at this meeting. 

Please let me know if anyone out there in South West is interested in this programme and potentially playing a role in support and/or delivery.

      

Capacitybuilders has launched a £5 million Capital Grants Programme to develop third sector local resource centres. The programme will run until March 2011 and is the last main funding programme to be announcement by Capacitybuilders under the Office of the Third Sector’s 2008-11 investment in ChangeUp.

By 2011 Capacitybuilders wants to increase the access that third sector organisations have to high quality, relevant and affordable shared facilities and services offered by local resource centres across England.

What is a resource centre?

We are defining third sector local resource centres as “a building or area within a building, which is used as a base for providing development and support services to frontline third sector organisations within a local area.”

Specifically, such centres will:

- offer accommodation or shared services and facilities to frontline organisations

- offer services accessible to all frontline third sector organisations

- Shared premises and facilities

We will support the creation and development of shared premises and facilities for third sector organisations in England.

 

Increased collaboration

We will support initiatives that encourage collaboration and shared ‘back room’ functions, and aim to help third sector organisations which own or run resource centres make the best use of these assets in supporting frontline organisations.

 

How will this happen?

In many cases, this will mean supporting the development of buildings with multiple third sector tenants. In others, it will mean supporting buildings which offer multiple support services for the development of third sector organisations with a focus on the shared use of facilities.

 

Sustainable support for frontline organisations

Our capital investment should result in more efficient, effective and sustainable support services for frontline organisations.

 

Outcomes

We want new and existing local third sector resource centres to increase third sector access to shared facilities and services.

 

Scaled investment

We are awarding a phased, scaled investment in three tranches:

  

Phase one

The first phase of the programme provides an excellent opportunity for established centres to secure an injection of funds, enabling them to make better use of existing resources.

 

Application deadline

This phase is open for application until the 31 January 2009, with up to £1m on offer for investment up to March 2009.

 

Grant awards

Grants of up to £30,000 will be awarded to functioning resource centres across England to support smaller-scale improvements, such as improvements to the availability, accessibility or quality of accommodation - or shared facilities such as additional meeting rooms, office or storage space, better ICT, or access to resources such as a common library.

 

Assessment

Applications will be assessed and forwarded for decision by Capacitybuilders’ Funding Committee on a monthly basis; so early applications are more likely to succeed. An application form and a programme prospectus are available to download at the bottom of the page.

 

 

Phase two

Expressions of interest

Expressions of interest for the second phase of the programme, with around £2.5m of funds available to support significant refurbishment and development of premises, are welcome from existing or developing resource centres up to the 31 January 2009. An ‘expression of interest’ application form is available to download from the website.

 

Business planning

After this initial deadline, up to 50 applicants will then be invited to submit more detailed business plans for further assessment by Capacitybuilders’ Funding Committee in July 2009.

 

Grant awards

Grants are expected to be between £50,000-£200,000 and final awards are likely to be made in August 2009.

 

 

Phase three 

The final phase of the programme will invest in around five ‘flagship’ projects that will develop or significantly expand local third sector resource centres.

 

Funding available 

Around £1.5m is available under this phase with capital grants between £200,000 and £500,000 including the opportunity to apply for some revenue funds to support project development and delivery.

 

Expressions of interest 

The deadline for expressions of interest under this phase is 31 March 2009.

 

For further information and access to relevant documents and forms visit: http://capacitybuilders.org.uk/content/WhoWeFund/Funding200811/Capitalprogramme1.aspx 

      

Social networking sites could be an abundant recruiting ground for volunteers – and the modernising volunteering workstream wants to hear your experiences.

National Support Service Workstream partner Red Foundation wants to hear from any organisation that has used a social network to recruit and support volunteers – or that has experience of developing volunteer champion or ambassador type roles. And if you are an active user of Facebook for personal use, they want your views on how it may help you to work with volunteers.

Read the briefing papers and complete the survey for your chance to win £50 of vouchers and to improve your knowledge of the issues around social networking and volunteering.

For further information you can read the full news story on the improving support website.

      

Digital Inclusion Minister Paul Murphy has announced that the Government are looking for a high profile figure to help promote the Digitaal Inclusion agenda.

The role was set out in the cross-Government report Delivering Digital Inclusion: An Action Plan for Consultation.

Guardian Technology Journalist Michael Cross has been speculating (not entirely seriously) as to which public figure might be best able to fill the post. Russell Brand, Stephen Fry and Alan Sugar were all part of his shortlist. If you have any thoughts on the matter you are invited to submit suggestions to tech@guardian.co.uk.

Show us a Better Way is part of the Government’s Power of Information Review.

Over the last few months, Show Us a better Way has encouraged citizens to suggest creative ideas about how public information might be shared and used more effectively.

The winners have just been announced…

Can I recycle it?

UK Cycling

Catchment Areas

Location of Postboxes (in rural and residential areas)

Loofinder

Funding and support will now be made available to develop these ideas into fully interactive websites.

Bristol has been chosen as the only city in the UK to be short-listed for the European Green Capital Award. The city has been pre-selected alongside seven other European top environmental cities out of 35 initial applications.

The seven other cities are: Amsterdam (Netherlands); Copenhagen (Denmark); Freiburg (Germany); Hamburg (Germany); Munster (Germany); Oslo (Norway); Stockholm (Sweden).

The European Green Capital Award aims to help cities become more attractive and healthy places, “fit for life” - and is similar to the European Capital of Culture competition. Every year from 2010 a European city will be appointed as European Green Capital by a panel of international recognised environmental experts and a jury. The award will be given to a city that has demonstrated a well-established record achieving high environmental standards and is committed to further environmental improvement and sustainable development. The winning city will act as a role model for all other European cities.

For the second evaluation round, the eight short-listed cities will be assessed by the panel who will then present its recommendations to the jury, which will then take the final decision.  The announcement of the first two European Green Capitals for 2010 and 2011 will be made at a ceremony planned for early 2009.

Socitim Consulting are organising a workshop aimed at anyone addressing social exclusion or implementing digital inclusion, developing social policy or Local Area Agreements and Partnerships. The event is free to public, independent and voluntary sector delegates and begins with a buffet lunch. The Bristol event is part of a program of workshops taking place between 17 and 20 November in Sunderland, Birmingham and London. More information about these events can be found on the Socitim website.
The workshop will be held at the Bristol eOffice, 1st Floor Prudential Buildings, 11-19 Wine St, Bristol BS1 2PH, http://www.eoffice.net/offices/serviced_office/bristol/location_map.html

To book a place use the online booking form on the Socitim website or call Jenny Brogden or Helen McMullen on 0845 450 0904.

Sunderland will be hosting its first ‘Community Barcamp’ on Monday 24th November at the Stadium of Light.

BarCamps are democratic, user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants.

The event, which is free to attend and runs from 6 til 8pm, will bring together people that use services in the community with the people that build and provide them to talk about how technology can improve everyone’s life.

• Relaxed, social setting
• ‘Speed dating meets networking’
• You set the agenda, and talk with others sharing your interest
• Not just for community activists or the IT crowd
• Meet delegates from the IT in the Community conference
• No charge for attending

To find out more and register for the event visit the Community Barcamp website.

NCVO’s Information Conference takes place later this month and is going to look at the latest developments in social media and web 2.0 functionality.

What are the best ways your organisation can connect, both internally and externally?  How can your organisation ensure you are making best use of new media to better serve your beneficiaries?

Find out more and book online at www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/infoconf08.

      

The latest edition of Computanews is available to download from the Lasa website and focuses on how organisations can make use of and benefit from mobile technologies. 

Download your copy atwww.lasa.org.uk/computanews/index.shtml.

      

As part of the Communities and Local Government “Communities in Control” white paper, a tender has been issued for a piece of work around digital mentors, individuals who will help communities to embrace the use of new technologies.  More information about the work can be found at

www.communities.gov.uk/communities/communityempowerment/whatweare/digitalmentors/tenderinivation/.

      

The latest newsletter is now available from NCVO - with lots of resources and news about ICT in the third sector. 

If you would like to subscribe to the newsletter then email ictresources@ncvo-vol.org.uk

      

Well, after a bizarre day of floods, snowdrifts and storms right over Ottery St Mary now is a good time for staff at COSMIC to be reviewing our emergency procedures and flexible working. Our offices were unaffected by the flooding, but we escaped the water literally by feet - the pub next door was flooded and has a massive clean-up job on its hands. 

I had already made a commitment to others to write a feature on disaster recovery, back-up procedures and how flexible working arrangements can help with business continuity … well today I have more to offer in developing that feature and its certainly risen up the ‘to do’ list!

For more news on the weather and conditions in East Devon yesterday take a look here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/7701372.stm

      

The Government has just released an action plan for consultation about how to bridge the digital divide.

You can access the document online at - http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/communities/deliveringdigitalinclusion

The consultation period runs from now until 19th January 2009 and so its important to make sure you get your responses back to CLG in time for them to consider them fully. 

The main issues covered in the paper are: 

• 17 million people in the UK are not using the Internet 
• there are strong links between social and digital exclusion – 75 per cent of socially excluded people are also digitally excluded 
• there are opportunities to provide more effective and better targeted services to excluded groups and communities using technology 
• considerable work is being done by government, public, private and third sectors to promote digital inclusion, but there are still gaps and opportunities 

One of the opportunities is for government leadership which provides a clear set of principles and a framework for action to ensure that all sectors are clear about their roles and how they can contribute to strategic goals. 

But what should any such principles and framework for action focus on and how should they be carried forward? 

There are proposals to 

•  introduce a Charter for Digital Inclusion creating a framework that will facilitate conversation and understanding between the various players and encourage positive cross-sector engagement on this agenda; 
• appoint a Digital Inclusion Champion who will develop, embed and promote the Charter, support the digital inclusion needs of the most disadvantaged citizens and communities, maintain a strategic oversight of the issues from the point of view of the excluded citizen and work with all sectors to identify the evidence of emerging issues and options for actions to address those issues; 
• establish an expert taskforce with representation from all sectors to support the role of the Champion; and, maintain a cross-government coordination team, to complement the work of the Champion and support the valuable and ongoing role of the Cabinet Committee 

      

There’s some great work coming out of Knowle West Media Centre in Bristol who are working on their Carbon Makeover programme. Here are a couple of the projects already underway and creating lots of interest - 

www.green-footprints.org.uk 

Working with local resident Mil Lusk, KWMC have co-conceived and created 
this website which allows local residents to order vegetable seed 
plugs (germinated seeds) online, view latest stock, learn more about 
seasonality and get active themselves by joining a ‘my back garden’ 
scheme. 

They have also created an administrative GUI (graphical user interface) 
where Mil can grow vegetable seeds on demand, dynamically monitor and 
maintain her business online; including order summaries, payment 
tracking, seasonality info and compost quantities. 

—————–

www.green-medicine.org.uk

Working with another local resident Akilah Nuru, they have created a 
website where local residents and the wider community can understand 
the medicinal qualities of plants in direct correlation to common 
ailments, share advice and narrative with each other via an 
interactive (web 2.0) forum and buy plants from Green Medicine 
(allowing Akilah to build up a small business from sale of products). 

Both of these projects have scalable elements – which can be used in 
other neighbourhoods and regions should anyone be interested? 

—————

Green Homes 

KWMC are creating a website called Green Homes where local 
residents can sign up for a free* Energy Performance Certificate 
(subject to funding), understand the connection between being more 
energy efficient and saving money lowering environmental impacts. gather information on 
potential savings, grants and other home improvements. They hope to report 
something on this project soon.

For further information from KWMC and for contact details please visit -www.kwmc.org.uk

      

A new website that has just been launched for the Bristol area.

ecojam.org, a new one-stop website for Bristol’s growing green and ethical scene, is taking a fresh approach to local environmentalism. Launched by researchers at the University of Bristol, it’s a place for you to discover local businesses and initiatives, search for ethical jobs, trade free stuff, and tune into local news, events and discussions.

The site has four main sections:

• Green Directory - search for anything local, green and ethical in the Bristol area. List your business, organisation, group or campaign on the directory.
• Green Jobs - find an ethical job, or list job and volunteer opportunities for free.
• Free Stuff - de-clutter your home or search for items by category. Receive emails only when the items you are looking for are listed, and view a photo of the item and its location on a map.
• Interact - tune into your local green and ethical scene. Post your events, discuss issues, contribute news stories, or even write a blog.

ecojam.org is supported by the University of Bristol and Bristol City Council. It aims to bring together all the green and ethical people and organisations, and helps you find them.

Yesterday I went along to the meeting of the Funders Forum hosted by the Funding South West group meeting and presented to those present a paper outlining how funders can improve their investment in ICT for organisations including ideas about how they could adopt good practice in supporting organisations prior to bids being submitted. 

As a result of the meeting I am now working on a factsheet which can be circulated around by funders (and infrastructure organisations) about the good practices for developing ICT budgets and what to include in your bids. I will post a copy here once its ready too. 

Also at this meeting was a demonstration of the new resources being promoted by CIB South West (Charities Information Bureau) - its funding database and an associated bulletin (George) which organisations in the South West can subscribe to for regular and updated information about sources of funding. I will be regularly providing them with information about ICT funding.

      

Your Regional Champion is working with a number of lead organisations in the area to develop and run a number of workshops which aim to provide extra training and support for development workers and their understanding of ICT. The workshop will include information and activities about using the internet effectively with groups, fundraising online, web 2.0, training needs, and ICT Health Checks. 

If you are a development worker or you employ someone in this role for your organisation then please get in touch to find out more about these workshops and when they are running. 

Call on 01404 813226

or email julie@cosmic.org.uk

      

Well, here’s the view from the BBC on how things are developing at the moment - interested in views from elsewhere….

www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/10/is_blogging_dead.html

      

A new draft version of the Regional ICT Strategy has now been developed and is currently in circulation with the lead organisations at sub-regional level so that they can review the document and its strategic objectives, ahead of full consideration by the regional partnership later this year and early in 2009. Anyone with a key interest in the strategy and its development please do get in touch!