New staff, new resources & new plans ​

I can’t believe it’s March already – bright(er) mornings, nights drawing out. There is a promise of fresh potential and new beginnings - all reflected in SCVO's digital participation team. And with the promise of spring in the air comes an injection of new blood to the digital participation team. ‘Welcome’ to Lynne Swan and Gareth Wells. Lynne joined us at the beginning of February and is focussing on our Evaluation Framework and support for Charter Signatory projects (more soon from Lynne). Gareth has been loaned to us for a few weeks to help develop our evidence base for project work – including the partnerships that we are developing to as part of the Big Lottery Basic Online Skills bidding opportunity. Gareth will be blogging in the next few days. The Basic Online Skills fund has been something we’ve been working away on and we’re now waiting for the results of our inclusion in four Expressions of Interest. We hope that at least one or two of these partnerships will lead to Stage 2 full bids – this could mean about £1.5m coming into Scotland for participation initiatives over the next couple of years. This will mean a really exciting kick-start to our programme. So, over the next few weeks we are getting ready to launch the new Digital Participation Charter and access to support; working with colleagues in SQA on the new Digital Passport and launching a regular e-bulletin. Watch this space, better than that – tell us your plans! And just in case you missed all the excitement of the Gathering, here's a quick round up of our sessions:

• The practical ‘ten internet tips for charities’ complete with the obligatory kitten picture.
• A passionate debate Digital by Default: Digital by Desire where our audience and panellists tackled the subject head on – including questions about the priority of people getting on-line whilst queuing at food banks