About Us

Hello, I have decided to make the About Byteback page informal.  If you would like something a bit more formal  click here to  view my company profile.

How the open courses at the Tŷ Llywelyn Community Centre came about

A few years ago I was looking into offering my services to Voluntary Services Overseas at some time in the future.  The minimum time you could commit to was for six months - as I am self employed I was unable to do this as I would lose all my clients!  That August I was fairly quiet and so I rang Conwy Voluntary Services up and offered them free Computer training - we provided this at the Tŷ Llywelyn Community Centre in Llandudno.  I was asked by the staff at the Centre if I would be interesting in submitting a tender to provide IT training for the Tudno and Mostyn Community as they had received funding for one year for this purpose - I was thrilled when I received a phone call telling me my tender was successful.

The year flew by as we had so many activities going on here - these included our Silver Surfers Day, Homework Club, Using the Digital Camera, Buying and Selling on eBay and all kinds of IT courses for residents of the Tudno and Mostyn wards, we even had a `teach your granny to text` course!  It was a great success and everyone learned a lot and had fun.  My background has always been training for large and small businesses so this was new for me too.  Our funding ran out, and obviously I have to earn a living! So I returned to travelling the country often getting up at 05:00 to do my day`s work (that is not nice). 

I was asked by staff at the Centre if I had any ideas on how to make the project self sustainable - I certainly did!  I have always wanted to offer Open IT Training Courses in North Wales and this is what I suggested!  We decided to give it a go and we had a super launch week in July when Gareth Jones (Welsh Assembly Member for Aberconwy) kindly came along to perform the official opening. We have now started taking bookings for our courses, these are coming from the Tudno and Mostyn residents and all types of organisations both large and small, from all areas of North Wales.

I am amazed at all the support we are receiving, it is really unbelievable!  We received funding to buy new equipment and software for our IT training room from Conwy County Borough Council, Cymorth and the Welsh Assembly Government, distributed by Conwy Voluntary Services Council.

Karen, who worked for Woolworths for 25 years, came on one of the courses and offered to help me with the admin side of things - WOW what a difference this has made.

Arthur, a Technical Writer for 26 years, has also joined us as a volunteer. He is currently writing a brilliant new Visio manual for one of our clients - so if you need bespoke training writing do give us a call.

Matthew called to see if I needed any help with the marketing of the courses - do we just!  (horses for courses springs to mind - I love training!)  Matthew is currently looking at the contents of this site with me. Ooops I expect I will be doing a rewrite shortly!

  

The Accidental IT Trainer!

How did I get into IT? Well I decided I needed a CV, my children Simon and Helen were growing up and it was time I was thinking of returning to work!

Off I went to Llandrillo College and I enrolled on a Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) course. Strangely enough I really enjoyed it – I was very naughty at school and the comments were always the same - Susan has the ability but... I think I was a bit of a chatter box. Anyway, I had the bug! I returned to Llandrillo College and enrolled on a two year course - the LCCI Private Secretaries Certificate and again I really enjoyed it. I suppose I had to work hard, everyone else on the course was over 20 years younger than me – they were lovely and I soon made friends.

I enjoyed everything, except the blooming word processing lessons. Somehow computers had sneaked in while I was busy having my family. I just could not get used to them! During the second year we were told we had to go on a one month work placement, mmm I gave this some thought and realised I needed to go into an office that used computers. I phoned James Elson of Colwyn Computers, who I knew through school and asked him if he would like a secretary for a month, yes he agreed I could be his secretary for a month.

WOW what an eye opener! I soon realised that jobs that had taken me a week on the typewriter (does anyone remember them? – crikey) could be done in minutes! I was hooked and IT became my hobby – I loved finding quick ways to do things.

I went to work for James when I finished college, my first job of the day was to walk the dog, second was a cuppa then playing on computers - thank you James! Next, I joined Super Temps and my first job was a one day booking at North Wales Tourism – what a lovely place to work I loved it! I ended up staying there for seven years and I really enjoyed the work - it was very interesting and of course lots of IT. Someone came to train me and asked me if I would consider becoming an IT Trainer, WHAT ? ME? NEVER! I thought about this and again went back to Llandrillo where this time I did the JEB Teachers’ Diploma in Information Technology course.  I was sad to leave all my friends at North Wales Tourism and love it when we can get together! 

 I have now been a freelance trainer for over 12 years – I think I have the best job in the world!

The moral of this story is if I can do IT anybody can!

ByteBack – get your own back on the software that gives you grief!

Sue Jackson is an IT trainer, with a unique, friendly and fun approach to computer training

 

 


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