The beginning…

In the late 1990’s, when European monies arrived in West Wales, Pembrokeshire Association of Voluntary Services (PAVS) began to promote the use of ICT by voluntary and community groups. After the first phase with one man and his computer, the work moved into a more structured team project entitled The Voluntary Sector IT Project (2001-2003) which pioneered the use of web technology as a means of increasing ICT usage by groups and reached over 100 groups and approx 270 individuals.

Taking IT out of ICT

2004 was an important crossroads and it was decided that in this very rural environment we would concentrate on the ‘Communications’ part of ICT and 123-communicate project was born.

We offered groups a tailored programme of informal workshops and one-to-one sessions covering learning about the internet, web based communication (email and hubs) and website creation, and in this phase another 100 groups were helped to create their own web presence. We aimed to make it an interesting and fun thing to do and all the groups we have worked with over the years are very appreciative.

Honed over the years by many different workers all with different skills, the 123-communicate approach of supported development has proved very successful.

We now use Macromedia Contribute (not Dreamweaver), a set of our own templates and encourage content creation with video and audio.

Wider Issues

However, Technical Support remains an issue in particular in rural areas, with all sectors requiring good quality, reliable support and PAVS has always aimed to provide this in some way to local voluntary and community groups.

In 2007 we were fortunate enough to find a suitable funding stream and have started a pilot Circuit Rider project expanding our service to technical support and development across four counties Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and Merthyr Tydfil working in Communities First areas.

The following reports are documents that have been produced along the way and give some insight into how the project has come about.