LEADER COMMUNITY GROUP SCHEME

The Internet is potentially a crucial communications tool for community groups, but it can be difficult for them to develop a cost effective site and keep it up to date with timely information. The groups taking part in this scheme have varied objectives but needed to communicate within their own communities to existing members and those who need their services.

Project scope

The development of websites and Internet marketing and updating skills for community groups in:

• Clare
• East Cork
• Kildare
• Louth
• Laois
• Rural County Dublin
• West Cork

Each group sends two participants on three 2.5 hour workshops for each group spaced over three consecutive weeks. In most cases the group is asked to contribute up to €100 towards the costs of the training and the website software/hosting package including:

• 3 workshops and support material
• Site software set up
• First year hosting and domain registration
• Ongoing support for site build and marketing

Being seen online can be a major challenge and the training includes learning how to optimise their sites for search engines and to develop linkages across the web with relevant sites.
The small group training environment encouraged even those with limited computer skills to achieve, and encouraged exchange of ideas.

Reaching communities online

Community groups are an important target group for the work of LEADER companies and the opportunities to reach them effectively are limited.
The need for community groups to produce and maintain their own websites provided such an opportunity but conventional web design training was clearly overkill, requiring a greater time commitment from group members and a higher financial outlay in terms of both training and software. The limited computer skills of some participants indicated that such an approach may not be productive.

The SitesToGo advantage

By the end of the first of the three workshops all participants are able to use the on line site building tool and to understand the principles of good web design and content

The second workshop introduces online marketing and covered other issues such as emailing and some search engine optimisation, as well as supporting further build

The third workshop focused on a critique by the group of all sites and completion of sites. Plus the acquisition of more skills such as photo resizing.

Email or call us for more information, or to find out about community group web schemes near you



This project has been funded by LEADER through the Irish Government under the National Development Plan 2000 – 2006 and part-financed by the European Union