What a year we have had in the Cosmic training team. With projects coming to an end and lots of new projects starting. 2015 was a great year for our team in perfecting our offering which I believe is of excellent quality.
My role on the Cosmic team
I am the training co-ordinator at Cosmic. I started back in 2013 as an IT trainer where I have mainly been out on the road delivering workshops and talks to groups of businesses and community groups. Now that my role has changed (though you will still see me out and about) mainly I’m in the office co-ordinating the projects and the training team in delivering the very best content that we can.
Devon Digital Inclusion Project
Our Devon Digital Inclusion project ended in March having worked with over 700 people from all walks of life since the end of 2013. This project was the first project I worked on when arriving at Cosmic, so I feel a great deal of pride when I think about all of the people we helped through the project.
Some of my highlights were:
- Taking iPads into dementia cafes to help family, friends and carers communicate better with those suffering memory loss and other symptoms
- Bringing back emotional memories for many who suffer from dementia by using technology
- Helping young people across Devon understand the impact their digital footprint can have on their employment and future life-goals
- Winning the award for Corporate Social Responsibility at the Express and Echo awards as a result of this project
Women Love Digital
Another project we have been working on is Love Digital. This was funded by the Government Equalities Office. The project allowed us to work with Women to truly exploit technology in their businesses. We ran 8 workshops and held a conference where over 100 women attended. I have to say the workshops I ran were some of my favourite business based sessions I have ever run.
I’m not sure if you are aware but Women love to talk! This made a great basis for the sessions (which were fully booked) meaning people asked questions that usually they may have been embarrassed to ask.
At this stage I have to say that following or successful project, Kate was invited to give a talk at a national event in London then in July she also gave a talk in Milan at the UK Business Expo. We are so proud of her!
Four case studies of some of the women we worked with can be found in this playlist;
Following the success of Love Digital we have been successful in securing further funding to run a ‘Part 2’ of the project. This time the project is split into two parts. The first part is aimed at Women returning to work we are working with our partners Peninsula Enterprise and Westward Pathfinder to support women who are returning to work.
Supporting Women in Business
The other part is working with Women in business. We are mentoring 35 women over a 6 month period in learning new skills. As part of the programme the women will also be invited to 8 workshops across both Devon and Somerset I personally am mentoring 5 of the women. So far I have loved it! We hold the mentoring sessions virtually on Skype or Hangouts we talk about the skills that they already have and what they would like to develop. As a mentor I am not there to do the teaching necessarily. It’s more about supporting that person to learn. One of my mentees described it as being like slimming world. We agree tasks/actions and learning that they are going to complete before the next session which then motivates them to do it.
Supporting Farming Communities with the Prince's Trust
Whilst all of this has been going on if you live in the countryside you probably wouldn’t have missed the changes in Agricultural subsidies that are being rolled out by the Rural Payments Agency. 2015 marked the first year that all farmers had to submit their Basic Payment Scheme claims online.
For Cosmic it was clear that there would be a number of farmers who relied upon the subsidy who would be wouldn’t be able to claim. Throughout the lifetime of Cosmic one of the objectives has all ways been about reaching those rural villages to help them gain digital skills so it was obvious that we needed to help somehow and that’s when we successfully secured funding from the Princes Countryside Trust to run workshops and drop in sessions to support farmers to register to claim online and also help them with general digital skills at the same time.
Alongside those sessions we have been offering 1-2-1 support for farmers or farm based businesses. Again this has been a real success we have run over 30 1-2-1 sessions and 7 workshops so far. The project is still running and we have now advertised a further 10 workshops for next year which will support farmers in accounting online and lots more.
Get Up To Speed with Superfast Broadband
So whilst all of these projects have been happening we have also had the Get Up to Speed project. This is funded by the Connecting Devon and Somerset Superfast broadband rollout. We have again been working across Devon and Somerset to inspire both businesses and communities to take advantage of the speeds once they arrive in their areas. These sessions have ranged from briefing to Parish councils to giving inspiring talks to business chambers. Demand is really high now so we are booking for March onwards. Lots of people don’t know that Superfast broadband doesn’t just happen in our home or business, you have to sign up for it with your internet service provider (ISP). We can run free workshops or drop in sessions that can help you and your community to understand how to get the best broadband deal.
Next year
And so we look ahead to 2016, what will it bring?
Well hopefully lots more of the same! We will continue to bring fresh new ideas to our workshops and talks and hopefully inspire some of you along the way!
We really look forward to working with you in 2016…it’s going to be a good one!