Rochdale Digital Festival

The Rochdale Online Team (Liz Munday, Claire Blanthorn, Pauline Journeaux, Harriet Jackson and Amy Westlake) at the Rochdale Digital Festival

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The first Rochdale Digital Festival took place today (Saturday 28 February) and has received praise from those who attended and took part.

Held at Number One Riverside, the festival included a number of stands and stalls offering help and advice to people who wanted to get online, use technology or who just needed help exploring the Internet.

Mayor of Rochdale, Councillor Carol Wardle praised the event and was pleased to see so much help for people who want to get online.

She said: “It has been a really good event. There are still so many people who struggle with things online and there has been so much help at this event that people have easily got help and can now get online.”

As well as technology help, there were activities for children including storytelling sessions, a ‘health hub’ held by Boots, Vibe Music offering people the opportunity to make music and BT checking if you can get super fast broadband.

Danielle Dixon from the Healthsmart Programme was using the festival as a platform to promote the service and to let people know that the service can be accessed online.

Speaking about the festival, Danielle said: “It has been really good to show people that the service is online as well as offline and has been a good opportunity to meet with people and let them know that the support is also online.”

Daniel Groves, a lighting supplier from Rochdale who uses the Rochdale Online Department Store to sell his products, came to the festival to show people how to use his website.

Daniel said: “I thought it would be a good way to advertise myself a little bit more and show people how to use my site and explain a bit about what I do. It has been good and I would do it again.”

Staff from the Rochdale branch of Marks and Spencer were at the event to show people how to access their services online as well as promoting the store locally.

Charlotte Smith from Marks and Spencer said: “We wanted to help people learn a bit more about what we do online and wanted to sign people up for our online services. It has been very good to meet with people and speak to them. It is also good to show off what we do because in our region, our store is one that people look at for ideas of things they can do in their store.”

The festival was also a hit with people who attended.

Adrienne Averill went to the festival to get some help with using her new tablet.

She said: “I am very pleased that I came. It has been really good. I am ok using my phone and I got the tablet at Christmas so came along to explore how to use it a bit more. I spent about 20 minutes with one of the volunteers and they were really helpful.”

Mansoor Ahmed has recently got online and came to the festival to learn a bit more. He said: “It has been very good. I have enjoyed the event and had some help exploring things online.”

James O’Reilly met with some students from Hopwood Hall College who were helping people with technical advice.

He said: “To be able to come along and speak to people face to face and get advice on a few things has been great. There are always manuals you can read and videos you can watch but talking to someone face to face is usually the best way. I think it’s something that I would definitely come to again.”

The festival was organised by Rochdale Council and supported by Rochdale Online, BBC Radio Manchester and Hopwood Hall College.