We’ve put the finishing touches to our talking heads video from the awards and it is now out on general release.

It shows Accessibility Finalist Estelita Clayton of Derbyshire Coalition for Inclusive Living, Best Volunteer Finalist Scott McCabe and Kirsten Lavers of Cambridge Link-Up, and  RNIB Cymru Digi-Champions who were Accessibility Finalists all talking about their IT volunteering experiences and what it means to them.

It’s inspiring viewing!

iT4C Announces IT Volunteer Awards 2009 Winners

Alan Pollard, BCS President, introduces the Awards

iT4Communities (iT4C) is pleased to announce the winners of the 2009 IT Volunteering Awards who were revealed yesterday in a ceremony at The British Computer Society in London, thanks to the kind sponsorship of appiChar, A J Gallagher (UK) Ltd., BCS and Denver Technology. The awards recognise and celebrate the best and most innovative examples of IT volunteering and projects.

The winners were as follows;

• Best Volunteer – Winner: Clive McClure of Westminster Advocacy Service for Senior Residents  (WASSR). Finalists: Scott McCabe with Cambridge Link-Up and Alan Robertson with Citizens Online Edinburgh
• Best Impact – Winner: Nick Bettes with Guildford Waverley Crossroads Care (GWCC). Finalists: QDK Ltd with  Grassington Festival of Music & Arts and Dan Nicholls with St John Ambulance
• Best Innovation – Winner: SpecialEffect with Mark Allen & the Volunteer Team. Finalists: Age Concern Enfield with Trans-IT Volunteers and Trinity Community Arts with Alex Holding
• Best Accessibility – Winner: Community Link Up  with Ashni Sedani. Finalists: Derbyshire Coalition for Inclusive Living with Estelita Clayton and RNIB Cymru with The Digi Champions

The 2009 Finalists

Best IT volunteer winner Clive McClure developed two sophisticated and complex databases for WASSR. These new databases allow WASSR to effectively manage their client casework to provide their service to over 380 senior residents in Westminster a year.  The judges were amazed with his outstanding and ongoing commitment in delivering a much-needed service to the community.

The Best Impact winners, GWCC provide high quality home based respite care for carers but they had a rostering system that was running them. Nick Bettes helped them map their needs, run their tendering process and also oversaw the complete implementation, including writing reports to give accurate ‘real-time’ information. Previously the weekly timesheets took GWCC staff 4 hours to produce and thanks to Nick they are available at the click of a mouse. The judges felt that whilst Nick’s work wasn’t the sexy end of volunteering, the project had revolutionised how GWCC operates.

Oxfordshire based charity SpecialEffect, the winners of the Best Innovation category, are dedicated to helping ALL young people with disabilities to enjoy computer games. Mark Allen and the SpecialEffect volunteer team created computer games roadshows for disabled groups throughout Oxfordshire. The roadshows attracted young people to volunteer to help people with disabilities access the pleasure of computer games and boosted the confidence of both people with disabilities and the volunteers. The judges though that this was a great concept and had the potential to help lots more young people with disabilities.

The Best Accessible Project went to Community Link Up for their 1:1 computer club for children with learning difficulties. Young volunteers recruited from local schools in Pinner run the club. They are matched with special needs children to teach them the basics of IT on a 1:1 basis. This project has enabled links with the local Starbucks for funding and even employment as 2 Link Up clients are now employed at Starbucks. The judges thought this was an amazing project that has had an amazing impact on all concerned.

Josh Hoole, of iT4C says:

“We would like to congratulate all the winners and to thank all the entrants for their dedication and hard work in the field of volunteering. It was great to see how many people are giving their time and talent to IT related projects. Hopefully the inspirational work of our entrants will encourage more people to volunteer in the future.”     

There are a few more photos available here and we’ll add more when we have them…and look out for the videos next week!

The last minute panics are being cleared up and in an hour we will know who our happy winners are.

Follow this blog tomorrow or full details of the winners in each categories and all the lovely photos from the afternoon. We’ll also be experimenting with some videos so watch out for those too.

Good luck to all the finalists and a huge thanks to our sponsors for allowing this event o go ahead: A J Gallagher, appiChar, BCS and Denver Technology.

We can now announce the exciting news that Arthur J. Gallagher (UK) Ltd have joined us as a sponsor for the Awards.

They have chosen to sponsor the Impact award which celebrates the Best IT Volunteering project that has had a significant Impact on the charity and its user community.

 Terry McGinness, Chief Information Officer at Arthur J. Gallagher (UK) Ltd says:

“as the UK trading arm of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., one of the world’s largest insurance brokerage and risk management services firms, Arthur J. Gallagher (UK) Limited plans, designs, and administers a vast array of tailored insurance and risk management programs.   With our increasing dependence on IT products and services, we recognise the value iT4C volunteers bring in order ensure charities and community organisations gain positive benefits from IT.”

iT4Communties and the Information Technologists’ Company would like to thank Terry and Arthur J. Gallagher (UK) Ltd for their kind and valued support.

We’re really pleased to announce Denver Technology as a new sponsor for the iT4C IT Volunteering Awards.

Denver Technology is the leading provider of flexible, cost effective resilience, availability and latency solutions to investment banks and other financial institutions. They are sponsoring the Innovation category.

Andrew Hubbard, a keen supporter of iT4C and CEO of Denver Technology, said:

“as suppliers of 24/7 IT services for business critical infrastructure, Denver Technology know the reliance banks and emergency services place on IT.  More importantly, we see on a daily basis the value of IT in reducing costs and/ or generating revenue.

iT4C has proved itself as a dynamic organisation capable of engaging with both the IT Industry and IT Profession to help thousands of smaller charities and community support groups bridge the ‘digital divide’.”

We’d like to thank Andrew and Denver Technology for their ongoing advice and support which has been a great help to all of us at iT4C and all out charities and volunteers.

If you know any other organisations who would like to be associated with the IT Volunteering Awards then please let us know – contact details are on our website.

The Judges met last night at the Information Technologists’ Hall and after lots of discussions they chose the three finalists for each category. 

We are pleased to announce the finalists here (in alphabetical order) for each category:

Best IT Volunteer

Finalist – Alan for his work with Citizens Online Edinburgh

Finalist – Clive McClure for his work with Westminster Advocacy Service for Senior Residents 

Finalist – Scott McCabe for his work with Cambridge Link-Up

Best IT Volunteering Project – Impact on Organisation

Finalist – Grassington Festival of Music & Arts with their volunteer

Finalist – Guildford Waverley Crossroads Care with their volunteer

Finalist – St John Ambulance with Dan Nicholls

Best IT Volunteering Project – Innovation

Finalist – Age Concern Enfield Trans IT with their Youth Volunteers

Finalist – SpecialEffect with Mark Allen

Finalist – Trinity Community Arts with Alex Holding

Best IT Volunteering Project – Accessibility

Finalist – Community Link Up with Ashni Sedani

Finalist – Derbyshire Coalition for Inclusive Living with Estelita

Finalist – RNIB Cymru with their 20 Digi-Champions

The winners will be announced at the ceremony on 19^th February at the BCS London HQ, Covent Garden, 2.30pm – 5pm. Book now for your free place.

The 2007 Winners with their trophies

After a long week sifting through and selecting the best nominations we have finally sent the shortlist to the judges.

We managed to reduce 50 good nominations down to 25 great nominations. The Judging Panel meets this Wednesday afternoon. They have the difficult task of picking the 3 excellent finalists in each category ready for the winners’ announcement at the ceremony on Thursday 19^th February at the British Computer Society London HQ.

As promised, here are the short listed nominations for each category:

Best IT Volunteer

Age Concern Tunbridge Wells with volunteer Richard Larkin

Cambridge Link-Up with volunteer Scott McCabe 

Citizens Online Edinburgh with volunteer Kirsten Cook

Dulwich Picture Gallery volunteer Adam Burstow 

Galop with volunteer Lenna Cumberbatch 

Hands Inc with volunteer Paula Graham 

Leeds Mencap with volunteer Tim Chapman

Rotherham CAB with volunteer Paul Campbell 

Shine FM with volunteer Andrew Kennedy 

Swindon Scrapstore with volunteer Andy Rossi 

TimeBank with volunteer Varsha Patel 

Training Link with volunteer Toni Bailey 

VCA East Cambridgeshire with volunteer Peter Buchan 

Westminster Advocacy Service for Senior Residents with volunteer Clive McClure

Best IT Volunteering Project – Impact on Organisation

Citizens Online with volunteer Alan

Grassington Festival of Music & Arts with their volunteer

Guildford Waverley Crossroads Care their volunteer

St John Ambulance with volunteer Dan Nicholls

Best IT Volunteering Project – Innovations

Age Concern Enfield Trans IT with youth volunteers

Special Effects with volunteer Mark Allen

St Hilda’s East with their volunteer

Trinity Community Arts with volunteer Alex Holding

Best IT Volunteering Project – Accessibility

Community Link Up with volunteer Ashni Sedani

Derbyshire Coalition for Inclusive Living with volunteer Estelita

RNIB Cymru with their 20 volunteer Digi-Champions

Congratulations to all those short listed and good luck for the final Judging!

Bookmark this blog ready for the finalists announcement later in the week…

Happy New Year to everyone! The final nominations for the iT4C IT Volunteering Awards have come in and we’ve now closed the nominations section of the website.

It’s encouraging to see so many excellent IT projects using volunteers up and down the country. Nominations have come in from Westminister, Whitstable and Wales, with entries from national organisations, their local branches and  from small community-based groups.

The quality of the nominations this year makes the judging process a real challenge. The iT4C team will spend the next week sifting through the best entries and setting the short list ready to send to the judges. We’ll publish the short list on the website then publish the final three in each category after the Judging panel meets on 21st January.

Good luck to all those who’ve nominated!

On the final day for nominations we are taking our Christmas Break and would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Have a look at our card.

Since it’s Christmas we’re extending the deadline until 5th January – aren’t we nice!

We’ll be back on the blogs next year with updates about the short listing, judging, sponsors and finalists so see you then.

Our deadline for the iT4C Awards nominations is this Friday!

Voluntary & Community Organisations looking for a double whammy of winning £500 and celebrating their best and most exciting IT volunteers and IT volunteering projects should nominate now.

There are already a huge number of nominations in the Best Volunteer category from national charities, CVS’s and small charities which shows the interest in the Awards from a wide range of voluntary and community organisations.

Linda Leonard from Sevenoaks Area Mind and Paul Campbell, iT4C Volunteer, receive their awards from Jonathan Soar

There are fewer nominations in the Innovation and Accessibility categories which means charities who nominate now will have a much better chance of winning.

It only takes a few minutes to celebrate the best IT volunteering projects so get  your colleagues and networks nominating now!