Giving Shop

The Silver Surfers of The Giving Shop Graduate.

The volunteers of the CTIPA Giving Shop recognised that there was little support within the community to train and educate those over retirement age in the realms of new technology. So the challenge was to find volunteer Tutors to run six weekly half day courses for this age group, many of whom had never touched a keyboard. Nicola Bytheway, Jane Morgan of Superfast Broadband and Alan Collins kindly came forward and offered their time to educate others.

Pictured here are some being handed their certificates by Gulval Councillor Mario Fonk, followed which was followed by a tea party organised by the volunteers in the Giving shop. They had achieved Level One, and some Level Two, which covered such elements as emails, Word Documents, Skype and Facebook.

David Smith, Chairman of Churches Together in Penzance Area says, ”Older people need to know how to “Go Compare” to get the best utility or insurance quotes to lower their bills and we have helped to make this happen. We have opened up a world of knowledge available to them all through excessing the Internet and we have 27 prospective new students ready to start the next group of courses starting soon. Our oldest graduate was 89 years of age, which proves that no one is ever to old to learn.”