Issue 18 - July 2020

Welcome

Welcome to another edition of Beacon News. Beacon newsletters have been through several iterations but have now, we hope, settled down. Most members of the Beacon community have access to the Internet so the Beacon website is the main method of communication. Beacon News is essentially a digest of new content from the Beacon website aimed at those who don't routinely visit the site, or to bring stories to the attention of those who may have missed them.

This edition is mostly about Beacon 2 and follows a meeting of the Project Board. We now have an up-to-date progress report, a revised timeline and a link to the Beacon 2 specification documents.

This edition also announces the top-level structure of the team of volunteers working to ensure that the transition to Beacon 2 is a success and news about the Beacon Help Centre.

Beacon Team In Place

The Beacon Team structure to support the upgrade project has been in place for some time and some sub-teams have already done a considerable amount of work preparing for Beacon 2. Beacon News will introduce the teams over the coming editions but for now you can see the names of the teams and their leads.

Beacon 2 Specifications Published

The Beacon 2 specifications have been published on the Beacon 2 section of the website. The specifications cover all  aspects of Beacon 2's behaviour from a user perspective including membership, groups, events, finance, the members' portal and the public website.

The specifications can be accessed from the Beacon 2 section of the website and each document has its own dedicated discussion thread on the Beacon User Forum.

Be warned: these are technical documents and must be read as such.

New Volunteers Now On Board

The recent appeal for more volunteers to help with Beacon 2, especially those with experience of training, was successful. Several talented people came forward - welcome to the Beacon team.

We thank them for giving up their time to help their fellow U3A members.

Happy Birthday, Beacon Help Centre

The help desk, which has now expanded to become the Beacon Help Centre, has just celebrated its first birthday. Roy Biggs leads the User Support team and tells us that the Beacon Help Centre has handled 700 tickets and that a staggering 90% of them were answered within 8 hours.
Not bad for volunteers.