Victorian Landcare Gateway Training

Does your group need an effective way to inform your local community and members what is happening, events that are coming up, and group projects? Do you want to better promote the group and its activities?

The Victorian Landcare Gateway www.landcarevic.net.au has been designed to make it easier for groups to:

• add or update information on the group
• add news or events, including opportunities for volunteers to participate
• add newsletters and photos
• describe or promote group projects
• find other related groups or projects
• map activities or projects

When Groups have their information listed, community users can:

• find information on topics of interest
• find their local group
• volunteer for events in their area
• link to groups of interest

All this is free for Landcare and related groups. The Gateway has been designed to enable people with basic computer skills to maintain and edit their group information and notices, so you do not need to be a computer whiz to use the site.

There are opportunities available for Landcare and related Group members to attend a training day on how to use the Gateway. THE TRAINING IS FREE.

I have organised training days for Hamilton 10/5/10, Portland 11/5/10, Warrnambool 12/5/10 and Ararat 13/5/10.

If these days do not suit we can make some other arrangements. Please call me to book a position or discuss options.

Thank you for taking the opportunity to participate in the Gateway Training. The following are some house keeping we need to take care of before the day.

1 – if you do not yet have a username on the Gateway you must register and login well before the training. (Visit the Gateway and click on New User link in Login Box)

2 – It is essential that you have logged in at least once, know your username and password and can login on the day –there is no guarantee that this can be done on the day as password reset is dependent upon email access – so please log in to be sure you can remember the details on the day. THIS IS MOST IMPORTANT!!!

3 – You will need to be provided with management rights to your group site. I will arrange for this to happen. It would be helpful if you Email the name of the group you will be using to make sure I have them right. I realise some groups are not set up yet. I will rectify this.

What to bring to the training, preferably in electronic file:

1- An example of an event – field day, workshop, forum notice

2- A news item/media release

3- A digital image or two – preferably with the file size reduced to 200-300 kb (warning, most digital cameras now produce file sizes of 1-8Mb, which are too big)

4- A pdf or background document as well if required

Get an idea of how to use the site, by visiting a couple of group sites that are using the Gateway. Easiest way is to go to www.landcarevic.net.au and click on one of the events coming up from a group, which will take you to their event. Then look at their main site.

Additional tool that may be of use for Landcare Groups - the Gateway has an email server which enables groups to have their own email address, such as group@landcarevic.net.au

The email can be managed via webmail, and allow full contact lists to be managed. This can avoid the issues of transferring group contacts from personal computers, as using this option would only require the login details to be handed over to the new executive member.

Emails can be one way only, where messages sent to the address are forwarded automatically to one or a group of executive email addresses, but the address cannot be used to send messages.

The email can also be fully functional, with messages received, sent and contact lists and address books maintained. The Email addresses are protected by a top line spam protection system, so it is also rare for junk to get through. If your group would like an email address, please also contact me with the preferred address and requirements.

Center	Location	Address	Date	Time
Southern Grampians Adult Education	Hamilton ( above Kerr and Co.)	89 Gray St	10/05/2010	10.00-2.00 pm
South West TAFE Portland	Portland	154 Heard St	11/05/2010	10.00-2.00 pm
South West TAFE Warrnambool	Warrnambool	Timor St	12/05/2010	5.00 - 9.00 pm
Ararat Neighbourhood House	Ararat.	56 Campbell St	13/05/2010	5.00 - 9.00 pm

We will provide a light lunch at the Hamilton and Portland sessions and there will be some snacks before the Warrnambool and Ararat sessions. Tea and coffee will be available.

Please do not hesitate to call if you have any questions. PLEASE VISIT THE SITE TO SEE WHAT IT CAN DO!

Cheers,

Tony Lithgow

Regional Landcare Coordinator

Glenelg Hopkins CMA

Ph. 55712526