Online support

A reminder that you can find a range of information from the e-Day workshops on the HIE website: http://www.hie.co.uk/e-communities-project.html. The latest updates include pages of links related to Alaistar's 3 workshops -

• generating an income from the web
• customise your website with free tools and resources
• online security.

This is the last entry I'll be making as e-Communities programme development officer, as the project has now come to an end. If you would like to see more e-Communities workshops or general ICT support for community groups, please contact your local CVS or contact HIE's strengthening communities group.

All the best
Claire

Using search engines to solve problems

Search engines can be useful tools for much more than finding a specific organisation or web site.

For example:
Do you ever get frustrated with trying to get office applications to do something out of the ordinary, such as running a mail merge or entering a table of contents? Sometimes I find the application's own 'help' function a bit confusing. A colleague has just given a great tip. Enter what you are trying to do into one of the search engines such as http://www.everyclick.com/ and you will find a host of advice and information from a wide range of sources. Often this will be presented in an easy-to-follow format written by someone else who has been in the same boat as you.

Many thanks to Jeralyn for this tip.

blogs 'n' wikis

I asked Maggie who ran the blogging and wiki workshops at e-Day to provide us with some links to some of the blogs you managed to set up. Here's what she sent me:

Some of my favourite blogs that were produced (in about 40mins each) can be found at
http://skyewards.blogspot.com/ includes text, a graphic, links and a voting form..and all relevant to the day too!
http://chmag08.blogspot.com/ has text graphics and comments from other delegates
http://sesam-flensburg.blogspot.com/ is from the international students and has a great profile including photos they had with them
http://chocholito.blogspot.com/ good fun and interesting exchange in comments
http://eday1skye-frogspawn.blogspot.com/ really relevant community blog starter

She has also given me links to a couple of wikis:

http://eday4.wiki.zoho.com/ about psychotic poodles(really) which is open for public comment.
http://eday7.wiki.zoho.com/Sabhal-Mor-Visit.html which includes links and uploaded files.

Hope you find these useful. We have also uploaded a number of resources from the workshops onto the HIE website - http://www.hie.co.uk/e-communities-project.html. Here you can also access the e-Communities study report plus John Watt's keynote presentation: e-Communties doing IT for themselves.

Spanglefish

Here's the link to the spanglefish site that was set up for Dave's workshop - the site is still live so feel free to play around with it: www.spanglefish.com/e-communitiesday

I believe some of you have even gone straight home to set up your own sites, please tell us how you get on and give us the links so we can come and visit!

e-distribution for news circulation

For those of you who participated in this workshop, and who would like to continue your learning journey or perhaps try it out with some of your group, go to http://www.learningcentres.org/e-day.html to play about with the google group. Here, you can also access the information for the "distance is no barrier for a group" workshop.

search for charity

A great tip that we picked up at e-Day! Instead of going to Google to search for websites, try making http://www.everyclick.com/ your homepage. Every time you click search a UK charity will benefit. You can register so that your chosen good cause benefits from this service. They claim to have raised over £400,000 so far.

Thanks to David for this tip!

eDay

Welcome to Maggie's blogger students this morning - hope you will all go home after today and set up your blog for your community group!

Our first ever e-Day has come and gone, thanks to everyone who attended and made the day such a success. We had some really positive feedback so far, with loads of ideas of how we might do things differently next time. Most importantly, everyone went away with some new information and we are expecting to see lots of new wikis, blogs and other community ICT projects appearing soon.

Good news for bloggers - recent research has shown that a mall amount of blogging every week can help you feel less isolated and more connected - visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/ to watch this week's programme.

We are always interested to hear your comments and questions about the e-Communities project and particularly if you came along to e-Day - post your comments and happy blogging!

ask the experts

At e-Day we will have a panel session where you put your questions about community ICT issues to experts on technical issues, innovative ideas and project planning. If you are unable to attend, post your comment here and it will be passed on to the panel. More comments and questions will be gathered at the event on our graffiti boards. We'll post the answers from the panel sessions on the blog.

Do you have an idea for an innovative ICT project for your communtiy group?

Do you think community web sites should be more centrally co-ordinated and supported?

Do you have problems finding funding for your ICT project?

Post your comment today!

The value of volunteers

I had my first experience of appearing on local radio this week, to promote the event: http://www.cuillinfm.co.uk/ Cuillin FM have busy of late - you can now receive the station in almost all parts of Skye, Raasay and some of the mainland. It's a great service, run by volunteers, playing music to suit a wide range of tastes and regular interviews with local celebrities! It's a great opportunity to promote local events (they run a what's on section on most live shows) and they also offer a very affordable advertising service for local businesses. Naturally they are always on the look-out for more volunteers so if you fancy realising a life-long dream to be a DJ, get in touch with them! email admin@cuillinfm.co.uk

UKVillages.co.uk is a FREE community portal site offering the opportunity to publish information about your community. They have cleverly set the site up with basic information about what looks like every single UK village, with arial photographs and maps. Looks like they finance themselves through advertising. http://www.ukvillages.co.uk/

You can find out more about how to raise an income for your group through the web if you attend the e-Day event. One of the workshops will concentrate on income generation, and another is about finding funding for ICT projects. Visit http://www.solas-events.co.uk/ and click on the link for E-day: Exploring the potential of digital technology for community groups.

Keep your comments coming - we want to collect as many questions as we can for the ask the experts panel session!

e-Day is coming!

We are now open for registration for the e-Communities event at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on 7th and 8th March.

One of the highlights of the day will be an opportunity to play a new interactive game that has been developed by Distance Lab - http://www.distancelab.org/projects/remoteimpact/ . The Distance Lab team will also be on hand to stimulate discussion and debate about the issues of remote living.

Some of the workshops will be delivered from the Mobile Online Learning Initiative: MOLI, a ten-workstation bus which travels the country to promote e-learning via its satellite broadband connection! For more information visit http://www.glenco.org/moli.php

Keep leaving your comments about what types of project your community group is involved in, what inspires, your future plans and your gripes and grumbles!

Frustration

Just wanted to give you a bit of a chuckle today!

Workshops

The study of community groups in Skye & Raasay is almost complete and we are beginning to identify a number of key issues arising from it.

Here is the list of workshops we are planning for the e-Communities event in Skye on 7th and 8th March, based on the findings of the survey:

Affordable websites for community groups
Customising your website with free online tools
Generating income via the web
Create a Wiki
Funding for ICT projects
ICT security
Digitising and Archiving
Introduction to video conferencing
Distance Lab
Creating e-newsletters
Social networking
Blogging

You will be able to select three, but please note that some workshops may not run due to lack of demand.

To register your interest in the event please email rachel@solas-biz.co.uk
or telephone 01599 534999. Web address coming soon!

e-Newsletters

If your group produces a newsletter, the chances are that it is sent out by email as well as in hard copy. This can save on costs such as printing and postage, and can be a much more effective means of communication. The downside to this of course is that perhaps some members prefer to recieve their newsletter in hard copy.

An e-Newsletter can take all shapes and sizes. It may be a simple word document, perhaps with pictures and photos inserted. Maybe it is a bit more sophisticated, with hyperlinks inserted to take the reader to particular sections of the document. Or it could be a professionally produced pdf file or web page, such as an e-bulletin, whose link can be emailed to subscribers. Perhaps your newsletter is made available to download via your group's website.

At the e-Communities event in Skye in March we are planning to run a workshop on creating an e-newsletter. What would you like to get out of such a workshop? Do you have any good examples of e-newsletters? How does your group communicate with its members?

Celebrating Cultural Heritage

Ever wondered what to do with that big box of old photographs you inherited from your grandparents that lies in the back of a cupboard and only comes out when you are trying to make space for more junk?

Photographs are a wonderful medium to use to celebrate and share our heritage, and can often lead to re-introducing old friends or even making new friendships. Have a look at this site for an example of a great community-led online archive www.thecromartyarchive.org.

Am Baile http://www.ambaile.org.uk/ is an example of a bi-lingual site which promotes the heritage of the Highlands and Islands, by making images, stories and other material easy to access via the web.

Urras Shomhairle (The Somhairle MacLean Trust) recently launched an online memorial to the life and work of the Gaelic bard - http://www.somhairlemacgilleain.org/

On a grander scale, the Tobair an Dualchais project is busy gathering a huge range of resources to archive Gaelic cultural heritage - see http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/dualchas/ for more information.

Here are some tips for planning an online cultural project:

:) Encourage the community to get involved from the earliest stage: have meetings, invite experts along to give advice, have a community photo amnesty
:) Your local school would probably be very keen to be involved and could possibly offer skills and access to equipment
:) Make your site as interactive as possible: make it easy for people to post their own material such as photographs, poems and place name information; include a blog to allow visitors to post their comments and ideas.
:) Try to make your project relevant to the widest possible range of people in the community - include a range of topics (eg fishing, crofting, sport, education, food)
:) Make sure you have the resources to maintain the site and keep it regularly updated - there is nothing worse than reading the "latest news" from two years ago!

Any more tips or examples of good heritage projects? Please post your comments!

Learning from good practice

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

Problems associated with rural life are rarely totally unique and there's often no need to re-invent the wheel when it comes to solving them. There's every chance that a group in the next village / Caithness / the Borders / Cornwall /Finland / New Zealand has tackled a similar obstacle. And we have the most amazing research tool at our fingertips - the internet!

Before you write your project plan, find out as much as you can about issues in other areas, and the innovative approaches groups have taken to solve them. Often you can contact groups by email or via their website to save a long and expensive trip.

Many organisations hold databases and case studies to showcase excellent project examples, such as:

SLCVO http://www.slcvo.org.uk/local-projects/index.html

commission for rural communities http://www.ruralcommunities.gov.uk//projects/bestpractice
rural gateway http://www.ruralgateway.org.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=1096

New Zealand community net aotearoa http://www.community.net.nz/casestudies/

Some of the main grant giving bodies hold information on projects they have funded, e.g.

UK LEADER+ http://www.ukleader.org.uk/ and click on services / publications

Big Lottery http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/funding-uk

Awards for All grants search http://www.awardsforallgrants.org.uk:8080/a4a-search

And here are some examples from other areas:

Cornwall community foundation http://www.cornwallfoundation.com/making_a_difference/case_studies.htm

New Zealand community net http://www.community.net.nz/casestudies

Happy Researching!

Please post your comments on websites you use to find out information, or actual projects you think are outstanding examples of community action.