TechSoup New Zealand was offered the opportunity to attend this annual event in Wellington with a view to alerting attendees from all around New Zealand to the availability of technology donations and discounts. This was a weekend event, with registration on the Friday afternoon, so we had our stand for the Friday afternoon during the registration phase.

TechSoup New Zealand was offered the opportunity to attend this annual event in Wellington with a view to alerting attendees from all around New Zealand to the availability of technology donations and discounts. This was a weekend event, with registration on the Friday afternoon, so we had our stand for the Friday afternoon during the registration phase.

This was an event attended by over 100 trainees, all of who were representative of local toy libraries, many of whom were already familiar with the TechSoup programme, and inevitably many of whom weren't. Some toy libraries were run in association with other well-established local organisations, like Plunket, Parents Centres and the like and maybe also run out of local authority buildings. Some did not even use computers, yet others staged a display of their local toy library using a laptop and screen, rather than just a simple poster board and photos.

There was much interest expressed in the availability of low cost software together with refurbished computers. The Federation itself expressed an interest in Go To Meeting to be a step up from their monthly nationwide Skype catch-ups.

David spent some time with a group of people who wanted to get some tips on how to introduce computers to their library to replace their age-old card system, though they said they did have a website! Interestingly, they went away seeing the potential offered by the internet and challenged  to get their toy library catalogue reworked to become an online facility for both internal and external access & usage.