June 2005 Newsletter
June has been a satisfactory month. All the tutors have been working extremely hard and we carried out 330 individual tutorials.June 6th – Lisa and I interviewed Trina Davison at the Membury Service Station on the M4. This is the beginning of a joint scheme with Shaw Trust underwhich we will take on some tutors recommended from Shaw Trust working in North Wales and they will also find students for us. We have agreed to do all the organisational side and they will pay the tutors. We are hoping that this pilot project will grow and prosper and lead onto greater co-operation between the charities.
June 6th – Interview with Lord Bassam in the House of Lords. Lord Bassam is the government spokesman on disability who took charge of the Charities Bill. As you will recall from my earlier report, an amendment was raised during the second reading on behalf of U Can Do I.T by Lord Phillips of Sudbury. The purpose of the amendment was to allow charities to exchange information about their respective clients without contravening the provision to The Data Protection Act.
Lord Bassam was extremely sympathetic to the U Can Do I.T project but he said the advice he had received was that this particular amendment could not be recommended in it’s current form because it breached the privacy arrangements set out in The Data Protection Act. He suggested that U Can Do I.T should consider the position and see whether an amendment which complied with the principals of the act, could be put forward.
June 7th – Meeting with Carl Gascoigne, Philip Griller, Gabriella Gatward, and Patricia Webb about re-organising the way in which the lessons are delivered and in particular discussing the possibility of developing a distance learning project. A good meeting which covered a lot of ground.
In particular we considered the possibility of online work by the students. It was suggested that each student/tutor should create a logbook in which all their personal surfing of the Internet and the use of email could be recorded during the course. We look forward to progress in this area.
June 9th – Lunch meeting with Julia Taylor Stanley to discuss the possibility of a U Can Do I.T event. The idea would be that we would discover whether the Albert Hall could be a venue for a daylong concert publicised for charity. Julia was very keen on the idea and said sponsorship should be obtainable. This needs to be further progressed.
June 17th – Meeting with Leonard Cheshire to discuss the Kensington & Chelsea Scheme. Chris Garbett, Andy Anderson and Caroline Speirs were present. Progress is good on this scheme. We are well abreast of numbers and everyone is enthusiastic about expanding the project.
An addition to the above Lisa Oram and I carried out a number of tutor interviews and took on 5 additional tutors.
