Hosted by the Somerset Association of Local Councils, this dedicated Parish Online training day was well attended and received excellent feedback.
With the use of digital mapping in Local Councils now an essential tool, it’s great to see regional ALCs hosting dedicated Parish Online sessions. It’s something that we at Parish Online are very keen to do as it showcases the latest software updates and use cases for our service.
It was really well attended, with around 40 representatives from Town and Parish Councils from around Somerset joining us.
Our morning session began with an introduction to Parish Online, presented by Tristram Cary. He presented the reasons why Parish Online had become such an important tool for Local Councils and how it has integrated with several initiatives from the PSGA, APGB, NALC and now also BHIB. As you can tell, we like four-letter acronyms! Chris Mewse then followed up the morning session with a live demonstration of Parish Online, giving an overview of its data, tools and uses.
After a lunch break we started the afternoon session where Chris gave a full training session on Parish Online. This was a good opportunity for everyone to interact with Parish Online on their own computers and learn new things. This was a fascinating session as the attendees picked up tips and tricks for using the software and applying it to their day-to-day activities.
Parish Online is designed as a tool to help Clerks and Councillors do their job, not as an extra thing they have to do. This came across strongly as the session went on as more and more questions came from the floor. Nearing the end of the practical session it turned into a Q&A with Chris fielding questions, which over-ran as there was so much to talk about.
Some of the key things that we came away from after this training day was:
- There’s a huge appetite for these dedicated sessions
- Councils NEED data from the District or County Council, so getting them to share it is critical
- Parish Online is finding more and more use-cases as more people adopt it in their Council.
We’d thoroughly recommend these dedicated training days, ideally hosted by the regional ALC, as they’re a great reason to get Clerks and Councillors together to share ideas, learn new techniques and improve digital take-up.
We’d like to thank everyone who attended this training day, and for Somerset ALC for arranging it. We’ll certainly be back, and look forward to doing more across the country.