At a meeting of the Board of the National Federation held on the 30th November, 2016, it was agreed to establish a National Federation Information Technology (IT) Sub Committee. This came about following expressions of interest from member organisations who came forward to the Federation in respect of setting up and participating on a potential IT Sub Committee.
Members expressed that this would be of great benefit and support to their IT Managers working in their organisations.
As a result, an email invitation was sent out by the Federation to all member organisations inviting expressions of interest to the Sub Committee.
Sub Committee members:
- Ability West-Declan Noone, Network Administrator (Chairperson)
- Brothers of Charity Galway-Kevin Dunne
- Brothers of Charity-Ronan Coy, National Head of ICT
- Cheeverstown House-Seán Corcoran, I.T. Manager/Administration
- CoAction West Cork-Mary O’Donovan, Financial Controller/Margaret Horan
- Cope Foundation-Marguerite O’Brien, Head of Quality, Systems & Shared Services
- Avista -Tom MacArdle, IT Administrator
- KARE-Paul Switzer, Finance & ICT Manager
- Muiríosa Foundation-Stephen O’Rourke, Manager ICT,
- St. Cronan’s-Martin Carney, Deputy General Manager
- St. John of Gods-Brendan McCormack, Director of ICT
- St. Joseph's Foundation-Richard Hayes, Finance/I.T. Manager
- St Michael’s House-Gabriel Kiernan, IT Manager
- Sunbeam House Services-Kevin Hoey, Senior Development Manager, ICT Manager
- Western Care Association-Tia Crowley, Finance and IT Manager
Nominated Chair
Mr. Declan Noone, Ability West, is our appointed Chairperson for the IT Sub Committee. At the inaugural meeting on 1st March 2017, Declan Noone from Ability West was appointed Chairperson for the IT Sub Committee.
Role of the group
The world of IT is fast advancing, so with that in mind. The IT Sub Committee feel that it is paramount to keep up to date with all that is happening in terms of IT advances. The following aims/topics were highlighted in the Terms of reference:
- Share learning and IT expertise among members
- Discuss developments in various Hardware levels, software level
- Keep up to date with storage and backup systems
- Monitoring and maintenance
- Mobile Security & Monitoring
- Cloud Migrations
- Office 365
- Support & Maintenance
- Email / SharePoint / Intranet / etc.
- Safeguarding Policy
- Records Management Systems
- General Data Protection Regulation-GDPR
- Invite experts in various fields within IT
- Discuss and highlight current Issues and advances in IT
Meetings
- It was decided at the inaugural meeting that the IT Sub Committee would meet 3 times a year. The 2nd meeting took place in the National Federations office on the 21st June where Sytorus presented on GDPR.
- The next scheduled meeting will take place on the 18th October in Brothers of Charity Services Limerick at 11.00am.
- Outside speakers and presenters will be invited to present and share on relevant topics of interest.
- A community of shared learning approach is welcomed during the meetings, which will enable members to share their experiences and IT skills among each other.
Admin support
Niamh Mc Gauley, National Federation Secretariat is offering admin support on this IT Sub Committee.
Sharing of information and resources
IT Sub Committee members agreed to share all up to date contacts within the group. A What’s App group has also been set up among members to facilitate shared learning and open communication.