My second visit to the Online Centres Foundation
Earlier this week, I made a second visit to the Online Centres Foundation in Sheffield, the organisation of which I have just become a non-executive Board member. I went there in my capacity as the Chair of the Board’s Remuneration Committee to attend a staff meeting where we discussed the future remuneration package for the organisation.
As I did on my first visit less than two weeks ago, I took the opportunity to visit one of the 3,800 centres which are supported by OCF in order to train those who know nothing about the use of computers on how to get online and use the Internet. I was accompanied by James Richardson of the Heeley Development Trust who took me to a training session at a sheltered housing complex with the delightful name of “Painted Fabrics”
The name of the location comes from the history of the site which was a factory founded by a woman called Annie Bindon Carter to employ disabled ex-servicemen who had been injured in the Great War. You can read more here.
The training session I attended was for 14 learners who were ably supported by three trainers. Three of the learners were from “Painted Fabrics” itself but the others were from round about and had been attracted to the course by promotional material and encouragement of friends. Not everyone wants to do everything on the Net and it was striking how the way to engage newcomers to the Net is to find a personal interest or connection.
So I spoke to a delightful woman called Yvonne who had recently celebrated her 90th birthday. For her, the great attraction was the ability to use e-mail and she was clearly thrilled to have faund this new skill at something of a late stage in her life. Then there was retired nurse Aileen. She wants to learn more about photography and I showed her a page on my own web site called “How To Take A Good Photograph”. Four of the learners were doing a module on genealogy and one of them showed me a family tree constructed by a relative several decades ago which went back to a family member who was killed in the Crimean War.
I found it both inspiring and humbling to meet these senior citizens who had braved and got through the fear barrier to teach themselves new skills which had given them new abilities and new confidence as well as access to a whole new virtual world.