{"id":803,"date":"2021-08-04T15:20:01","date_gmt":"2021-08-04T14:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/?p=803"},"modified":"2022-03-11T11:21:27","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T11:21:27","slug":"championing-the-achievements-of-our-digital-champs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/2021\/08\/04\/championing-the-achievements-of-our-digital-champs\/","title":{"rendered":"Championing the achievements of our digital champs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The Digital Champions and Dorset Council’s Routes 2 Inclusion team meet for the first time in person since the Covid lockdowns<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After 18 months like no other, Dorset Council\u2019s volunteer Digital Champions were at long last able to get together in person to share their experiences of the past year and a half.<\/p>\n

For the first time since all Digital Champion services were moved from libraries to the Digital Hotline in March 2020, our brilliant volunteers came together for an outdoor gathering in Dorchester.<\/p>\n

And for those unable to attend, and in best digital fashion, they could hook up to a live feed on YouTube and ask questions online throughout the event.<\/p>\n

It was our first hybrid event where we combined a live meeting with people joining in online.<\/p>\n

Digital Champion, Mike Watson, said: \u201cIt was wonderful to see some of my fellow Digital Champions in person for the first time in 18 months. Our meeting took place physically on the lawn in front of County Hall, with about 12 folks present. We tried out some new technology so others could join the meeting remotely.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe technology was, by and large, fine, and the rain held off, but the wind played havoc with my hair!<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just so nice to participate in yet another (small) step along the road to normality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Digital<\/a>
Digital Champion Mike Watson speaking at the Digital Champion hybrid get together<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the event the Digital Champions were thanked for helping more than 1,000 people throughout the Covid pandemic via the Digital Hotline.<\/p>\n

That Hotline \u2013 01305 221048 \u2013 will continue for people who need digital help.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Digital Champions have resumed face to face support at some of the Dorset Council libraries and in community centres Get online with our volunteer Digital Champions – Dorset Council<\/a><\/p>\n

Mike added: \u201cWe were able to keep going throughout the pandemic thanks to the Digital Hotline, where calls ranged from simple queries, such as making video calls, through to more formal topics, involving on-line banking.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough we were very happy to help in this way, we all acknowledged that telephone support is second-best when it comes to helping someone get the best from the internet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why we were very excited to re-launch our face-to-face services (well, security-screen to face-visor service) in several of our county libraries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith great Covid-support from the library service we have now held several sessions in five libraries and two community centres, with other centres joining in as we get more adept at running in a covid-secure environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

At their gathering, the champions were given an insight on to how the library sessions are going and told that more and more face-to-face sessions will gradually re-start.<\/p>\n

And finally, the champions were told about a new initiative that will help support the work they are already doing in the community.<\/p>\n

Dorset Council is recruiting a team of \u2018embedded digital champions\u2019 who are customer facing staff who work in public and voluntary organisations.<\/p>\n

These champions will be able to assist customers who are not confident accessing online services.<\/p>\n

Dorset Council\u2019s Routes 2 Inclusion project officer, Lyndsey Trinder, said: \u201cIt was so wonderful to see some of our Digital Champions and have the opportunity to thank them in person for all they have done during the Covid pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was our first hybrid event and it was a valuable learning experience for us. We now know how to overcome some glitches we experienced and we definitely want to do more events of this type, taking on board feedback we had from the people who attended remotely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Digital Champions event was broadcast live on YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe events of the last 18 months have really shown how important digital is.<\/p>\n

\"Dorset<\/a>
Dorset Council’s Lyndsey Trinder applauds the Digital Champions for their amazing work throughout the Covid pandemic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThroughout the lockdowns our champions supported those with low digital skills use devices for the first time, provided virtual mentoring to the long-time unemployed and helped people get to grips with this new virtual way of learning and working.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey truly are our champions!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After 18 months like no other, Dorset Council\u2019s volunteer Digital Champions were at long last able to get together in person to share their experiences of the past year and a half. For the first time since all Digital Champion services were moved from libraries to the Digital Hotline in March 2020, our brilliant volunteers… Read more Championing the achievements of our digital champs<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1907,"featured_media":804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[48,49,47,57],"tags":[51,43,50,78,32,52,81],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/files\/2021\/08\/digi-champ-event-33-1-of-1-resize.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1907"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":877,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions\/877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}