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 Project News:
U Can Do I.T. Newsletters:
 May 2001 Newsletter
Tutorials and Assessments:
May was a successful month for WAACIS. We carried out 84 tutorials and 8 assessments. This is against a monthly target total of 80. So far this year we are ahead of our target. We carried out 174 tutorials and assessments against a target of 160.
However we realise that keeping the numbers up is going to be difficult. Our constant battle is to obtain access to disabled people who need the WAACIS service. Any help any WAACIS member can give us by introducing a new student will be greatly appreciated.
The students who have completed are : Edna J, Myles C, Doreen N, Vicki R, Foday T, Hope C, Naomi A, Johanna C.
We congratulate all our graduates!
Meetings:
The Chairman and Martin Ball had an interesting meeting with John Maple of Cheshire Home at their offices in Millbank.
Cheshire Homes run a tuition course for disabled people under the title Workability. The idea of the programme is to provide second hand computers to disabled people who wish to get a job and to give them training on the Net by means of indirect tuition.
In the discussion with John Maple WAACIS offered to assist students taking the Workability course. We are hopeful that useful co-operation can be developed.
Trustees Meeting:
The Chairman welcomed Suki Hemming and Herschel Post to the Board of Trustees. Both new members have had extremely distinguished careers, both commercially and in the field of charity work. WAACIS is extremely lucky to have recruited 2 board members who have so much to offer WAACIS as we move forward.
Cable & Wireless:
May the 15th we had an important visit from Mary Godwin and Swati Patel of the Cable and Wireless group. Cable and Wireless are interested in a WAACIS project and anxious to help us both financially and with commercial advice on development of the project. We very much welcome the opportunity of working hand in hand with Cable and Wireless whose enormous experience in the electronics field could be of immense value. Suggestions have been made that also possibly Cable and Wireless employees could train as WAACIS tutors and other mutually advantageous projects were considered.
Keith Clancy:
On May 21st, Keith Clancy who is visually impaired and who is waiting to become a WAACIS student came to the office for an interesting meeting. Keith is keen to develop teaching services for visually impaired people and would himself like to become a WAACIS tutor in due course. He would like to pursue a number of personal initiatives in spreading the availability of the WAACIS service and as such has been taken under the WAACIS umbrella as a voluntary worker so that he can have full opportunity to develop his ideas, which he wishes to energetically pursue. We would like to welcome Keith as an associate to the WAACIS project and hope very much that some of his very imaginative ideas may be pursued in due time.
Stephen Engel:
Stephen Engel is another WAACIS tutor who would like to become more involved with the project. Stephen has been given the brief of approaching Richmond Council and accessing various contacts that he has there in order to develop knowledge about WAACIS in the area and in particular to achieve access to disabled people who may wish to take advantage of the services WAACIS has to offer. We are in fact encouraging all tutors to participate in their own Boroughs to help publicise the WAACIS service. At the moment this is our biggest outstanding problem. We have a team of excellent tutors ready and willing to work but finding a student which one would think would be the easiest part of the job is in fact the most difficult.
We are making progress. It is nothing like as fast as we would wish. However we confidently expect that as the service grows we will be able to achieve the level of demand which the service needs.
Roger Jefcoate:
Roger Jefcoate CBE, the well known charitable worker and fundraiser came to visit WAACIS and sat in on a WAACIS weekday-working meeting. Roger has many, many contacts in the charitable field, not only from the fundraising point of view but also from every aspect of charitable development. Roger is certainly very interested in WAACIS, which is of course a new project pioneering new ideas. We are hoping to work closely with him in the months ahead.
Notes from the Office :
We have recruited 2 new tutors in this month, Amjad Rehman and Syed Hassan. We are very pleased to have taken them on and I am pleased to say that both new tutors have already been assigned students.
Public Relations work:
Annual Report:
Much time has been devoted to producing the WAACIS Annual Report, especially taking photographs of students. Martin Ball went along to a tutorial given by tutor Patricia Webb to student Johanna Cheetham. This was the 1000th tutorial given by WAACIS and will form the basis of a press release.
Somerfield:
 Following a donation of £4,000 from Somerfield there was a presentation outside the Chelsea store involving the manager Tony Howe and WAACIS ambassador David Hart. The editor of Somerfield's staff magazine has expressed an interest in featuring it in the next edition.
Picture: Tony Howe, manager of the Somerfield store in Chelsea and David Hart of WAACIS.
Scope Day Centre:
Encouraging visits were made to the Scope Day Centre and Hammersmith " Fulham Action on Disability, for the launch of their video demonstrating computing tips. New web links were forged with disabledinfo.com, Ricability, and the Royal London Society for the Blind.
New Poster:
A new poster advertising the WAACIS service has been produced and circulated to tutors for them to distribute in their local area. A new promotional leaflet is being produced by a designer at Flightway's Centre and thus will form the basis of a mailing to Disability Employment Advisors.
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