Earlier this month I was lucky enough to be involved in helping UK online centres promote their ‘Go ON’ campaign here in Sheffield. As you’re reading this it’s more than likely you’re familiar with going online, however there are a staggering 8.7 million people in the UK that don’t use the Internet. In Sheffield alone this figure was about 95,000 – that was before UK online centres did something about it. Over the space of 10 days at 60 events across Sheffield people were encouraged to ask questions and try out the Internet for themselves. The turnout was fantastic. Digital Champions of all ages from across the city, including Plusnet staff, volunteered to ensure the Internet first-timers had someone at hand to guide them. A marvellous consequence of this was 12-year-old school children teaching mature adults and pensioners about Internet and computers, bringing together people of all parts of the community and bridging the generation gap. The event I took part in was at Castle Market in Sheffield City Centre where I mingled amongst the shoppers and encouraged some of the older generation to partake in the events. Although their initial responses were often ‘I’m too old for all that’ I found that the mostly underlying reasons were ones of the fear of the unknown. Go ON Sheffield has helped to allay these fears and a great number of people have now joined us online, with amazed new users setting up email addresses, learning about applications such as Skype to keep in touch with distant relatives and discovering more about their interests via browsing websites. Last night at Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane football ground, UK online centres hosted an event to thank all the Digital Champions who took part in the events, along with some of the 50 winners of a free year’s broadband with Plusnet. Presenting awards to some of the Digital Champions were Sheffield United players Stephen Quinn and David McAllister. The success of this campaign is a credit to all those who took part, volunteers and first-timers included and I’m proud to have contributed in some way. 
Some of the Plusnet staff and CEO Jamie Ford at the Go ON Sheffield awards, with UK online centres Managing Director Helen Milner and the Sheffield United players. You can find out more about UK online centres or how to become a Digital Champion by visiting their website at http://www.ukonlinecentres.com/
Plusnet helps Go ON Sheffield