A new local volunteer is offering free one to one courses of a digital flavour based at his own café.
Digital sessions are being held on Monday and Tuesday afternoons at The Tangerine Café in Beaminster, a comfortable and relaxing community space which Chris Sims owns with his poet wife Sue. Book your first session or simply turn up at the café, and if you find your first session useful book more – all for free.
Around 21% of people are not confident using the internet – that’s around 150,000 people across Dorset. And 70,000 of these have never been online.
Chris said: “I can offer help to people of all abilities. There is no escaping digital so if you are nervous about joining the digital age and you have a problem my aim is to help you get the best use of digital that you can. I also gain a lot of enjoyment from sorting out more complicated issues working through solutions forensically!
“So many government and public services require you to have the skills to access essential services on the internet, such as NHS repeat prescriptions, booking appointments, Universal Credit, passports, UK Citizenship, or Government pensions. With the closure of bank branches, it is becoming essential to be able to use online banking safely and securely and I can help with that.”
“Digital can also bring joy for example by bringing friends and family together, Skype makes it easy to stay in touch with loved ones as if they were there beside you.”
Chris is one of a band of more than 75 Dorset Digital Champions who help and support people in the local community to use the internet and gain basic online skills such as:
- learning to use a device (laptop, smartphone, tablet etc)
- setting up email and contacts
- sharing photos and managing photo storage
- online safety
- using search engines such as Google or Bing
- printing
- updates and backing up
- using apps
- finding cheaper utilities
- online banking and Paypal
- connecting to wifi
With a lifetime of business and IT skills at his fingertips gained during his career as a finance director Chris has a wealth of lifetime experience he is ready to share.
Call us on 01305 221048 and we will book you in for a session with Chris or match you with a volunteer Digital Champion in your own area.