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Over 50 people came to Community Base in central Brighton to find out more about the project, and to hear Rt. Hon Andrew Smith MP underline the need for innovative approaches to tackling issues of social and economic exclusion. Recently promoted to Chief Secretary to the Treasury, he was representing the DfEE, which has provided capital funding to start the project. Also present was Shankar Trevedi, Chief Executive of Sun Microsystems in UK and Ireland, which has provided start up cash to get the project rolling. The launch included a chance to try the mobile training suite, which features up to a dozen laptops, connected to the Internet. This will be used to tour local community centres, starting with regular visits in Hangleton and Knoll, in north Hove.
At first it will cater for vendors, who often cannot afford or cannot get access to computers. It is also intended that it will at as a focus for IT use by other groups. FOR MORE PICS OF THE EVENT Click Here ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ Success at the
first Hangleton & Knoll Virtual
Festival Hangleton &
Knoll Virtual Festival 1999 provided over fifty
people of all ages with a chance to surf and try
new technology. Amongst the attractions at the all
day event was a large-screen Playstation where
adults could get lessons in computer games from
kids, the trusty SCIP cybercafe and some new music
software, Total e-Jay, that promised to make ageing
DJs of us all. Held at St. Richard's
Community Centre on 28 July, the event formed part
of the long-standing Hangleton & Knoll
Community Festival. SCIP worked with the Festival
staff and volunteers to stage the day, which also
featured Sounds Phenomenal, a local music and
technology community group that runs various
workshops and has recently a studio near Portslade
Station. July has been our
first full month of activity in Hangleton and we
have participated in an IT awareness-raising
session at Hangleton Community Centre (funded by
the DTI in conjunction with the Community
Development Foundation) which attracted about 30
people on a very sunny Saturday. The next step is to
establish regular sessions at both Hangleton and
St. Richard's Community Centres. We will be running
a pilot programme of both drop in and more formal
sessions, which will be offered at low cost cost,
or free. The theory is that
Big Issue is moving to Community Base and we're
jointly establishing a drop in IT centre. That'll
be great when it does happen but they're having
enormous problems extracting the existing tenants.
So we are instead
using their rather undelightful offices in Preston
Street as a base for drop in sessions. We offer
open access sessions every Tuesday afternoon and
have just completed a six week pilot to establish
what might work. We've seen twenty
people so far, and the four machines we can fit in
the space are full every week. Two vendors helped
with the Virtual Festival which was a great way of
linking our work together. We're now working
closely with Emma, the Big Issue's Jobs Education
and Training Worker, to look at links into other
training organisations (including Sounds Phenomenal
mentioned above) and running further sessions to
meet the needs of vendors. Following a review of
the pilot phase during August the next step is to
set up more structured (ie the incrementally
structured bit) sessions away from the offices,
whilst continuing with the drop in work in Preston
Street. More
details elsewhere on this site We are working with
staff and volunteers at the Young People's Centre
in Ship Street on a three month pilot project
looking at how IT can support the work of the
Centre. We're putting together an awareness-raising
programme to help staff and volunteers understand
some of the potential uses of the internet and
other new technology and running sessions with the
groups which currently use the Centre. We recently received
funding for HUBS from a charitable trust, following
a visit by one of its representatives. Start up
funding for the project came from the Government's
Skills Challenge Funds and Sun
Microsystems. More support is being
sought through various channels. HUBS Home | Home Text Only | What is HUBS? | HUBS Drop In | Mobile Training | HUBS News | Contact us | How you can help us HUBS has received capital funding from the Government Office of the South East through its Skills Challenge Programme. HUBS is supported by
Sun
Microsystems HUBS is managed by |
The
official launch of HUBS was marked by a gathering which
included a minister, Brighton's Mayor, the CEO of an
international IT company, Big Issue vendors and a throng of
local community workers, politicians, Councillors,
educationalists and more.
A
strong Big Issue presence included staff, volunteers and
vendors. HUBS will be working with Big Issue to provide a
computer drop in centre in the new Big Issue offices. Big
Issue moves into new premises in Community Base in November
and the IT room will be open before Christmas. 
