May Newsletter
Chairman’s NotesVital Statistics for May
April saw a record number of tutorials and assessments, and this month we maintained momentum and increased our figures once again with 209 tutorials and 26 assessments. This is a superb record and shows just how much there is a need for our service.
Congratulations are in order this month for 13 students who successfully completed their courses:
Patricia L, John B, Joyce S, Robert F, Barbara S, Kouko G, John P, Christine I, Roger J, Polly C, Lincoln W, Alethea L, Angus M
On the 29th of May we had an important and enjoyable meeting with Sue Borland and Mike Potter of Westminster City Council Education Department. The meeting was arranged because we do a lot of work in Westminster and indeed currently have 38 Westminster residents on the U Can Do I.T. Course.
Mike and Sue are extremely busy people and we are grateful to them for sparing the time to come and listen to us as we explained the whole structure of the charity and described the way in which the organisation is managed and the results we are achieving.
Cliff Docherty’s Report
Our outreach work continues to generate a steady stream of applicants for tuition with the greatest number coming this month from readers of the Motability Lifestyle magazine which kindly agreed to run a short article about us for their April/May issue. As they have a circulation of some 400,000 it’s perhaps not surprising that they should account for the largest group this month. Appearing in a magazine with such a large circulation is invaluable in raising the profile of the charity.
This month we took delivery of the new U Can Do I.T leaflet which was quickly distributed to our contacts. It has been updated not only to take account of our change of name, but also to reflect changes in the organisation, not least of which is our registration with Learndirect. It has proved a successful exercise and almost 2000 copies had been sent out by the end of the month.
On May 15th I visited Headway in Kentish Town at the invitation of a U Can Do I.T student who is a member of that organisation. Headway support people with brain injuries, and these injuries can manifest themselves in a variety of ways. The group were very interested to learn of our work and a number of the people present have applied for tuition as a result.
Another project during the month was the production of the annual report, which will shortly be going to press. It is somewhat different this year, with a lot of emphasis on individual students and the partnerships we have entered into during the year.
Lastly, we were delighted to learn that our bid to become a recognised UK Online centre has been successful. As we do not have a static learning centre this was a particularly encouraging, as the co-ordinators have agreed to make an exception for us, feeling that we met the ethos of the project in every other respect
