Newsletter

Wiltshire Online October 2015

Welcome to the sixth Online newsletter; here you will find information about our many projects including refurbished laptops, digital literacy, broadband and business support.

Recycled Laptops Digital Literacy

The refurbished laptop Wiltshire Online’s scheme continues to digital literacy successfully provide the project is run by opportunity for volunteers known as individuals to purchase a digital champions. low cost laptop. Over There are now more 400 laptops have now than 115 volunteers been sold to eligible recipients where we have covering most of Wiltshire. Since the project received requests from schools, charities, job started in 2012, more than 1,600 have been centres, Wiltshire Parent Carer’s Council, Carer’s helped to get online and become confident in Support Wiltshire and Age UK in and using the internet. . We have over 30 laptops still to be distributed and these are all allocated to an As individuals are offered support to become individual where we have received a request. We confident on their own device for free, we are are currently working with our customers to finding that more and more learners enjoy the schedule in appointments for them to receive their ‘club’ offerings in their local community. We are laptop and although we previously expected to now holding regular clubs providing one to one conclude all appointments by the end of August support in Bradford on Avon, , 2015 it is now expected to finish in December , Cricklade, Devizes, , Mere, 2015. This will bring the scheme to a close as we , Tisbury and Wilton. However, will have no further stock of laptops available. A learners all over Wiltshire can still elect to have closure report for the scheme will be created help in their own homes or at a location following its completion and will highlight the convenient to both them and their digital numbers of those individuals who have benefited champion rather than attend a club if that is their from the Over 65s, Full time Carers, those with a preference. disability or who receive means tested benefit. Volunteer digital champions are still asking to If you have any questions and/or require further become involved with the service and training information then please email: sessions happen most months. 6th form students [email protected] in both Corsham (17) and Devizes (15) are

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gaining their own skills whilst helping learners in superfast fibre broadband to the area. The their local library clubs too. Wiltshire Online superfast broadband and digital literacy team will be there along with colleagues All learners are asked to register their request for from BT and Openreach. All residents are help for both club and home support via a central welcome to attend the event to find out more telephone number 0300 456 0100 quoting ‘Wiltshire online computer support’. Customer about our programme; free tea and biscuits are Services register the calls and our volunteer also provided! coordinators take that information to match For more information about the project please learners to volunteer digital champions or invite contact the team on: [email protected] the learner to a club.

Funding for the Digital Inclusion project runs out Business Support at the end of March 2016. We are looking at the Our workshops continue to be run monthly, with a sustainability of the service beyond that time. If ‘Maximising the Internet to do Business’ you are interested in finding out more about our workshop which is aimed at start-up businesses digital literacy project, please contact the Digital or hobbyists who would like to learn how the Literacy team at [email protected]. power of the internet can help them to Superfast Broadband promote their business. The Great Western

Broadband (GWB) Alongside these project continues to workshops, we are also running a ‘Social Media make great for Business’ workshop where attendees are able progress with rolling to get hints and tips on making the best use of out fibre broadband Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to promote their across Wiltshire business. with over 69,000 premises now having access to a fibre service and over 380 cabinets upgraded. The workshops are run in partnership with Inspire has recently secured further by Chambers and are totally free to all funding for a Phase 2 rollout. The high level attendees. We have now added three further planning for Phase 2 has been completed which dates in January, February and March 2016. has identified those postcodes that have been included subject to survey and we have added Full details of each event and an online booking this information to the postcode checker on our form can be found on the Eventbrite website: website. www.eventbrite.co.uk

The next stage is detailed planning which is due Alternatively for further information please email to begin in early 2016 with on-the-ground the team on: surveying following on in due course. As soon as [email protected] we have more information to share about our plans and timescales, we will add them to the Further information website. If you would like further information about any of The Wiltshire Online team is planning a the Wiltshire Online projects, please contact the community event in Downton on 5th November to team at: [email protected] celebrate working with the community to bring

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