CITA - Community IT Academy

Meet the new board of CITA

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Created on Wednesday, 25 January 2012 15:47

Following our recent AGM, there have been some changes to the board and we would like to introduce our new trustees. 

Roger Mould is now our Company Secretary.  Roger was policy, partnership and projects officer at NCVS for ten years and is on the board of VONNE.  Joe Kamanga also joins the board.  Joe was previously IT Project Officer for Regional Refugee Forum.

Sadly, we would also like to announce that, founder and long-term trustee, John Sadler, has announced his resignation.   John is retiring this year.  CITA would like to say a big "Thank you!" to John for all the hard work and support he has given CITA in the nine years he has been involved. 

Lewis Atkinson, CEO of CITA, said:

"John had the vision and ability to start CITA off.  Without him it wouldn't have got off the ground.  He's been an ideal board member. He'll be a big, big miss."

The current board is as follows:

• Ron Wilson - Chair
• Roger Mould - Secretary
• Joe Kamanga
• Leigh Davison

You can read our annual report and accounts here: CITA Annual Report and Accounts 2010-11 (PDF 300kB)

Support and advice for women in Northumberland

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Created on Wednesday, 14 December 2011 10:34

The Women's Health Advice Centre launched their new website this week.

The Ashington based charity wanted to update their site to make it more user friendly, relevant  and up to date. They also aim to attract more online donations so that the organisation can continue to offer high quality support and services to women, girls and families in Northumberland.

The site, which was developed by CITA, has a clean, modern appearance.  It features a photo and content slider and has social media buttons integrated into every page.

Helen Fussell, Freelance PR & Communications for WHAC, said:

"I worked with CITA on a new website for the Women's Health Advice Centre, which launched this week. As project manager and copywriter, I found the process to be both collaborative and creative. CITA were incredibly helpful - their input and advice throughout the design and development of the site was invaluable, and I couldn't be happier with the end result. The new site not only looks great, but is accessible, user-friendly, modern and professional. I'm sure it will help to raise awareness of the excellent work the Women's Health Advice Centre does to help women, girls and their families across Northumberland."

Visit the site at: Women's Health Advice Centre

If you need a website for your organisation, please give us a call on 0191 256 5015.

Read more about our Web Design Services.

Find out what's happening in your local community venue

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Created on Thursday, 24 November 2011 11:03

CAVOS, the Council for Voluntary Service in Sedgefield, has launched a new website to promote village halls, community centres and church halls in South Durham.

southdurhamhalls.org.uk features an interactive map of South Durham marking the location of each hall. Clicking on a hall takes you to a page of information and photos about the venue. Each hall can promote their events on the site and there are plans for a directory of local suppliers.

The site, which was launched this week, was developed for CAVOS by CITA.

Helen Brown, CAVOS Projects Officer, said:

"I have found Lewis and Steven to be extremely helpful in developing our website; the training was delivered in a way that I was able to easily understand and the follow up support after the training has also been very good. We are very pleased with the design of the website and we look forward to working with CITA in the future."

Visit the site at: South Durham Halls

If you need a website for your village hall or community group, please give us a call on 0191 256 5015.

Read more about our Web Design Services.

Having problems with your IT?

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Created on Wednesday, 09 November 2011 15:52

Let us worry about your IT... so you don't have to.

We know how important your work is. We also know how busy you are. So let us take care of your IT equipment so that you can make best use of it without having to worry about anything going wrong. Instead you can focus on what you do best – providing high quality services for your clients.

Choose a package to suit your needs:

Pay for the support as you need it and if you sign up for our membership scheme you get free telephone support and a discount on our hourly rates. Prices from £60 per year.

Alternatively you can save costs with a fixed quarterly payment to cover your IT equipment for fault and breakdown. Prices from £56 per month for 3 PCs.

Call us for a quote on 0191 256 5015.

Find out more: Service and Support

Get the heads up on events and activities in Mid-Durham

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Created on Thursday, 03 November 2011 10:15

The 'Heads Up' website is set to be a very useful resource for local residents by promoting the many different community venues and activities happening in the Mid-Durham area.

The site aims to support the area's community groups that provide valuable services to people of all ages in local villages across Mid-Durham. To make it easy for the groups to promote what they do, the site allows them to add and manage their own page and promote the events and activities that they run.

The website, which will be launched on 16 November, was developed by CITA for the Mid Durham Area Action Partnership. It is one of four community websites to be launched for different areas in County Durham.

Andy Coulthard, Area Action Partnership Coordinator for the Mid Durham Area Action Partnership, said:

"The development of the new 'Heads Up' community website for Mid Durham will provide local community venues and groups with an exciting opportunity to publicise their projects, events and activities which will hopefully attract more users and in turn more income. We hope the website will be a valuable community resource and our thanks go to CITA for their help in developing the site and the support from local people so far."

Visit the site for yourself: The Heads Up

If you need a website for your community group, please give us a call on 0191 256 5015.

Read more about our Web Design Services.

Should you upgrade or replace your IT?

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Created on Wednesday, 02 November 2011 16:02

Our new guide talks you through developing an IT replacement policy.  CITA's CEO, Lewis Atkinson, uses car ownership as an analogy to owning and managing IT in your organisation.

In the guide he looks at the following topics to help you decide what is best for your organisation:

• Upgrade or replace?
• Ongoing maintenance
• Future proofing
• PC replacement
• Peripheral replacement
• File servers
• Software upgrades

Download the guide as a PDF: IT replacement policy

This is just one of twenty guides available to download from our website as part of our Northern Rock Foundation Circuit Riders project.

You can view them all here: How to guides and documents

If you need more personalised support then please contact us to arrange an IT health check.  The health checks are fully-funded by the Northern Rock Foundation, so we are able to offer them to voluntary and community organisations at no charge.

Call us on 0191 256 5015 for more details and to arrange a visit.

Popular IT support programme receives further funding

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Created on Wednesday, 26 October 2011 10:33

Organisations from across the region are set to benefit from IT advice and support thanks to further funding from the Northern Rock Foundation.

Our popular "Circuit Rider" programme helps voluntary and community organisations to reduce their administrative costs and work more effectively through practical help, consultancy and advice. The programme, which has been running since 2007, has helped over 200 organisations across the North East and Cumbria with their IT.  Thanks to further funding from the Northern Rock Foundation we are now able to offer this support for a further year.

Recent examples of support through this programme include:

• helping an organisation to make big savings by reviewing their IT spend
• providing loan IT equipment to an organisation that had no computers of its own
• support with marketing through developing a social media strategy
• advice on how to reduce costs by using cloud computing
• aiding an organisation to meet best practice with regard to data protection by enhancing security procedures

Whatever the size and needs of your organisation we aim to leave you stronger and better able to manage your IT.  We can help you do more for less and ensure that you comply with current legislation.

This programme is fully-funded by the Northern Rock Foundation so you don't need to pay a penny for the support you receive.

If your organisation would like to benefit from this programme please give us a call on 0191 256 5015.

Read more: Northern Rock Foundation Circuit Riders

Support for collaborative working

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Created on Wednesday, 12 October 2011 11:04

Pentagon Partnership is offering a programme of low-cost support to organisations interested in exploring collaboration, consortium development and other forms of partnership working.

Working in partnership with other organisations can help you save money, provide a better service and work more efficiently. You can collaborate in many ways – from sharing office space to bidding together for contracts. Partnership working can strengthen your organisation, broaden your horizons, and give you new skills and knowledge. Pentagon Partnership's new programme offers support to third sector, social enterprise and private sector organisations thinking about collaboration.

Pentagon Partnership is a strategic consortium for Tyne and Wear's voluntary community and social enterprise sector and has a track record of successfully supporting collaboration within the sector.

The programme offers:

Advice - a free exploratory meeting either with a lone organisation or with two or more prospective partners.

Workshops - bringing together potential partners, the 'introduction to collaboration' workshops are designed to explore the possibilities of collaboration and consortium working. They outline the various collaborative working models and work with the potential consortium to identify those that are appropriate to their needs.

Development Work - a development package supporting organisations to develop appropriate partnership structures, work well together, and if necessary, develop their first joint funding application. This support can be in person, or via email or telephone conversation.

The price for this service starts at £250 per day.  For a confidential conversation about your requirements and the terms contact Lynne Craggs on  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 0191 643 2633.

CITA launches new range of websites

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Created on Tuesday, 20 September 2011 14:20

Following feedback from the customers and the results of our recent survey, we have decided to refresh our range of website options.

There has been significant demand for a mid-priced option between our starter option and our bespoke option and we are happy to say that we are now able to offer a "next step" option. This will provide a fully functioning content management system with a choice of attractive template options, which can be customised to meet your needs.

The next step option is great for organisations that want to keep down costs, but if you would like more control over how your site looks choose our bespoke option and we will design a site to your individual needs. The bespoke option also gives you the flexibility to add additional functionality to the site, which is perfect if you have more complex requirements.

For those organisations on very limited budgets our starter websites give you the ability to create a professional website at a very low cost. We provide the training to enable you to set up and manage your own website on the popular WordPress platform.

Prices start at £250 for a starter website, £700 for next step and £1500 for bespoke.

To discuss the best package for your organisation give us a call on 0191 256 5015.

Read More: Website design