A website can do two things. It can deliver and it can enable. Looking at the analysis in the post below this one, here are recommendations on what can be delivered and what can be enabled by strategic uses of this website. for women@work.
What the website can deliver
A place where the voice of women can be heard - using part of the site as a formal lobbying force (and publicising its function); and using the site differently to enable conversations between women of a less formal and public kind. The lobbying function could be supported by online discussions between members to shape emerging positions.
Good internal communications - to be effective this would require a conscious discipline in members to check the website once a day, contribute and respond if and where appropriate.
Good news and information service - some members might have specific responsibilities for providing news items, details of events and links to useful sites on subjects or areas in which they have a personal and/or professional interest. All members might build the habit of contributing news items, details of events and links to useful sites relating to their own interests and location.
Public profile and member recruitment - the website is the public profile of the association, particularly in so dispersed a place as Argyll. It can be a - not the - powerful agent of member recruitment if it offers the things identified as valuable and is a place where enquiries of any kind are swiftly answered. Note: A website that is not regularly refreshed and carrying new and up to date material can never present a persuasive public profile nor act as an effective recruiting agent. It is everyone’s responsibility - in the common interest - to contribute to effective use of the site.
Supporting and linking to specific groups of women and to existing womens associations - it can give such women a voice and it can give them representation and their own place on the website.
Knowledge of and access to members - offering private or public membership lists (inclusion on which could be voluntary or mandatory, as the association wished), - with details of individual members and contact details submitted by themselves.
Skills and expertise sharing - through calls for advice and tips on anything involving women’s private and public lives.
What the website can enable
Support for women and support for women in and into work - through providing links to useful websites; an online members network; news on developments supportive of women personally and professionally; and information on relevant events and resources.
Support for personal, professional and business development - through the same functions and facilities as above.
Awareness of human resources available to the association - the website cannot ‘use’ the available resources but it can make known to members what the resources and skills are that each member brings to the association. This would be managed by individual members themselves through the information they submit on Registering to use the site. Here they might make additional voluntary information available to fellow members on their skills, interests and experience; and on what they would be prepared formally to offer the association.
Awareness of - and celebration of - individual members and their personal stories. This would use the For Argyll Life Stories facility - a text narrative which can have pdfs, photo-galleries, sound and video podcasts attached to it. Life Stories are for the living as well as the dead; for the young as well as the old; and for the initially unknown more than the known.
Friendship - an ‘Off Duty’ corner would support chat, social invitations and opportunities.
These are recommendations. Your input is needed now - your views, comments and additions. Please comment on both this and the item below as soon as possible so that your insights can contribute and the development the association needs can go ahead quickly.
Dee, Jane, Rose Ada, Sheila and Suzanne met with me (Lynda) on Tuesday 12th. Kay - helpfully - emailed contributions in advance because she couldn’t be there. It was a very good session. Here is my summary of the key issues raised and discussed. I’m working on recommendations on how the website can be used by the association and its members to meet as many of these needs as possible and contribute to the development of the association. This will be posted here within twenty four hours. Please add your comments to this post and to the website recommendations to come - and don’t forget that you can comment on a comment.
What Women@Work is seen to be for
‘Work’ - in all forms - is part of the condition of women so the association is a support for all women.
Women@Work supports women in and into work.
Women’s voices express views and values that need to be heard in public consultations and as a lobbying force. The association creates opportunities for those voices to be heard and works to have attention paid to them.
What members want from membership Friendship - many women are essentially alone, at home and working as freelances or sole traders. The simple provision of a reason and a place to meet other women regularly is a powerful support for confidence, socialisation and a growing sense of personal potential. Personal Development - much of this comes from the prompt and opportunity to meet regularly, without purpose or pressure, with other women. Further development comes from information on and access to life and stress management techniques and therapies. Professional Development- women aiming to be in work, women in work and women aiming to progress in work are all interested in personal professional development. This involves opportunities for skills development and career development. Business Development- members are interested in developing the take up of services and products they provide within the association itself. This involves knowing formally who members are, what they do and how to contact them.
Key issue arising from this Use of meetings: meetings with a formal purpose or topic tend to attract only members interested in that particular thing. Where meetings exist only for such purposes and topics are necessarily diverse, such meetings can act against the development of a strong association whose members are known to each other.
Developments members would like to see the association achieve Good internal communications - regularly maintained by everyone. Good news and information service - on things relevant to needs of members and the association, including events. Public profile and recruitment- including farmers wives and creating relationships with existing groups like the WRI. Active use of available human resources - learning about each other, sharing expertise and personal solutions to personal and professional challenges and contributing individual skills and contacts to the development needs of the association.
The Women @ Work team on the Out There For Argyll project (funded by the Scottish Communities Foundation) sent all five members to the project’s Production Camp at Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic College on Skye last weekend. Charlotte, Sheila, Suzanne, Dee and Kerrie made it over the sea to Skye to SMO — via CalMac’s Mallaig-Armadale ferry.
The sheer creativity was exciting and it was a pretty intensive experience with four tutors to hand all the time to offer help and advice as we finalised some productions. We won’t mention the partying - although Sheila did a mean five hundred mile dance to the Proclaimers, training Callum as she went - and Dee saw the sun rise on Sunday morning from the balcony on the top of the Tower, along with the said Callum, Rebecca, Dave and Alan. (She has the photos to prove it).
Anyway, productively, Suzanne and Sheila both produced radio interviews from recordings taken at an earlier Women@Work event. Kerrie and Dee, with a production crew made up of tutors Dave and John, produced a movie - The Rodgering of Nefertiti - featuring Kerrie doing stand-up in the outdoor amphitheatre.
Dee has also finished her response to the production challenge to create a two-minute movie on Furnace using only the training footage shot by all of s the first day we all used the cameras. See ‘A Glimpse of Furnace’ below.
Suzanne has also made a ‘Furnace in two-minutes’ film.
Standby for a movie Dee is creating from stills she and others shot at SMO (but will the full story be told?) and is working on another creative piece around images of horses.
Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) is a vibrant information hub housing a lending library, archive collections, contemporary and historical artefacts relating to women’s lives, histories and achievements. It delivers an innovative Lifelong Learning Programme, an Adult Literacy and Numeracy Project and a dedicated Black and Minority Ethnic Women’s Project.
GWL is unique in Scotland and is at a very interesting time in its development. Set up in 1991 as a grass-roots, volunteer led group, it now employs 9 staff and provides a range of services to women. GWL will relocate to Glasgow’s prestigious Mitchell Library in in 2010 and is scoping the feasibility of attaining recognised national status. This session (22nd Septemeber, Argyll College, Lochgilphead) will highlight this Scottish success story and ask you what you think should be in the future Women’s Library of Scotland. For more information or to book, please contact WEA: tel. 01463 710577 or e-mail womenatwork@weascotland.org.uk
The women@work team in the For Argyll project are recognised to have been doing a lot of pace setting. They’ve conducted interviews with women, discussing their working lives in Argyll today and in the past. They made a short radio piece on comedy which they took to Argyll FM - who not only played it on air but offered them a slot in the schedule. (And they’re not writing this in praise of themselves. This is their team buddy, writing in respect.)
A great day out in Oban with lots of things to do. Please come and support all your local and national charities and the people who work so hard to make them work.Charities attending includes Parents Together in Argyll, Sensory Garden, Blue Triangle, among many others.
If you’ve ever wondered how Council policies are developed and wanted to make your voice heard, here’s a chance to find out.
Jennifer Swanson, Policy Officer with Argyll and Bute Council, will talk about how some policies have come about, who was involved, and how you or your group can participate in the future.
Venue: Argyll College, Lorne Street, Lochgilphead
Cost: The event is free, sandwiches and refreshments will be available for £3.00
Pre booking is preferred to ensure adequate catering
To book, please contact WEA: tel. 01463 710577 or e-mail womenatwork@weascotland.org.uk
Should you have a special needs requirement please let us know.
All welcome – we look forward to seeing you.
The Workers’ Educational Association is a company limited by guarantee registered in England number 2806910 and a registered charity number 1112775. Registered address is WEA, 3rd Floor, 70 Clifton Street, London EC2A 4HB
In this session (Taking Place in Oban’s Community Fire Station) we will take a look at how women are presented in the media, then prepare our own news release and photographs about women in Argyll. The session will end with a press conference, where we will present our news to the ‘national media’!This workshop, with Fiona Wallace (What’s the Word?),is informal, very hands-on and informative. We will cover:
On Saturday the 8th of March we held an event to celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD). Women from all over the world have observed IWD since the early 1900’s. Over the years these events have celebrated the huge steps forward that have seen the lives and roles of women (in some parts of the world) changed significantly and highlighted the inequalities that still exist.
‘Forvever Changes … The Changing lives of Women in Argyll’ wasa fun and interesting day giving us a chance to network as well as learn new things. We found out more about:
‘Out There for Argyll’
Bellydancing
The Sedona Method - a simple, powerful technique that helps you release physical and emotional suffering from the mind and body, creating a wonderful, peaceful space
