News tagged 'communities programme'

We are very pleased to be working with a fantastic set of well known and trusted organisations in the Tyne Tees TV region to make sure everyone gets the support they need to prepare for the digital TV switchover, which takes place in the region this September.

North Tyneside VODA, Wansbeck CVS, Age UK County Durham (pictured below), Tees Valley Rural Community Council and North Yorkshire and York Forum will be engaging local groups to support them to provide information and advice to end users. They will offer free training, access to a small grants scheme and free materials to local groups, enabling them to give advice to their end users at existing events and activities in the community about how to switch to digital TV and what help is available.

To reach people who don’t have contact with community groups and who are eligible for the Switchover Help Scheme, volunteers from Tees Valley RCC and Circles Network will work with trusted individuals in local communities, such as local shopkeepers and mobile hairdressers, who are aware of the people in their community who might need some extra support to access the Help Scheme.

The organisations have had extensive training from Digital Outreach, Digital UK and the Switchover Help Scheme, and are ready to start spreading the word!

If you are supporting people in the Tyne Tees region, please get in touch with the organisation covering your area.

Contact details

North Tyneside VODA - covering Tyne and Wear
Lynne Craggs
lynne.craggs@voda.org.uk
0191 643 2633

Tees Valley Rural Community Council – covering Teesside and Darlington
Andrew Samuel
asamuel@teesvalleyrcc.org.uk
01642 201 096

Wansbeck CVS – covering Northumberland
Anne Kidd
anne.kidd@wansbeckcvs.org.uk
01670 856 587

North Yorkshire and York Forum – covering North Yorkshire
Claire Petty
claire.petty@nyyforum.org.uk
01347 825710 

Age Concern County Durham – covering County Durham
Mark Dunne-Willows
mark.dunne-willows@ageukcountydurham.org.uk
0191 374 6363



2011 was a very busy year for everyone working on the digital TV switchover. Transmitters covering 10.5 million homes across the Anglia, Central, STV, and Yorkshire TV regions switched to digital, and preparations began in the London and Meridian TV regions too.

Our partners on the ground did a brilliant job of engaging their local networks of community groups and volunteers, making sure that people who might struggle with the switchover were given the support and information they needed to cope. It’s thanks to them that we managed to reach so many people and achieve such great results.

We commissioned and trained well-known, trusted local voluntary and community sector organisations in each TV region who:

• briefed over 2,000 organisations about switchover and how they could help the people they support
• trained nearly 4,000 individuals so they could cascade the information and advice within their organisations, networks, volunteers and service users gave talks about switchover at over 4,500 community events and activities, reaching nearly 300,000 people
• ran advice points in 81 locations at the point of switchover, providing help and reassurance to over 10,000 people  
• gave one-to-one, face-to-face support to over 100,000 people.

To reach those who do not attend events and activities in their community and are more isolated, volunteers managed to engage an amazing 57,000 trusted individuals who knew their local communities extremely well and could identify and support those who needed some help to access the Switchover Help Scheme.

In postcode areas where responses to the Help Scheme were lower than expected, volunteers raised awareness at a really local level in nearly 5,000 community venues - such as GP surgeries, Post Offices and local businesses – having a friendly chat with staff and leaving behind leaflets and posters. Volunteers also went out to speak to almost 200 small, informal groups to talk to them in person about the Switchover Help Scheme.

A really big thank you to all of our partners who put in so much effort to support their local communities during 2011. Despite it being the busiest year yet for digital switchover, we met or overachieved on all our targets, supporting hundreds of thousands of people to prepare for the switchover. The hard work and commitment of our lead and second tier organisations, and the thousands of very local voluntary and community sector organisations and volunteers, ensured we reached the people who needed help and advice the most and supported them through the process.

Success stories

Advice point volunteers help elderly gentleman re-tune his TV

An elderly gentleman who was very hard of hearing came to the advice point run by lead organisation COVER in Thetford. He knew quite a lot about switchover from the TV adverts and door drop leaflets he had received. However, he was struggling to re-tune his TV. He had tried to call the DUK advice line, but because of his hearing difficulty he could not hear the instructions that the adviser was giving him.

He saw an advert in the local paper for the switchover advice point so decided to go down there for some help. The volunteers demonstrated to the gentleman how to re-tune, taking him through the process step by step so he could see what he needed to do. The gentleman knew the model of his TV, so the volunteers looked up the exact instructions for re-tuning his TV and wrote them down for him to take home. The gentleman was really pleased that the volunteers had been there to help him.

Communities Programme volunteer engages trusted people to spread the word ‘

Joan’ is a volunteer for Suffolk ACRE who helped to engage community supporters through the Communities Programme. Joan was taking a trip to the north of the county and took a ‘scenic route’ visiting rural villages along the way. Joan visited many villages, stopping at two drop-in centres, three church groups, a vicar’s, and a disability day centre. She spoke to people she knew about the Switchover Help Scheme and asked them if they knew of anyone in their community who might need support to access the help they were eligible for – for example, because they were isolated or found it difficult to fill in forms.

Two weeks later, Joan re-visited all the villages and found that the people she had spoken to had in turn spoken to people they knew who were eligible for the scheme. The leader of the three church groups said that he’d spoken to a number of people who were eligible, and that one of the congregation had already phoned him to say that the Help Scheme were “coming to sort her TV out”!

Joan was really pleased she had been able to help.

The final transmitter in the Anglia TV region, Tacolneston, switched to digital this month.

During the run-up to the switchover, we worked with VCS organisations in the region who have strong local networks to deliver a range of outreach activities and events to help local residents prepare for the switchover. Together they put in a fantastic effort, delivering some great results for Digital UK and the Switchover Help Scheme and ensuring target groups knew what they needed to do to continue watching TV after the switchover.

Lead organisation COVER ran four advice points on the Tacolneston switchover days, where friendly staff and volunteers supported over 330 people. During the run-up to the switchover, COVER and their partner organisations overachieved on all of their targets, delivering 101% of their end user events and 118% of their one to ones.

Photo: A gentleman receives support from an advice point volunteer

Through the Communities Programme, trained volunteers from Norfolk Rural Community Council (Norfolk RCC) and Suffolk ACRE engaged over 1,200 ‘community supporters’ – people who are known and trusted in their local communities by those the outreach programme aims to reach. These community supporters supported over 100 people to access the Help Scheme.

CSV, which delivered the targeted awareness programme in over 50 Tacolneston postcode areas identified as having a lower response rate to the Help Scheme mailings, engaged volunteers who used their local knowledge and contacts to ensure Help Scheme literature and posters were displayed in 120 community venues (such as medical centres, libraries and churches), and 114 commercial venues (such as post offices, cafes and hairdressers) and encouraged local venue and business owners to spread the word about the scheme.

WRVS made sure that Help Scheme eligible people who requested a home visit received face-to-face support from a friendly volunteer to help them complete their packs, be there with them as a chaperone when the engineer calls, and help them use their new equipment.

Photo: Age UK Norfolk cascade the messages about switchover to their clients.

A big thank you to COVER, Norfolk RCC, Suffolk ACRE, CSV, WRVS and all of the volunteers who gave their time to help. The outreach work you have delivered has ensured that over 6,000 people in the Tacolneston area have received the support they needed to switch to digital – a fantastic result.

The UK's analogue TV era will come to an end on October 24, 2012, it was announced today.

Eighty years from the first experimental broadcasts, the old five-channel system will be switched off for good.

The digital television switchover started in 2008, giving millions of viewers extra channels and clearer pictures. There are just four million people left in Britain watching analogue TV, according to Digital UK.

All set for the future: The digital switchover has been taking place for the past few years, with 23million households now enjoying multi-channel TV

SO WHICH REGIONS HAVE YET TO MAKE THE SWITCH?

Anglia: This region is underway and completes next month, November  2011

Meridian: February to June 2012

London: April 2012

Tyne Tees: September 2012

Northern Ireland: October 2012

Announcing the end-date for analogue TV and switchover, David Scott, Digital UK chief executive, said: ‘The analogue era was a defining period for TV but the fully digital age will be even better, with a greater choice of channels for viewers everywhere.

‘I'm looking forward to October next year when we will have brought the benefits of digital to every corner of the country.’

The first experimental analogue television broadcasts started in August 1932.

The technology was officially launched by the BBC in 1936 and went on to inform and entertain viewers with coverage of landmark events such as the moon landings and classic shows from Nationwide to Morecambe and Wise.

At its conclusion in 2012, inside the timetable set out by Government, more than 15million new viewers will have been brought into coverage for Freeview services, Digital UK said.

WHY IS BRITAIN SPENDING MILLIONS GOING DIGITAL?

Households in many parts of the UK are currently unable to receive multi-channel TV services.

Switching off the existing analogue broadcasting system will create the capacity necessary to extend coverage to the whole country.

Broadcasting in digital format is also a more efficient way to transmit television signals and will free up airwaves for new services such as ultra-fast wireless broadband and mobile television.

The organisation added it was on course to complete the project at least £53million under budget.

The last analogue TV signals will be switched off in Northern Ireland where ‘virtually all’ households will receive the new digital signal ‘including half-a-million viewers who cannot receive it now’.

To help the elderly make the switch to the potentially confusing new digital era the BBC set up a Digital Switchover Help Scheme.

However, Age UK found that many older people who needed financial or technical support to make the switch to digital TV did not qualify for this help, so they formed a secondary help group.

A spokesperson for the organisation said: 'To tackle this problem, Age UK, along with Community Service Volunteers formed Digital Outreach Ltd which offers advice and support both to those who are eligible for the Help Scheme and those who benefit from extra support and advice but are not eligible.

'They focus on those with sensory, mobility or dexterity impairments, people with learning difficulties, people with mental health issues, those who speak English as a second language and socially isolated people.'

The London TV region is switching to digital TV in April 2012. The region, served by the Crystal Palace transmitter, is the largest to switch yet - covering 620 square miles and containing nearly 5 million households.

To help people in the city and surrounding areas make the switch, Digital Outreach is delivering four outreach programmes in partnership with local voluntary and community sector organisations.

We have appointed five local organisations to co-ordinate the community outreach programme in the region. The London CVS Network will co-ordinate the community outreach programme in Greater London, while Surrey Community Action, COVER, Voluntary Action Within Kent and Age Concern Slough and Berkshire East will co-ordinate the programme in the more rural Home Counties.

These organisations will be working with local charities and groups to prepare people for the TV switchover, starting in September this year. They will offer free training, access to a small grants scheme and free materials to local groups, enabling them to give advice to their end users on how to switch to digital TV and apply for the Switchover Help Scheme if they are eligible.

The community outreach programme is vital in getting the message out to local communities about switchover and the Help Scheme, but some of the most isolated people fall outside of these networks and are the ‘hardest to reach’. To reach these people, we are delivering the Communities Programme. This programme uses word of mouth to generate interest among those people that the most isolated people already know and trust most – such as local shopkeepers, hairdressers, carers, and community counsellors.

In London, the Communities Programme will be managed by Fin MacGregor and delivered by Circles Network and Greater London Volunteering (Greater London) and Community Impact Buckinghamshire (for the Home Counties).

Digital Outreach organised an induction day for the organisations which are leading on delivering the outreach programmes. Valerie Walwyn, Digital Outreach’s regional manager for London, led the session which was attended by staff from the lead organisations, Digital UK and the Switchover Help Scheme.

Jude Palmer, Head of Operations at Digital Outreach, said: "We work with Digital UK and the Help Scheme to ensure the induction session provides an opportunity for everyone to meet their counterparts so they can develop good working relationships and develop a solid understanding of the work ahead. This TV region is large and diverse, which is reflected in our Lead Organisations, who really enjoyed the day and are looking forward to their work in the run-up to switchover in April 2012."

Get involved!

If you're a voluntary and community sector group and you'd like to help spread the message about switchover and the Switchover Help Scheme, please get in touch with the lead organisation delivering the Community Outreach Programme in your area.

Greater London

East London CVS Network – covering Havering, Redbridge, Barking & Dagenham, Newham, Hackney, City, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Haringey, Enfield and Barnet
Contact Andrea Chott on 020 8519 9500 or andrea.chott@elcvsnetwork.org.uk

South London CVS Partnership – covering Merton, Kingston upon Thames, Richmond upon Thames, Croydon, Lambeth, Sutton, Southwark, Greenwhich, Bexley, Lewisham and Bromley
Contact Chris Burton on 07588 813189 or chris@slcvspartnership.org.uk

Ealing CVS – covering Hounslow, Hillinghdon, Ealing, Harrow, Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham, Wandsworth, Camden, Islington and Brent
Contact Antony Bewick-Smith on 020 280 2232 or antony@ealingcvs.org.uk

Home Counties

Age Concern Slough and Berkshire East – covering East Berkshire and South Buckinghamshire
Contact Rosa Petrucci on 01753 497880 or rosa@ageconcernsabe.org.uk 

COVER – covering Essex and Hertfordshire
Contact Rachel Farr on 01223 861760 or rachel.farr@i-trust.org.uk

Surrey Community Action – covering Surrey
Contact Libby Minto on 01483 447 127 or Lminto@surreyca.org.uk

Voluntary Action Within Kent – covering Kent
Contact Jon Weller on 01892 530330 or Jon.weller@vawk.org.uk