GAVCA recommends net:gain

Gloucester CVS (GAVCA) is involved in leading ChangeUp in Gloucestershire, and could see that net:gain - run by FutureLearning CIC in Bristol - offered a good fit with what they are trying to achieve.

ICT and organisational management are the top two skill gaps in this sector in the South West according to the 2006 Workforce Development strategy. GAVCA Chief Officer, Sally Pickering explains: “We wanted infrastructure organisations to look at strategic planning and we were struggling to convince them. We believe that it’s important for organisations to plan their ICT properly. net:gain offered the potential to convince our clients and partners that strategic ICT planning is a good idea.We joined the programme so that we could learn how it worked.”

With ten years’ track record supporting the sector,GAVCA now covers Gloucester, Cheltenham and the wider county. It already offers a wide range of ICT support for local voluntary organisations, including help with ICT policies and procedures, data security, backups, disaster recovery, ICT health checks and purchasing advice.

Sally found that understanding the net:gain planning process was most useful: “We can now recommend net:gain as a planning tool and it provides us with an additional resource for our clients.”

net:gain offers delegate organisations the opportunity to work together over three workshop meetings, and Sally sees a lot of potential in the “Technical Fair”, which forms part of the second workshop: the net:gain centre offers demonstrations of equipment, and may bring in guest speakers from the private or voluntary sector:“It is good to be exposed to different ICT products by an organisation that isn’t selling them, and have the chance to discuss them with your peers and with objective advisors.”

Futurelearning CIC and GAVCA are now looking at ways to work together, to raise awareness of the benefits of net:gain across the county.

Sally’s top tip:
“Make sure that the right person attends the first net:gain workshop – it’s for strategic decision-makers, not techies - and that you get buy-in from your colleagues when you get back to base to implement what you have learnt”