London Regional ICT Champion

Be the Champ:

• Following on from Pauline Baker’s recent retirement to enjoy grand-mothering, GMCVO is recruiting for a north west regional ICT Champion.

• Community First has also been in the market for a regional ICT Champion – they should be announcing the new West Midlands Regional Champion towards the end of August.

Databases

• Uniservity is bailing out  from the voluntary sector, leaving many CVS clients who spent their ChangeUp money on its databases in the lurch.   The company has told its voluntary sector clients that it will continue to support its Uni-COMMA and “Phoenix” platforms for the duration of existing customer contracts only.  There will also be no major new upgrades or significant new functionality.  Uniservity says it will instead focus on meeting increased demand from the educational sector.

• Drupal is a powerful free and open source content management system with a growing user-base in the UK non-profit sector.  If you are a Drupal developer or user check out illuminate iCT’s upcoming Drupal conference on 20 August.

• CiviCRM – another free and open source content management system aimed at non-profits – has a lively UK community of developers and users.  Read their blog for more on CiviCRM network events around the UK.

• VC Connect - a project of Voluntary Action Sheffield - is a new web-based database”designed specifically for the voluntary sector”.  You can see product demos at NAVCA’s annual conference in Nottingham on 16 and 17 September.

E-democracy:

• Another blow for e-democracy: ICELE, the government sponsored owner and  operator of  the  VOICE community web platform is scheduled for closure by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG).   As well as VOICE, ICELE has a number of useful tools for consultation, blogging, webcasting and online surgeries.  DCLG is currently reviewing its options before making a decision about VOICE.  Connecting Bristol has a great discussion thread on the subject and you can read Parmjit Dhanda, DCLG Minister’s Parliamentary statement at They Work for You and Hansard.

Web 2.0

• NCVO’s Collab08 conference on 22 October will feature a workshop delivered by amado on Web 2.0 technologies and collaboration.

IT Volunteering

• Since 2002 IT4Communities’ fantastic volunteers have delivered over £3 million worth of help to charities, community groups and other voluntary organisations.  Read about it in their latest newsletter .