Cardington Village Hall

Cardington Village Hall has recently been refurbished and is the venue for a wide range of village leisure, educational and social activities. All are welcome. A regular tote is organised to raise money for running the village hall.

Contacts:

Tote winners

Switch-on-Shropshire - computing in the Village Hall

This is a progress report on the scheme to provide computing services, including broadband access, in Cardington Village Hall.

From Richard Chanter (Broadband Co-ordinator) The Maltsters Tap, Cardington, Church Stretton, Shropshire. SY6 7JZ. Tel :- 01694 771251

Our Village Hall was invited, last Autumn, to become a “Broadplace” by ‘Switch on Shropshire’, who are an arm of the County Council, who are themselves acting as agents for the European Regional Development Fund to spread Broadband Communication Facilities into Rural Areas. Switch on Shropshire has set up ‘Broadplaces’ all over the County. The nearest ones to us are at Church Stretton, Craven Arms, Ludlow, Quatt and Highley. The ERD Fund will provide all the equipment and pay for the Broadband connection for the first two years after which we will be expected to take on the running costs ourselves.

We felt that this was an offer that we could not refuse and so we now have 6 laptop computers and a PC together with a printer and a range of software all connected constantly to the Internet. We also have a camera, a projector and a full size fitted screen. The software that we have includes a range for social activities as well as some gaming facilities for the Kids Club, or anyone else who wants to hone up their gaming skills. We are not yet fully established but we expect to be able to open this Facility to anyone and everyone by the end of this month. At that time there will be an official opening and we will arrange some sort of ‘Open Day’ to show people what we have and how to use it. Anyone who wishes to use this facility, when it is up and running, should initially get registered with me and thereafter can come into the Hall and use it on their own at any time to suit themselves, provided that no one else is using the Hall for a function which they are putting on.

The use of this facility for connection by broadband to the internet for the first two years will be free. Thereafter we will, of course, have to cover our running costs but if it is well used these could be minimal. We will from the start have to make a nominal charge for using the good quality laser printer since we have to provide our own paper and ink, but many users of the internet facility or our other software programmes will not necessarily require anything to be printed.

Martin Watts, who runs the IT Courses in the Village Hall on Fridays is going to start a new course, hopefully in February, on how to make best use of this broadband facility. So anyone who feels that using broadband is more than they can cope with, can find out how to do it from the expert and then put their skills to use in their own time when it suits them.

Anyone who wants to know more about this new facility, whether for the internet or the use of any of the other programmes that we have, should contact me and I will explain it to them in more detail. Remember - ANYONE is welcome to make use of this internet connection for free. However we are NOT providing anyone with any e-mail addresses or hosting e-mail servers. If you wish to use it for e-mail purposes you have to make use of your own personal e-mail address.

Richard Chanter (Broadband Co-ordinator) The Maltsters Tap, Cardington, Church Stretton, Shropshire. SY6 7JZ. Tel :- 01694 771251

2 January 2005

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