Agewell Social Network at The Lawns.

A message from ITV Studios …

Workshop: Tuesday 28 June 2011 (3 to 4.30 pm).

This special workshop will be led by the developers of Hackney iCare – a site under development that will be hosted by the Hackney Council website. Hackney iCare will be a hub for preventative and social care services, will be a place for carers and local service providers, and will give information about the services and allow people to carry out some transactions online. Its development is part of the Transformation of Adult Social Care Programme (TRASC).

This workshop will have a specific purpose. It will be more than just a demo of the new site – our visitors are also hoping for feedback on their strategy and what they have done so far. You could think of it as a brief focus group exercise – but about the design of an entire digital service, not just web pages.

Why is it so important?

The idea of providing all this information in one place online is admirable, but TRASC’s own research has produced evidence that less than 12% of the ‘adult social care client group’ use the Internet as a source of information, less than 10% use the Internet regularly, and two-thirds said they never use it. So – if the new site is going to be the primary source of information, most of the people who need it will not receive it – unless further steps are taken to ensure their digital inclusion. The iCare developers are clearly aware of the scale of the problem, and are now looking carefully at how their service users actually do receive information. Their visit is just one of a series of consultations intended to elicit responses across the borough.

Why might this be one of the most interesting workshops ever?

Because this is a genuine front-line digital inclusion problem for which a solution must be found – far removed from the whimsy of the various national campaigns we are exposed to. We know that many agewellers are interested in these issues. As an example, before the end of the ‘refurbished computers’ workshop last week, we had stopped talking about buying bits of hardware and had moved on to the social context in which the Internet is used. At this special iCare workshop, that will be our starting point.

Web links.

• Transformation of Adult Social Care Programme (TRASC).
• TRASC information and advice consultation feedback.
• TRASC draft review of the digital divide in Hackney (PDF).

Please reserve your workshop place.

Reserve your place by sending an email to acc@lawns.org.uk (and please read your email again soon after for our reply, as our workshops get over-subscribed very quickly). When you send your email to reserve, please tell us if you are a carer, or affected by changes in policy or practice of adult social care in Hackney – because we want to give priority to those people.

Also on the same day …

• Drop-in from 1.30 to 4.30 pm, as usual.
• First Click for new beginners, 1.15 to 2.45 pm.

Dave Ramdial, director of ‘Hold It Down’ will be at The Lawns on Tuesday 12 July 2011 (12 to 1 pm) to meet Caribbean elders (ie: 50 or over). So, if you are a Caribbean elder – please come and hear what Dave has to say about this inter-generational project. It’s not just socially important – it’s also a great opportunity for you to learn some new digital skills.

If you would like to contact Dave personally, his phone number is 020 8525 0600, and his email address is dave@holditdown.org.uk .

Here is Dave’s original message …

A message from the Arcola Theatre …

iMen50+ at Spurs FC.

The Tottenham Hotspur Foundation has arranged a seven-week course ‘Introduction to the Internet’ for men who are aged 50 or over.

• Start date: Friday 17 June 2011 (10 am to 12).
• Venue: Spurs Learning Zone, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, N17 0AP.
• To sign up: phone 020 8365 5138.

They say that …

The course will teach you to:

• Set up an email account.
• Search a specific topic of interest.
• Browse the best summer holiday deals.
• Find trustworthy and reliable health information.
• Research your family tree.
• Find old school or army friends.
• Work with digital photos and send them onto your family and friends.

Residents of Haringey have priority – but all other older men are eligible, and the course is far from full.

This is Men’s Health Week, 13 to 19 June 2011.

The campaign this year will focus on how new technologies can be used to improve men’s health.

Web links.

• Get a man online.
• Videos for Men’s Health Week.
• Lifecheck.
• Man MOT.

A message from Agewellista Teresa Webb …

NB from Agewell Computer Club: the notice is in an online PDF – Teresa’s Fundraiser.pdf.

Workshop: Tuesday 21 June 2011 (3 to 4.30 pm).

This will be a repeat of the workshop we started on 10 May, but never finished.

YouTube is a ‘video sharing’ website — a place where anyone can place short videos that they have made themselves, to be watched by anyone else. Since it started in 2005, it has been one of the most popular sites at the Lawns centre – for music, entertainment, sport, education, inspiration, amusement and random frivolity.

At the workshop we will look at everything you can do with YouTube – including how to search it, create an account, and (obviously) upload your own videos.

Also on the same day …

• Drop-in from 1.30 to 4.30 pm, as usual.
• First Click for new beginners, 1.15 to 2.45 pm.

Workshop: Tuesday 14 June 2011 (3 to 4.30 pm).

Skype is a computer program which you can use to make free Internet ‘phone calls’. You can talk directly to anyone else, anywhere in the world, who has Skype on their computer. If you both have a webcam, you can see each other too.

At the workshop …

• Everyone will create a Skype username.
• We will show you how to use Skype on our computers at The Lawns.
• We will explain how to download and install Skype to your own computer.
• We will show you how to put Skype on your flash drive (memory stick), so that you can use it anywhere.

Web links.

• Our Skype links page.

A short video about Skype.

Also on the same day …

• Drop-in from 1.30 to 4.30 pm, as usual.
• First Click for new beginners, 1.15 to 2.45 pm.

Changes for seniors.org.uk webmail.

On Monday 23 May 2011, Google began making significant improvements to its Google Apps email system. Our seniors.org.uk email is a Google Apps email service – so if you are a seniors.org.uk user, you have probably noticed some changes.

The webmail transition.

Google’s explanation of the transition is not easy to understand. Briefly – they want you to know that seniors.org.uk email will behave more like regular googlemail in future – and, if you are accessing seniors.org.uk email with a web browser – it will look more like regular googlemail too.

This transition is mainly going to affect businesses that provide their staff with Google Apps mail – limiting what employees can do with their business email addresses. It also provides a bit more privacy by restricting what Google Apps administrators can do – especially allowing third-party applications to access user data.

Privacy.

Seniors.org.uk has never allowed third-party access to your data, and the administrators are people you know: Rick Crust and Michael Townsend – AgeUK Hackney staff members.  Rick and Michael have admin access to create new seniors.org.uk email addresses, suspend unused addresses, and change passwords when requested. Nobody else has access to the admin side of seniors.org.uk.

Changes to your access to seniors.org.uk webmail.

The seniors.org.uk home page now looks like the image on the right here.

You have two sign in choices …

• Sign in with your username.
  Use this link if you want to carry on signing in the way you have always signed in – with your username only. It’s the most friendly and simple way to sign in, and is not going to disappear. You can still go directly to this page by entering mail.seniors.org.uk in your browser web address bar.
• Sign in with your email address.
  Use this link if you want to sign in from the same page that you see when you sign out. The only sign in difference is that your username must be followed by @seniors.org.uk.

Our recommendation: try them both – it will be obvious immediately what the difference is.

Changes to seniors.org.uk webmail usage.

So far we have noticed only two important differences …

• The ‘Sign out’ button will still be top right, but placed inconveniently inside a drop-down menu (see the image here on the right). To sign out, you must click on your email address in the top right corner, then move your pointer down to the ‘Sign out’ menu item.
• After signing out as a webmail user, you will not be returned automatically to the mail.seniors.org.uk page, where you sign in with only your username. Instead you will see a general-purpose gmail login, where you are expected to enter your full email address.

Not a webmail user?

If you access your seniors.org.uk email with a conventional desktop email program (for example – Windows Mail, Outlook, or Thunderbird), there is no change for you to notice. But if you ever want to sign in as a webmail user, you will be asked to accept the transition.

What to do.

If you have not logged into your seniors.org.uk webmail since May 2011, you will see a confusing screen before you get to your Inbox. It asks you to accept these changes by clicking on a button like the one you see here on the right. We recommend that you click on it to accept.

Workshop: Tuesday 7 June 2011 (3 to 4.30 pm).

This workshop will be a follow-up to our 21 May post ‘Low cost computers’, in which we passed on information about 3 suppliers of refurbished computers. Those suppliers have been endorsed by the ‘Help Pass IT On’ campaign – so what we will do in the workshop is look at the offers, and answer your questions about them, and about buying refurbished computers in general.

NB: These suppliers have not been endorsed by Agewell in Hackney or Age Concern Hackney.

Supplier links.

• XMA (note added Dec 2011: looks like XMA have gone out of business).
• Get online at home.

Also on the same day …

• Drop-in from 1.30 to 4.30 pm, as usual.
• First Click course for new beginners, 1.15 to 2.45 pm.

Come and party with us, and Zumba with Hester.

When?

Tuesday 28 June 2011 (3 to 5 pm).

Where?

Fellows Court Community Centre, Weymouth Terrace, E2 8LR (Google map).

RSVP.

If you would like to come to the party, please phone Carol on 020 7241 5908.

City & Guilds Information and Communication Technologies, Level 1.

This free Level 1 course is for senior citizens (aged 50 or over) who are relatively new to computers, but who are not absolute beginners. It’s not just a unique course – we think it is the best course of its kind available to anyone in this area. It is funded by the Hackney Learning Trust, and led by Hackney supertutor George Llewellyn. The venue will be our main centre: 52 The Lawns, N16 8QB.

Dates and times.

• Twenty lesssons, ten weeks, 9 hours each week.
• Every Thursday and Friday (10 am to 2.30 pm).
• Started: Thursday 9 June 2011.
• Ended: Friday 12 August 2011.

For more information, please visit the Hackney Silver Surfers Courses page, or contact Sadia Hussain by email (sadiahussain@ageconcernhackney.org.uk) or phone (020 7254 2183).

Celebrate National Volunteers Week at Age Concern Hackney’s Annual Summer Party.

Hosted by Goldman Sachs.

Volunteers and Agewellers – please join us! You are all invited!

• African dance performance.
• Raffle prizes.
• Food and drink.

Things we know about.

Walking.

• Every Monday, 12 to 1 pm.
• Meet at CLR James Library, 24 Dalston Lane, E8 3AZ.

Meditation.

• Learn how to relax and reduce stress.
• Every Friday, 11.45 am to 12.45 pm.
• Stamford Hill Library, Portland Avenue, N16 6SB.

New to Agewell?

• Come to our coffee afternoon session. Learn what AgeWell can do for you!
• Monday 27 June 2011 (2 to 3.30 pm).
• Age Concern Hackney, 22 Dalston Lane, E8 3AZ (next to the library).

Free help for you and your laptop!

Every Thursday at the Piccadilly Community Centre.

What?

• Bring your laptop and use our free wi-fi.
• Learn how to use the Internet on your own computer.
• Drop-in support and chat in the café.
• Get yourself Skype-enabled.
• All welcome – from beginners to advanced.
• Hosted by Melissa Bliss of livingcinema.org.