Now both Katherine and Miles have already written their impressions of our first meeting with Kaira, the manager at the North Shore Women's Centre (from here on in referred to as the NSWC), but everyone knows that Ihave to stick my 2 cents in :)
I just have to start off with how excited I was on our way there, I really couldn't wait to see what Kaira was like and to hear what the NSWC was all about. I'd already read the mission statement on their website, but listening to someone actually within the organisation and getting to ask about anything and everything was quite great! It turned out we did quite a bit of talking too, and Kaira wanted to find out all about us. She was really lovely and I can tell that the 4 of us will make a fantastic team, and it'll be awesome for us to teach her our digital ways.
It immediately became apparent that the NSWC is quite a small organisation in terms of employees, which is why increasing their online presence will be dramatically important for them and their influence, because it's such an easy/cheap way of getting to their target audience.
The NSWC was our first choice, and I'm so glad we got them. Kaira is so open-minded about everything and willing to try everything. She is already full of ideas, and willing to work around other commitments (including, of course, her work at the NSWC, and her kids), to give us as much assistance as we need. It's so important to us, because there is no point in our trio creating all these tools for the centre if we haven't taught staff how to use them!
Incidentally, we will need to work very closely with the NSWC, as any changes to their website, colour scheme, logo, or anything related to the project needs to first be formally approved by the board of trustees of the organisation. We understand these formalities, as this is an organisation with a lot of history behind it, and we wouldn't want to break too many traditions... but definitely bend a few!
A significant challenge the NSWC faces is the lack of interest in gender equality issues these days. Most young women think take some of their rights for granted. It's not like in the 80's when the NSWC was founded + the feminist movement was alive and strong. These days young people don't even know that, for example, British politicians recently voted on whether to reduce the allowable time limit for abortion from 24 weeks down to 20. Thankfully most of them opposed it, but what happens if the conservatives come to power? Basically, young people need to be informed on these issues, and we will help the NSWC get their message out through the wonderful magic of the internet.
At 40 years old, Kaira is the youngest member of the NSWC staff, and she acknowledges the help they need in the digital arena. Though none of us three are specifically competent at things to do with the web, just by being generation Y'ers we have precious knowledge to share that we didn't even know we had! After finding out more about each other, the conversation quickly turned to things to do with the challenge, and everyone had so many great ideas. I am so looking forward to putting pen to paper tomorrow and coming up with a definite plan.
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