In Year 14, we have continued our focus on online delivery, responding to demand from our beneficiaries who shaped the development and name of our “Tea & Tech” workshops, trialled through support from South Yorkshire’s Community Foundation and The Freshgate Trust Foundation, enabling us to secure funds for this to run for two years after a successful grant application to The National Lottery Community Fund. All of this has been made possible with the continued support of Sheffield Town Trust, complemented by Magic Little Grants.
We are entering a phase of organisational restructuring, having lost Jane Watkinson, a founding director then key worker, to ill health. Her departure means founder Jay Baker has taken on several of her responsibilities, while exploring recruitment of additional personnel to ensure this transition is smooth and the organisation can continue to operate efficiently.
We also said goodbye to a founding director, Heather Paterson, whose responsibilities as a CEO in her other work have increased, and also Abdi Hassan, whose involvement began as a volunteer several years ago and who progressed and remained involved, to enjoy almost 18 months on the board.
Projects
A summary of our projects this last year are as follows:
1) Sheffield Town Trust Subscription List (£1,500 has been received from three annual payments of £500) – We are very thankful to be on the Sheffield Town Trust Subscription List for 3 years at the rate of £500 per year, with these annual subscriptions helping fund some of our core costs. This financial year we spent the second annual £500, with this going towards our accounts preparation, producing an accountants report, calculating and submitting our tax return to HMRC, and Nextcloud (our company cloud storage and where we create and hold online workshop registration forms and evaluation surveys for participants to complete). We will spend the third annual £500 in the next financial year. The majority of our core costs are funded by restricted funding and therefore this funding from Sheffield Town Trust helps reduce the pressure on the volunteers involved in running the organisation, especially regarding writing the applications to fund the core costs in time, and create more security. This crucially means that more time and resources can go towards growing the organisation and our delivery so that it becomes more sustainable – including growing our unrestricted reserves and income generation, including via our Friends of FreeTech Project membership programme and donations. This grant has helped support the invaluable outcomes we have achieved through running the other projects mentioned in this report, as it has helped ensure the organisation’s core costs are funded.
2) The National Lottery Community Fund, Awards for All, FTP3: Tackling Digital & Social Exclusion Project (£9,994) – Through this project, we tackled digital divides and exclusion, social isolation and loneliness by responding to demand and engaging, overall, 33 people with an average age of 75 years and an age range of 64-88 years across South Yorkshire (85% of participants) and also Chesterfield (9% of participants) and Cambridgeshire (6% of participants) in what were our 3 core online projects: Tech for the Terrified, Taking on Tech, and Free Your Tech. We also engaged someone from Bentley Pavilion in Doncaster on the project, who whilst did not sign up can be counted as a beneficiary – thus making the project total 34 – as we discussed potential collaboration with the Pavilion illustrating how the workshops help foster community connection and networking.
3) Magic Little Grant via Localgiving in partnership with the Postcode Neighbourhood Trust, FreeTech Project Core Costs (£500) – This grant was key to us continuing our operation, funding our annual core costs, covering accounts, insurance, and telephony, therefore helping ensure the running of our online tech workshops. It will continue to support us into next year, so that we can further our social impact.
4) The Freshgate Trust Foundation Tea & Tech Stage 1 (£1,500) – This grant funded 8 of our brand-new 2-hour Tea & Tech workshops, our online video meetups that enabled 11 South Yorkshire residents aged 56-88 to join from the comfort of their own home with a “cuppa” to learn about technology in a fun, friendly, and relaxed environment, described by one participant’s feedback as “a comfortable way of learning,” while another said “I was made to feel welcome from the first day and feel part of this group already. It is good for me and some of the others that we don't have to go out.” This delivery has provided an invaluable “pilot” for Tea & Tech for the future, and was integral to our successful application to The National Lottery Community Fund so that we can deliver Tea & Tech over the course of two years.
5) The South Yorkshire’s Community Foundation Community Grants Programme Tea & Tech: Techsavers (£2,569) – We acknowledge the support of South Yorkshire’s Community Foundation. The South Yorkshire’s Community Foundation Community Grants Programme is made up of several funds provided by generous local donors. This award has been made from the following fund(s): AESSEAL Charitable Trust Community First Endowment Fund For South Yorkshire. This grant supported provision of our Tea & Tech online delivery, developed from our previous "Free Your Tech" programme, with a "Techsavers" theme for 10 winter workshops helping participants tackle the Cost of Living Crisis through learning about methods of using technology in a way that is more financially, environmentally, and socially sustainable, focused on ethical and free and open source hardware and software alongside privacy, security, also avoiding scams, as well as buying refurbished devices to save money as well as waste. These workshops led us trialling Tea & Tech proper, as a pilot supported by The Freshgate Trust Foundation.
6) The National Lottery Community Fund, Awards for All, Tea & Tech (£19,838) – Through this grant, we are delivering Tea & Tech – levels 1, 2, and 3 – twice over two years, aimed at helping at least 60 predominantly older people, primarily in South Yorkshire, to use technology in ways that save time, money, and waste. This is based on previous participants’ feedback and input that was designed to shape Tea & Tech in the way they wanted: having “tech” and “tea” in the name to emphasise the relaxed approach to the workshops; registering once and then able to access any of the three levels as they feel appropriate; the levels running in a linear way, one after the other, with no stopping and starting as before when different grants could only support specific levels at different times; the branding and website of the FreeTech Project will be revamped to reflect this. Although the grant was received in the financial year, no spending took place and so the income was deferred until 24/25.
Partners
In this last year we have developed our connections and partnerships, including with:
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Social Isolation and Loneliness Alliance, Doncaster Culture and Leisure Trust – our organisation is a member of this alliance with the lead facilitator maintaining regular dialogue with the lead contact at the alliance, who helps promote our activities as part of this.
Future Developments, Aims and Expansion
With funds secured to deliver “Tea & Tech” online workshops over two years, we look forwards to implementing relevant changes.
“Tea & Tech” will meet the requests of our beneficiaries by:
- Having one learning programme, with one name: “Tea & Tech”
- Providing three different levels, all running in a linear way, one after another
- Emphasizing the relaxed environment of the workshops (hence the name)
We will also revise the branding of our core delivery through the FreeTech Project, including the website, with an emphasis on greater accessibility, complemented by better inclusivity for those joining our workshops from home – sometimes due to disability – with slides provided by email before workshops begin and Zoom captioning enabled.
In addition, some participants wanted friends and family from outside of South Yorkshire to grow comfortable with video meetings but were outside of South Yorkshire, so we are relaxing our rules about eligibility to attend, though ensuring South Yorkshire residents receive priority on available spaces.
We are excited to add another director to the board this next year.