PRESS RELEASE - 4 JULY 2003

Presentation of PlanIT Certificate to SERVE, Rushden

DirectSupport gave out cash awards of £500 for the best project ideas put together as part of our ICT project design pathway. This was only open to centres or groups of centres in the community and voluntary sector.

The Plan IT competition was intended to encourage centres to involve their users, stakeholders, staff and volunteers in putting together new ideas for creative ICT projects.

A small pilot round, only open to centres in the East and West Midlands, was run in May. This produced some excellent project ideas, and four centres received awards:

Burton Community Partnership
The plan is to use the IT skills of centre users to undertake research to develop static displays and an interactive website looking at the town's brewing industry.

St Paul's CE Primary School and Community Centre
Members of the Community Association want to create a community website to promote and celebrate the activities of the 35 community groups that use the centre.

Nottinghamshire Deaf Society
This is an outreach project to enable deaf people who are unable to come to the centre to get access to email and the internet.

Serve
This project involves running a creative writing course for over 50s with the aim of publishing and selling the pieces of work. Here is Kim and Sue receiving their award from Scott Jones.