We are moving out of our Lynnwood office on 30 April 2013. 

In order to provide a more efficient service to our customers and reduce costs we will be taking advantage of the cloud and going virtual at the end of this month.  The Beacon, which is a new community building just around the corner from our Lynnwood office, is providing us with virtual office services. As a result of this move we now have a new postal address and contact telephone number.

The move won't affect any of the services we provide, but will allow us to significantly reduce our costs.  This will allow us to keep our prices low and provide an efficient service to our customers.

The new contact details are valid with immediate effect.  We ask that you use them for any future correspondence and suggest that you update your records accordingly.

Our new postal address is:

Community IT Academy (CITA)
The Beacon
Westgate Road
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE4 9PQ

Our new telephone number is:

07958 482 509

Our website and email addresses remain unchanged.

Website:  www.communityitacademy.org

Email:  admin@communityitacademy.org

A new campaign aims to help 30,000 of Britain's smallest charities boost their fundraising through online tools and the internet.

The Grow Your Charity Online campaign was launched by Google in partnership with Charity Technology Trust and Media Trust.  The campaign website contains a number of different resources, including:

• a free digital health check
• tools, resources and guides
• inspiration from other organisations
• events and training

Find out more at: Grow Your Charity Online

If you would like to discuss ways that your organisation can improve its online presence call us on 07958 482 509.

We take a look at the latest version of Microsoft's free anti-virus software.

If you use a computer it is important to have up-to-date anti-virus software to protect you from malicious software. While there are a number of free anti-virus packages available, these are typically only licensed for personal use.  For this reason many charities and community organisations pay an annual license fee for anti-virus software. 

Microsoft Security Essentials, however, is free for up to ten users (regardless of whether the organisation is a charity or not). 

Read more: Protect yourself against viruses

We have been awarded the PQASSO Level 1 Quality Mark.

PQASSO is the leading quality standard developed by the Charities Evaluation Service for the third sector.  Over the past year we have been working hard to meet this standard and we are very pleased to have now been awarded it.

Read more: CITA achieves quality mark

A new report by Lasa outlines how web-based services can support your organisation and help you to reduce costs.

Technology workers and charity professionals (including CITA's CEO, Lewis Atkinson) share their thoughts on how we can embrace cloud technology and move into a whole new way of working.

View the slideshow: What you should know about the cloud

If you would like to discuss the benefits of cloud technology to your organisation please give us a call on 07958 482 509.  We have funding to provide impartial advice and consultancy at no charge to voluntary and community organisations in the North East.