…to raise a child
It’s a phrase usually used to express the importance of community in the life of a young person. At TechResort, it has a wider relevance: that our whole community is vital to the community work we do.
This is never more true than when it comes to our device refurbishment programme.
This week it was amply demonstrated when we got a message from our local authority to say they had some more laptops ready to be collected on Friday. Friday is a busy day for us – we’re out on the road helping people get online and there’s usually no one at base to take on extra tasks.
The troops (Chris, Sam, Liz) rallied and by 11am 150 or so laptops were safely at our base. But this is only the start of refurbishment.
All devices are booked into a tracker and given a unique reference number which monitors progress and identifies potential issues.
From here we need to put in a new hard drive (the council must remove previous ones for secure destruction) then install an operating system (either Windows11 or ChromeOS). Only then can we check that the machine works properly, with all the bits a new user might need (webcam, speakers, microphone, keyboard, trackpad, working battery, etc).
A single laptop takes over an hour to go through that process – and we’ll probably have several on the go at the same time. Some devices fail at this stage and are put aside in a box called “technical blockers” to be looked at later.
When the laptop is working, it’s passed over to a second person to do a quality assurance (QA) check to make sure nothing was missed. Why? Because it’s really easy, when you’re working on several things at a time, for something to slip through the cracks.
After QA, the power supply has a safety check and the machine is thoroughly cleaned. The laptop is put in a case to ensure that the recipient can carry it safely and discretely and a new mouse is added. We pop a label on the bag with the laptop number and, eventually, the name of its new owner.
It’s allocated to someone and they are contacted to let them know they can collect the laptop. It’s put in the “waiting for collection” shelf.
When it’s collected, we make sure that the recipient is confident to use the device, or we help them set it up (this is why collection times are during drop-ins) and give them hints and tips.
So, when you see a laptop being given to someone who needs it, you can be pretty sure that it’s already gone through many hands – its journey will look something like this:
The donor organisation or individual;
Chris collecting it;
SamB booking it in;
Luke overseeing a Work Experience student learning how to refubishing it;
SamW replacing the tricky broken keyboard;
Tyler doing QA and getting it ready for dispatch;
Lia allocating it and booking in the collection;
Gary greeting the new recipient and making sure they’re OK using it;
Everyone updating the tracker software (well, most of the time)
and, in the background
Grant funders and charitable donors providing the finance to pay staff and purchase all the essentials.
Fiona making sure drop-ins are staffed and arranging, with Shredded Neat, the regular collections of the electronic waste we generate so that it’s properly recycled.
Tamsyn doing funding bids to cover the costs of hard drives, new keyboards, mice and bags and
Liz researching suppliers to get a good price for all the bits we need to buy.
This is our village, helping to take care of the people in our community who need a little help.
It’s impossible to list everyone in this chain but as well as our staff we’d like to thank (in no particular order) the organisations and people in our wider community who help us make this happen:
City Fibre, Eastbourne Borough Council (especially Alistair and Tony), Balfour Beatty, the Access Foundation, The N+P in East Sussex programme, Blagrave Trust, Shredded Neat, local schools and colleges for supporting Work Experience, and one recent, anonymous donor.
Thank you for being a part of the TechResort village!