Day 2: Northern College Volunteer Event

Day 2 from Barnsley- Volunteer Event at Northern College

Volunteers Cath and Adam at the event

Today I accompanied some of my volunteers up to Northern College (www.northern.ac.uk ) for an event to look at the changing role of volunteers in the community and what support or training they would like to fulfil that role. It was a great session led by Kerry and Phil from the college with a very nice lunch (we even had mince pies!) and lots of potential for further training next year. Volunteers were particularly interested in training qualifications around IAG, PTTLS and ILM. Abbreviations are prolific in the learning sector as we discovered today!

This afternoon I provided some support to a Children's Centre in Wombwell who are applying for a BT Community Connections Award.  Utilising free broadband for a year will enable the centre to provide additional services and provide a further internet access point for people in the locality. If they are successful we are hoping to work together to encourage grandparents to get more involved, and perhaps do some work to support unemployed people with online job search and CV writing. 

I finished the day with a trip to a local Communal Centre managed by Berneslai Homes who are one of my close partners. This was the final session of a short introduction to the internet course that we have provided for local residents, and I was keen to promote a short 'Computing for the Terrified' course that the Adult Learning service will be running to follow on in the New Year. Then home in the dark after battling through the sleety rain and temporary traffic lights!



Alison outside St James Hall at Northern College