| |
 Circuit
Riders In the UK
ICT development
and support
for the voluntary sector
A Circuit Rider is a mobile worker who provides ICT
support
and development to a caseload of small voluntary organisations and who
works in collaboration with other Riders. This page provides some
background information on circuit riding in the UK and what's being
done to develop it.
Latest News
New Circuit Rider publication
The City Bridge Trust have published a paper in their The
Knowledge - Learning from London series on the 2005-2007 Lasa Circuit
Rider project which was funded by them and the Big Lottery .
See http://tinyurl.com/6fcx2d
Circuit Rider Principles now published
As part of the Training and Quality Standards work, we have
developed a set of principles for Circuit Riders and other voluntary
sector professionals and organisations to "sign up" to - see the Principles
page for more information or see who has signed
up.
ukriders.info open for business
Lasa has developed the ukriders.info as the website for its ongoing
Circuit Rider development work including training, conference notes,
links to Flickr and YouTube, blogs and more. Visit www.ukriders.info
ICT Hub Circuit Rider Conferences
The Conference took place in Birmingham on 28th
and 29th February 2008. Conference notes, materials, blogs, photos etc
are available over at www.ukriders.info/conference
You can see the details of the 2006
Conference which took place in Birmingham 15th/16th January
2007.
Training
and
Quality Standards
See the Training and
Quality Standards page for information on the work Lasa and
the ICT Hub has done to help develop skills and standards for
Circuit Riders.
Round-Up - ICT Hub
Circuit Rider News Digest
This publication, mainly for Circuit Riders but
of
interest to other ICT professionals working in the VCS, is being
produced on a
bi-monthly
basis
and covers project case studies, Circuit Rider profiles, tools and
resources, blogs and more.
Issue 5 (February/March 2008 accessible PDF
file 0.4Mb - opens in
new
window) DOT-COMmunications project report, the Managing
Non-Profit Technology Projects conference in New
York, Back-Ups, using WiebeTech's Drive eRazer, Code of the
Road, stories from the field and the Riders Soundtrack album and the
usual web, print and blog resources.
Issue 4 (December 2007/January 2008
accessible PDF file 1.5Mb - opens in new
window) - FOSS training and certification,
Spiceworks inventorying software, event registration tools, the NOSI
open source primer and various blogs, websites and more.
Issue 3 (October/November 2007 accessible
PDF file 1.39Mb - opens in
new
window) - remote control software, another
Circuit Rider of the Month profile and a report from the Grace Hopper
Celebration of women in Computing 2007.
Issue 2 (August/September
2007 accessible PDF file 1.68Mb - opens in a new window)
- the NetSquared 2007 conference, social
enterprise in action and students providing ICT support.
Issue 1 (June/July
2007
accessible PDF file 1.23Mb -
opens in a new window) - klir.com, online meeting tools, two Circuit
Rider profiles, the Community Information Strategies Australia
Conference
Building a UK movement -
the story so far...
- In 2002 Lasa created the UKRiders mailing
list
for UK Circuit Riders to support each other and to keep in touch with
developments. There are around 380 subscribers on the list at present
(March 2008).
- A Circuit Rider Steering Group was established with a
wide
range of organisations, including NCVO, NACVS and ACRE, as well as
representatives of local groups. Bimonthly meetings which allowed
Circuit Riders to talk about their work and discuss issues relevant to
the movement were organised in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol,
Darlington, Nottingham and Hereford.
- Lasa worked with N-TEN
to organise an international Circuit Rider
conference on 13-14 September 2004 in London. This was
followed by conferences in 2005 and 2007.
- Lasa ran a two-year project funded by the Esmée
Fairbairn Foundation which produced publications and web
resources, and organised meetings to promote the concept of circuit
riding.
- ChangeUp is a government initiative to support
voluntary
sector infrastructure, including ICT infrastructure. The Steering Group
contributed to the ChangeUp consultation which fed into the circuit
rider development work which forms part of the remit of the national
ICT Hub. At a regional level, Lasa has project
managed a cross-London
project
for a partnership of organisations.
- As part of the ICT Hub Lasa organised
regional circuit
rider meetings during 2006 and 2007 to inform and engage potential
Riders and organisations.
- The London
ICT Champion,
Miles Maier, will be developing a London-wide ICT Strategy,
representing
the Sector on ICT issues at a Regional and Sub-regional level and
facilitating an inclusive Circuit Rider network with a specific aim of
reaching hard to reach groups. He will be working in conjunction with
other Regional
Champions across England.
- During 2007 and 2008, as part of the ICT Hub, Lasa has been developing training and quality standards, issuing a news digest for
Riders and examining mentoring for emerging Riders. We also
organised the 2008 Conference.
- In early 2008 we launched www.ukriders.info as repository and community tool for its ongoing Circuit Rider development work including training,
conference notes, links to Flickr and YouTube, blogs and more.
- Lasa has been successful in its bid for funds from the Big
Lottery BASIS fund for the London Region ICT Infrastructure Project and
will be continuing to develop training and qualification routes
for Circuit Riders as part of this project. The project commences in spring 2008.
Reports, evaluations and
resources
Lasa's Circuit Rider
Projects
Our first project ran from September 2002 to August 2004
and supported 20 groups in London. More
information
is available about this earlier project. In addition, we ran
another Project between 2005 and 2007 working with organisations funded
by The City Bridge Trust and the Big Lottery. More information
and the evaluation is available.
Page updated 30 May 2008
|
|
Email discussion list
Subscribe to our UK
Circuit Rider discussion list to discuss and help
develop the UK Circuit Rider movement. Your e-mail address will not be
used for any other purpose and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Also see our Circuit
Rider Project website.
• main IT page
• circuit riders
• computanews
• consultancy
• healthcheck
• knowledgebase
• multikulti
• training
|
Did you find this page useful? Yes or No