Blog: Project highlights from 2019

So much work we’ve been neglecting our blog! Our New Year’s Resolution is to post here more often

The mainstay of our work is low cost after school sessions for young people. During 2019 we were delighted to meet some new young makers as well greet old friends again.  Towards the end of the year we had to combine our two age-group sessions to reduce the costs of running them a little but the new format has been working really well.

By July we had completed a project in Hastings that we’d started at the beginning of the 2018 academic year.  The Hastings Opportunity Area team gave us a grant to take our sessions to Hastings.  We delivered a varied programme of after school and Saturday workshops from a temporary base in Hastings Library.  Although it wasn’t quite as well attended as we might have hoped, we did get to work with some really great young people.  Our peripatetic team of elves led by Tamsyn, Chris and Fiona did a terrific job and turned what could have been a tricky project into a really great success.  Even better, there was a small amount of the grant left which the HOA team permitted us to use to continue to help ESCC’s library service develop its Hastings library based Code Club programme.

We made a successful application to the Sussex Community Foundation for a grant to support small, community-based initiatives where groups or schools can ask for our help and we can work with them at a reduced cost or help a project get underway whilst other funding is found.

As part of this programme and working with Eastbourne Borough Council, Migrant Help, and 3VA we’ve been running sessions in the Seaside Community Hub to supply tablets and computers and some hands-on helpers for local residents to apply to the EU Settled Status Scheme.  This work has been led by Miles, Fiona and Serena with Charlotte from Migrant Help and has helped well over 50 people already.  Our Wednesday sessions run from 6pm to 7.30pm and are open for anyone who needs a hand in completing their application.  We’d also like to thank our friends at local company:  Zoonou for lending us some additional devices.

Our community programme has also allowed us to help Pevensey Community library install some laptop computers with some sensible security measures in place.  We’ll be returning to the library in 2020 to do some training and, hopefully, help them start a coding club.

We’re also hoping to work with a couple of local schools, with an organisation looking to address local social mobility and other local eco-issue groups to help them use more technology to help with monitoring and communications.

If you know a group who could do with a bit of help with making or digital skills or coding workshops then pass the message on to get in touch.  We might well be able to help.

Towards the end of the year, we were contacted by an old friend of TechResort who is now working in Worthing at Colonnade House. Clare asked us whether we’d be able to help put together a festival in January to showcase the possibilities of having a makerspace for businesses and community groups to use.
Obviously we’re delighted to help and the “Space to Make” project will be running later this month.  We’ve done some workshops for artisans and community groups and during the festival itself we’ll be running some family fun tech sessions.

We’re always happy to discuss how (and if) we can help with other people’s projects and we love meeting other people who enjoy tinkering.

We like to thank everyone who attends our sessions in all their forms and for those who support TechResort in a variety of ways:  from East Sussex College for facilities and Cloud ConnX for broadband, to The Network Factory for helping us keep our servers and network working.  Also to those people who buy local lottery tickets, support us with Local Giving.

Finally a big thank you to all our directors, staff and volunteers for helping our community get more fun and benefit from using creative and digital skills.

Let’s make 2020 even better!

Who we helped

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