Annual reports | Page 12

TELECENTRE EUROPE | ANNUAL REPORT 2016 ANNUAL REPORT 2016 | TELECENTRE EUROPE Communications and Events Communications and Events Basecamp Communication with our members took place through well-established channels such as Basecamp dedicated space – the faster and most direct means to reach them with useful updates about EU policy developments, open calls and other relevant information. In 2016 we continued to increase our visibility and advocacy in Brussels to re-affirm ourselves as major player in the field of digital skills and inclusion, at the same time staying in close communication with our members to better understand their needs. Towards the end of the year we embarked on an exciting rebranding adventure the outcomes of which will be announced in 2017. Telecentre Europe attended roughly 30 events organised by EC and partners in Brussels and across Europe in 2016, such as the Launch of the New Skills Agenda in May, the Annual Conference of the Lifelong Learning Platform in June or the Education, Training and Youth Forum in October. Our new CEO Laurentiu Bunescu and our president Mara Jakobsone were among the speakers at the eSkills for Jobs High level Conference “Europe in the Digital era – where skills are making the difference” organised in Bratislava on 18th October. TE was also official co-organiser of the launch event of the new Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition on 1st December in Brussels. As a member of the European Internet Forum (EIF) we presented our platform for ICT for learning and inclusion I-LINC at the Breakfast debate on “Digital platforms for social and economic inclusion” in the European Parliament on 19th October. Thanks to our increased visibility, we were invited as a key stakeholder to the workshop for European networks during the Adult Skills Conference in the framework of the EU VET week and two of our member organisations were invited as national stakeholders. Social media Being active on social media was part of the continuous communication strategy. TE has increased its fan- base on all social media channels as compared to 2015: from 1,200 to 1,400 on Facebook, from 1,263 to 1,546 on Twitter and from 136 to 212 on LinkedIn. Unite-IT community grew by 50 members in 2016 reaching 790 members and our I-LINC stakeholder platform now brings together over 500 stakeholders TE in the media We have had two media blogs on EURES (translated in all EU languages) – one was about the Get Online Week and the second about our stakeholder platform I-LINC. In addition to this, the Get Online Week was featured in a highly regarded public policy institute in the US – Brookings.edu – here. An article about coding in telecentres highlighting activities of Telecentre Europe members during the EU code week 2016 was published on the News section of the official codeweek.eu website and is accessible online here. Newsletter We have improved our newsletter by re-grouping the sections and simplifying the design. Since September 2016 we are sending it on a bi-monthly basis. We also reviewed our database of contacts. In many of our EU projects Telecentre Europe’s main role is communication and dissemination of the project results and we are also responsible for the visual identity, designing logos and promotional materials. To accomplish this, we continued out fruitful collaboration with our Belgian member Maks vzw on design and website development. 12 13