Episode 9 - Crossreach project
Kirsty McIntosh and Graham Johnston chat to Tanya Anderson of Crossreach Counselling Scotland and the STA's Luke Woollett about their work to bring Crossreach's services into the digital age.
Transcript
Kirsty McIntosh 0:00
Hello, welcome to the Scottish Tech Army Podcast. I'm Kirsty McIntosh. This is episode Nine. Welcome again, Graham. How are you doing?
Graham Johnston 0:08
I'm good. Thank you How you doing?
Kirsty McIntosh 0:10
Not too bad. Thank you one of these days we need to have a conversation about who the hell you are - we still haven't managed to introduce you properly.
Graham Johnston 0:15
Well, I still have no idea who the hell I am either. So I'll find that out and then we can have a conversation about it.
Kirsty McIntosh 0:21
That's a whole other episode. How fantastic. Today I'm very, very pleased to welcome to the podcast Tanya Anderson. Tanya is the Development Advisor for Children and Family Services at Crossreach Counselling Scotland, which is part of a larger organisation in Scotland. Hello, Tanya, welcome to the podcast.
Tanya Anderson 0:40
Hi. Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for inviting me along.
Kirsty McIntosh 0:44
You're very welcome. Also welcoming again, Luke Woollett, who is one of our fantastic volunteers at the Scottish Tech Army and is also leading this project with Tanya, how are you doing, Luke?
Luke Woollett 0:56
I'm good. Thanks, Kirsty, thanks, Graham. Good to be back.
Kirsty McIntosh 1:00
Excellent, nice to have you on the show once more. Tanya, I wonder if you could perhaps give us a bit of an overview of what Crossreach Counselling Scotland is and does and how it fits into the larger organisation of Crossreach.
Tanya Anderson 1:12
And well cross which is a very large organisation. It's one of the largest social care organisations in Scotland. It has, it's divided up into three particular parts, which is the older people services, adult services and Children and Family Services. That's what you'll see how it's divided on the website, and how it's described. The counselling fits into the Children and Families. I've been working with the Children and Families service since I joined in 2013 as part of the Children and Families Early Intervention Fund from the Scottish Government, and I very much got involved with the counselling services back in 2015. And that's where this has all come from, how can we reach out to more children and families across Scotland out of our geographical remit? So that is very much where I fit in. We have offices, our counselling offices are based in basically the cities we've got Inverness, Moray, that's our little kind of country one, Glasgow and Edinburgh. And of course, there's a lot more areas in Scotland than just that geographical area.
Kirsty McIntosh 2:27
So what does that Crossreach itself, the organisation actually do what's its origins?
Tanya Anderson 2:33
So the origins are the social care with the Church of Scotland. It's was renamed Crossreach I think 12 years ago. And as you see on the website, it's you know, we, we reach out to all those who need additional support of some way or another sometime in their lives. And that of course, very much is very much includes support for the family and counselling. So our counselling services reach from birth with our perinatal counselling, you know to death, as we say. We have specialists in our generic counselling, our children and school counselling, our perinatal counselling and our workplace counselling. So we often divide our counselling services into eight specific areas, which again sounds like quite a lot. But it shows that you know, we are very bespoke out the counselling services we offer.
Kirsty McIntosh 3:37
And these are predominantly one to ones, face to face interactions most of the time?
Tanya Anderson 3:42
Absolutely. Counselling was always face to face. That is how we provided our counselling. It was always in the very bespoke creatively designed counselling rooms in our offices. We have hubs in different areas of Scotland as well. And then some of our counsellors do go into schools where of course the school has a specific room, you know, for extra support such as counselling. Of course, it's very much changed this year of how we're now providing, and hopefully offering our counselling.
Kirsty McIntosh 4:22
Yeah, so what happened in the pandemic, then? I mean, did literally your services just come to a kind of grinding halt? Or did you end up sort of trying to switch to... what did you do? It must have been must have been really worrying for you?
Tanya Anderson 4:34
It was for the counsellors in that the system works where you, you know, a lot of our referrals come from the health, the GP or the health side, about a third are self referrals. And they go through, you know, the application process, meeting the counsellor for the initial assessment and that is done you know, via email via telephone, and then they go and meet the counsellor face to face. It is just been that system you know, for the 32 years we've been we've been working in our counselling services. And suddenly, you know, it came to March and I remember the phone calls coming in saying, we need to change the details on our website page. This office needs to close this office, we'll keep going. Next day, this office has got to close as well. And it's suddenly like we all felt the drawbridge was coming up. And a lot of our counsellors naturally, you know, were seeing clients and they were due to see them tomorrow. They were due to see them next week. They had it all planned, how were they going to continue. And we didn't just jump on to the Zooms, which everyone knows about now or the Microsoft Teams, because through, were registered with with COSCA (Counselling and Psychotherapy in Scotland) and BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy). And they hadn't verified that those video tools were safe enough for us. So it was suddenly we've got to sort this out.
Kirsty McIntosh 6:07
That must have been awful. I can't. I can't imagine the stress that your team must have been under when they were trying to deal with that. So how did you come across the tech army then?
Tanya Anderson 6:16
flew to the Digital Health and Care Institute, which we refer to as DH &I. And we have, that was a lifesaver. We hadn't heard of this possibility. We've been working with DHS for five years. I said, you know, this online counselling wasn't completely new, it didn't spring out, spring out of nowhere just because of this lockdown. We've been working with the Digital Health Institute since 2015 to find a way of providing counselling to more people in more remote areas. And when we say remote, it's not just in the Highlands and Islands. It's some people who can't even leave their house who are in a 2 mile radius from our main office. And they kindly referred us to the Scottish Tech Army said, look, I think we found someone who can help you. And after five years of knocking on so many doors and getting some absolutely brilliant help, but we were starting to go, when's this going, when are we going to find a solution? I keep saying to the counsellors who I'm training on how to use this new online, digital, you know, counselling tool. We were already harnessed up, you know, for that bungee jump, we just needed to be pushed off the cliff. And the first team that came and caught us to make us extra secure was, you know, Scottish Tech Army.
Kirsty McIntosh 7:41
That's fabulous. Fantastic. Luke, can you tell us a little bit about the project that actually ended up on your, on your table?
Luke Woollett 7:49
Absolutely. So I think, you know, the first thing to call out is the original proposal we got through from Crossreach whilst it was you know, fantastic and there's so much potential it was actually of a scale that the STA as it was that couldn't really have committed to it. You know, you're talking a kind of 6 to 12 month programme with online health care portal, self care, CRM implementations and kind of everything that went along with it. So we had a number of calls up front with Crossreach to really try and distil those requirements down so we could see how we can resolve some of the challenges they were having specific to COVID. But what we actually wanted to do at the same time was actually built some of the foundation so that they could use those moving forward. So we have kind of three strands of the project that we're currently running at the moment. The first is the new web based application which will allow individuals and healthcare professionals to refer to counselling so it replaces the existing call up service, or sending an email or kind of referral through GP. It's just a very simple online form that you can go in and provide some basic details and that will automatically take you through and add you to the waiting list. The second component of the project is we're actually introducing a very basic CRM solution for Crossreach. We're taking a Microsoft Dynamics instance, and getting that deployed to help manage their waiting lists. We're building it in such a way that it can very much be expanded out in the future, it can be used for kind of end to end case management, but our scope will be kind of very much restricted to that waiting list. And then the third channel, the third activity stream we have is helping Crossreach with some kind of digital marketing based activity. So looking at the fundraising side of things, how can we help with enhancing the Just Giving page, what kind of promotions and campaigns could they run through social media? So we've been doing a bit of consultation around that. So really kind of wide, wide ranging and varied. But we've got a fantastic team in the Tech Army, who've all been kind of working to help make that reality and working really at pace.
Kirsty McIntosh 10:02
Yes, actually, that thing about working at pace was something that came up when we were researching this. Tanya, you mentioned the fact that you've been somewhat taken aback by the speed at which the Tech Army is moving on this one.
Tanya Anderson 10:14
I know. Absolutely. I was delighted when I was asked to come and be the, what do you call me Luke? The project coordinator, the one from Crossreach, as I call myself, who comes in and joins them in the daily chat, which is fabulous. And yeah, Sheila Gordon, the Director of Children and Families, you know, kindly asked me, you know, would you would you be okay to get involved with this? And I was like, absolutely. I've worked with universities in Scotland for the last five years. Who are, you know the masters, the innovators, you know, they're only with you for three weeks and they blow you away and we think how did you find out about us and do that within three weeks? And and so I'm, I'm used to pace I'm used to being sprung with some quite out of the out of the box suggestions. I think, Kirsty you mentioned the sweetie box. You know, there's a sweetie box coming and you're not quite sure what's in it. And, and so I'm thinking you might you know, is this going to be a, you know, three months like I do with the universities? Or is this going to be longer because sometimes they leave us with so much we don't know how to keep up. But yeah, I didn't quite expect also just the brilliant enthusiasm, Luke your team has I've, I've laughed, I've looked forward to the call at four o'clock every day. So it's a bit of a party for me. They're so just relaxed but friendly and enthusiastic. Some have had to leave as already and say, "but I'll help if you need me". And then we've had some new ones come back in. So, again, that innovative idea but again, Luke as I've told you some and I was saying to Kirsty earlier, some of our team when I'm talking to them at four o'clock afterwards, every day they go to how much longer we got? How much longer we got? When, when have they got no more time for us?
Kirsty McIntosh 12:12
Yeah, so interesting. I said, one of the messages that we keep trying to get out about working with the Tech Army is that we're not a kind of, there is no end if you see what I mean, if there are projects that you want us to work on, if we think we can help you then then we would love you know, we love the idea of those longer term relationships. So this isn't just a kind of single use at once you've used us once you don't get to do it again. And yeah, the sweetie box reference there, Luke was actually about there are so many ideas, obviously that Crossreach Counselling Scotland have come up with areas where they can help. And they just kind of- Tanya was just basically sort of saying that we know sort of down the line when we're ready to take them on that, that we get to pick which ones you know which ones we go with first and things like that, which is which is really lovely. It's really nice to have that level of enthusiasm about what you're doing. Have you enjoyed working on this one?
Luke Woollett 13:00
Yeah, no, no, very much so and as Tonya has mentioned, I think credit to the full team certainly alluded to, we've actually had five people who've got jobs and have unfortunately left. But all of them have said, well, I can duck back on in the evening, I can help out, I can do whatever it takes. And, and despite delivering at pace, we're working, as a lot of the STA projects do to kind of mentor people, help those who maybe haven't got as much commercial experience on board and, and we're really seeing everyone kind of step up to the plate. Everyone's willing to kind of roll their sleeves up really kind of get stuck in and we're seeing some of the junior PMs on the project who are taking responsibility for writing test cases for supporting the UX work. You know, it's really been fantastic. I think embedding Tonya within the team has been a massive help as well because it's meant that we've had a single point of contact, just to keep things consistent to make messaging easier. But it's also meant that Tonya is on point to challenge us and we're on point to immediately challenge Tanya. And I think as a result of that, as Tanya said we've had some really innovative solutions, we've pushed the boundaries of what we can do. And not only that, but how quickly we can do it. I mean, when we're talking about speed the web app beginning to end, completely bespoke, we're talking under two weeks and that's requirements, design and build. And we've actually had to put the CRM piece on hold for a couple of weeks just to allow things to kind of settle down and some of the discussions that we need to have with Crossreach to take place. But, but you know, it really is a credit to the team who've come together really as complete strangers, and very quickly getting into a way of working and rapid delivery.
Graham Johnston 14:43
Sounds incredible, both the work that's done and the and the result it's had. So, you know, Luke, who talked about what's been delivered and what you guys are working on, those three key areas. Tanya, can you try and explain what impact that's had on both the counsellors and also those that benefit from the counselling services?
Tanya Anderson 15:03
Well, I mean for the counsellors themselves. It's Jackie Walker, who's head of service. And then Christina Smiley and Craig Miller, who I meet every day. They're the managing coordinators for all of the services put together. And again I remember just talking to Jackie, yesterday, she was sitting there going. "So is this really happening? Can I just can I just reflect, have we really got to this stage" and I'm just like, yeah, as I said, for five years, I mean, we we've all had iPads for what, a decade now, we've had iPhones for what, longer than that. You know, we've been working from different devices and tablets, for, you know, a good length of time now. And that's why, you know, we can't believe that we haven't been able to find any way of reaching out in the last five years when we really started looking for it. And now you know, we could have, as Luke said, we could be putting something out into the public in the next couple of weeks to say, here we are, we can support you, press this button tell us more about yourself. Rather than someone having to pick up the phone, leave a message, go through to one of our business support administrators. And again, when we started looking for this, we were planning to have the digital tools sitting in an office where the broadband had been checked, where the admin team knew exactly how it worked while they sat in the office, and the counsellor would come into the office to see the client at home, but the counsellor would be in our office, just like GPs are using Attend Anywhere in their, in their actual surgery, seeing some face to face, some online. We were going to do it the same way in our counselling offices. Now we have - and I've trained over 120 volunteer counsellors - we have 300 but 120 are now registered to be our distance counselling. We have 120 qualified with an Attend Anywhere App, the NHS Attend Anywhere web platform, sitting at home, ready to meet a client. We have a business support administrator sitting at home with an online appointment schedule instead of standing up from the office, which they were doing up until November - up until January this year to write in the book like one of those hotel books. This is your appointment time. I mean, we are so delighted and we were you know, lucky that Attend Anywhere wasn't new to as we've as Kirsty was saying we were kindly referred to Attend Anywhere by Digital Health Institute four years ago. So that wasn't new. But again, the counsellors are looking forward to it, they're seeing the challenge. They've had to do extra training to do this. They know we're working with STA, they're a bit nervous saying "well, we've got a waiting list but, but we want to be able to offer our support more". And that's also and will be another big plug for us to attract more counsellors to come and volunteer with Crossreach.
Kirsty McIntosh 18:11
So what's the reaction been of your client base then? Are you, you know you're already doing this ,you've been able to get access to your to your clients, people who need to, I mean, it must be must be such a relief for them is it?
Tanya Anderson 18:24
The counsellors yes, I'm speaking to it was 50-50 at the start, we had to you know, in March we phoned up the counsellors phoned up every client said right, we can't see you face to face. We can't offer you video consultation yet or video calls, that is something we're now developing very - as quickly as we can. And do you want to start by telephone? When we then got into the video potential, onto Attend Anywhere, they had to call them up again say "right, would you like the video or stay with the telephone? Now we're on to new clients. And this is where again, the STA come in, where instead of new clients having to go through the old process and phone up one of the business support who was sitting at home with no one else to quickly turn around and get support from, they can put their feelings down, why they've come to us, you know, on a on a very safe online application form. But yeah, for existing clients, it was it was very different across the board, across the board. And we still have the waiting list, some we never - we didn't get to see face to face who are waiting since some of them since in the beginning of the year and are still waiting. And of course when we see them for the first time, it's going to be video or telephone because are offices are still not opening.
Kirsty McIntosh 19:47
Right, right. Switching across to you, Luke just briefly, because I know you have to leave us, tell us a little bit about how it's been working with that, the usual sort of Tech Army inhalation and exhalation of volunteers and actually delivering a project in the middle of all of that. How's that been for you?
Luke Woollett 20:05
It's certainly been challenging. You know, I think, as an individual, you have to adapt your delivery mechanism for working with volunteers, I think. And I don't want to make it sound like that lowering standards, but it's more of an understanding of, well, people are doing this as they can and when they can. That means some of the team might be on at 6am. Some of the team might be on at midnight, and we just find a way to make it work. And certainly by having our daily stand ups, we've got a call every day with the whole team. And really just using Slack that certainly helped from a communication perspective. I think we've had quite a high number of people who've actually gone on to find employment, which has been really, really good. I think we've gone to three business analysts, a designer, and a developer as well and all of them have gone on to get new things but even when they have those opportunities in the pipeline, every one of them still showed a massive effort to get their deliverables over the line. What do you need for me before I go, what kind of handover are we talking? Here's my phone number so you can contact me when I've gone if you've got any queries, which has certainly been a massive help. And I think despite the fact we're running it as the STA we very much deliver this as a normal commercial product project. And I think that's very much helping the members of the team in, in having a sense of direction getting some of that professional development as they start working on the project.
Kirsty McIntosh 21:32
Yes, wonderful experience for them.
Tanya Anderson 21:34
I'm saying at the start and what I hope I've, you know, told your team Luke, is the work that's being done here is it, we were third sector and as Sheila said right at the beginning, we don't want to patent this, this is not just for us, we want to absolutely then be a leader - Crossreach want to be a leader and this is this is going back to what I was saying earlier, the huge, very, you know, expansive area and different services in Crossreach to show - go outside and ask someone for some help, you know, you're helping us with, with our donation page, which we've been running for years. You know, but we need that innovative, you know, input. We want to share this work with Attend Anywhere and how you're going to, you know, help us get more clients, the right clients to see them in whichever way, remote or face to face and and show the Samaritans... show, you know, that Women's Aid is using Attend Anywhere. Show them that this is doable, that... don't hold back.
Kirsty McIntosh 22:37
Yes, absolutely. It's just absolutely incredible. And Luke, thank you very much. I know that you've got to leave us but we're keeping Tanya for a few more minutes.
Luke Woollett 22:46
No, absolutely not a problem. I think just one, one more thing I wanted to say. You know, just to kind of finish up is obviously I think this is a subject matter which is quite close to everyone. You know, when we're talking about mental health. And I think particularly with what we've seen over the past six months, it's put strains and pressures on people that we would never have expected, you know, you would never expect to spend six months locked in your house with all your children not getting five minutes peace or you know, a cup of tea. And I think because of that the team really sees the potential. And I think that's one of the reasons why there's the passion, because everyone's talking about there's going to be start to be an increase in a kind of referrals, people needing counselling and GPs already starting to report things like this. So if we can do something to simplify that process, and then not only that, but support Crossreach with supporting more people, I think that's, you know, a massive win for the Tech Army.
Kirsty McIntosh 23:44
Yeah, it's fantastic. And actually, it touches on something that we were going to refer to in a few minutes anyway, which is that we will be returning to the subject of mental health in a podcast episode in a couple of weeks' time, hopefully with some input from from Crossreach as well. I think it's incredibly important that we were upfront about it. I mean, I have my own story to tell there as well. So I think it's I think it's great. And it's really nice that we're actually working on a project where we can see the benefit of being able to talk to people, I suppose at the end of the day, it's wonderful.
Graham Johnston 24:16
Absolutely. Thank you, Luke.
Kirsty McIntosh 24:18
Thanks, Luke. Yeah, we haven't really had enough time to ask you enough questions, Tanya and Graham hasn't had a chance to get a word in edgeways as usual, sorry Graham.
Graham Johnston 24:28
Not at all. I did say you were taking a lead on this one Kirsty for sure. I think we've heard some amazing stuff about what's about to be launched. And obviously, you know, what the impact is going to be for people to be able to, you know, bring these services to life. You mentioned earlier, about, you know, the rooms been specifically designed for counselling. And you know, the fact that this is something that's gone in years of research to get these rooms looking right and feeling right. What do you think? How'd you were you going to recreate that type of environment using the technology that's available now? Because obviously we've got some great advancements and being able to offer these services up. How will we be able to continue to offer that same type of experience albeit in a different manner? Through the medium that we're talking about here? Do you think?
Tanya Anderson 25:18
it again, what the COVID lockdown has done for all of us is, is we've seen different people in different lights. There's the jokes on social media about people not getting out of their pyjamas all day. You know, that's suddenly not a joke. It might have been in March, April, but it's not. I don't feel it's a joke anymore. Or, you know, if you do, then get some support, even if it's from a family member, and it's face to face on a Zoom link. Like that's becoming the trendy thing to do. You know, the old quiz shows with your family on a Sunday. And suddenly that family member doesn't look very happy or doesn't - suddenly their appearance looks very different what you expected. You know, what are you? How can you help? And this is an increasing need. And as you know, Luke was saying there', we feel there is going to be more people needing help in a different way. And Crossreach do have that facility. We, as I was mentioning all the services earlier from workplace counselling, to generic counselling to the very bespoke, perinatal, and, and addictions counselling, and we are there to help. We want to make sure we're absolutely helping the right people, and often over a telephone call or referral from a health visitor or GP, we would definitely know that person has gone through all the other potential areas of support before they come to counselling. When you go to online inquiry, the online inquiry. We've never asked someone so many questions right from the word go. We've taken a call and said What's your name? This time we're asking them Why are you here? How can we help before we ask them their name? And through absolutely I research and again working with STA, also what we keep saying to them is you're the general public, aren't you? You're just, you're techies, but you also you're also the Joe Bloggs.
Graham Johnston 27:21
Yeah.
Tanya Anderson 27:23
They're not they haven't been sitting in counselling, being a counsellor for often 10, 20 years, which a lot of our staff are and, and so it's been really useful and the different age groups as Luke was mentioning that we've got some in their 20s getting experience, some older with expertise and with children who walk into the app on a, on a , at three o'clock which is always quite good fun. And they are giving us a lot of just heartfelt direct response of I wouldn't really understand that I'd feel a bit awkward if I was asked that or it was worded that way.
Graham Johnston 28:01
Great.
Tanya Anderson 28:02
That's been really, really heartfelt. And thanks for that response, not just the oh I'm the techie and I was just asked to do this formula.
Graham Johnston 28:09
Yeah, incredible stuff. And I think that's just shows the, I guess the the breadth of the experience and the expertise across the STA. And as you've said, you've had so many different people come into the project. And I guess potentially that that means that potentially you might have had a different set of views coming in at different parts of the project, which you maybe wouldn't have done before with just one team of people that is set to do the project start to end which a normal kind of project would have having different people come in at different parts might have given you a different perspective on those different aspects of it.
Tanya Anderson 28:43
Yeah. And they've chosen to be there. I remember when Luke just had to quickly find someone in the marketing expertise to come in because someone else had got a job. They haven't been pulled in, they've read, they've read the they've read about Crossreach, they've read why we're here and they wanted to come in and help. And you can see that
Kirsty McIntosh 29:04
It's that two way street and we keep talking about Graham, isn't it, that the people who put in the time to volunteer, they get so much out of it. And this is obviously a project that's really resonated with with them with all of the people that have sort of swung through it. And actually, as you say, all of those, all of those constantly sort of fresh ideas and perspectives. It's one of the joys of the Tech Army it's that diversity of thought that continuously kind of kind of washes through the Tech Army as new volunteers come and go and will walk away with new experiences. It's wonderful.
Graham Johnston 29:34
Yeah, I completely agree. If people are sitting here listening to this Tanya and saying, you know, either I want to get involved as a as a counsellor, or I want to benefit from the support that's available from Crossreach. How do they go about it?
Tanya Anderson 29:50
At the moment, it's find your nearest service on our website. So if you click on the website, if it's counselling, you click on counselling, you go through the process if it's one to one or, you know, family or couples, and you pick up the telephone, and even though we're all working remotely, those telephone numbers still do work. And there's the email there. But of course, what we want, and I'm not giving a timeframe away at all of when the STA app goes on the website. That just opens the fields completely, makes it I think, feel smoother, easier. We're also used to putting our names on a on an app, you know, we've already we've been having to order everything online in the last six months, or we haven't we know walk, walk to a shop. If someone knows Amazon didn't use Amazon before they've definitely used it. Now we're also used to putting our name and address in and our telephone number. And it's just that ease that ease they haven't had to talk to anyone on a phone, haven't had to talk to a stranger that who they can't see. They don't know how they're going to respond to them. They are putting themselves on a website, on an app. We don't ask their names and details right from the start. And this was all the STA was saying, actually, you know, let's find out why they're here first. And then if they want to stay, that's when we'll say, give us, give us a few details. And we'll be very happy to to give you a call or drop you a line.
Kirsty McIntosh 31:24
It's brilliant, I can't wait to see it. I can't wait to see and it's coming soon. I mean, we haven't put a date on it yet. But actually, it's coming down the pipe sort of fairly quickly, which is great. What's the web address for you at the moment, Tanya?
Tanya Anderson 31:38
So the Crossreach web address is just crossreach.org.uk, so www.crossreach.org.uk and it will, it will show you all the host of services we offer. But it's easy to navigate and have a have a look through.
Kirsty McIntosh 31:57
That's marvellous. Well, listen, it's been absolutely fascinating. Tanya, and I really look forward to having a conversation with you again, when we've got another one of those sweeties out of the box.
Tanya Anderson 32:06
I know and get the sweeties come in all different sizes, don't they, Kirsty, but I'm not saying we're getting we're taking the biggest one out of the box to start with. But we're very excited to get going, take one out, unwrap it and start enjoying the use of it.
Kirsty McIntosh 32:27
Absolutely, fantastic. Wonderful. Thanks again for your time today.
Graham Johnston 32:29
Thanks Tanya
Tanya Anderson 32:30
Thanks so much.
Graham Johnston 32.53
That was excellent, really good conversation, wasn’t it?
Kirsty McIntosh
Yeah, absolutely superb, really lovely to hear that story and can’t wait to see it go live in a couple of weeks’ time. Fantastic
Graham Johnston
I know, we’ll need to get her back on and hear the impacts that its had on both the counsellors and also the people who’ve been able to use that service once it’s live. Sounds like it’s going to make a massive difference.
Kirsty McIntosh
Yeah and how great to have the Tech Army involved in something that big and that important. It’s absolutely wonderful.
Graham Johnston
It is and word of mouth is so important isn’t it for the Scottish Tech Army and that’s why if you’re listening to this podcast we really want people to engage with the Scottish Tech Army and actually the podcast is a good way of doing it and sort of bring to life what we’re actually doing and what the teams are getting up to. So if you like what you’re hearing please share this on your social media platforms, tell everyone about it so they can engage with the podcast and then ultimately and more importantly with the Scottish Tech Army.
Kirsty McIntosh
Yeah, do please tell people that it’s worth listening to - definitely.
Graham Johnston
If you think it is – ha ha.
Kirsty McIntosh
If you think it is. So I’ve had a communication from a few folk wanting to know about our new piece of music and I thought it might be quite nice to tell them a wee story about where the music’s come from.
Graham Johnston
Yeah, so it’s actually it’s my brother-in-law, actually. It’s a band called Whisky Kiss and they do mostly kind of ceilidh music but they’ve got this kind of unique fusion of ceilidh and sort of house music, so yea Whisky Kiss. Actually may be should kind of get Ian on one week and have kind of a quick chat with him about the music and where it comes from and all that kind of stuff. On that same point there’s been a few people that have mentioned to me about when they’ve seen the podcast, seen the design of the logo it stands out quite a lot actually. Who was it again who designed the logo?
Kirsty McIntosh
Yeah, it’s fantastic, it’s by a fabulous volunteer lady called Helen Davies from Porridge Design. She was superb, she got involved right back actually before the Tech Army launched and designed the original logo and then I was just so chuffed when she came back with one specifically for the podcast because it just kinda keeps the whole thing tied together and it’s great, it’s a really good job she’s done and it’s a very interesting story about how she came up with that logo design as well so definitely worth getting Helen on as well to tell us all about it.
Graham Johnston
Well maybe we’ll have a creative podcast and get the music and the design on at the same time and have a quick chat with them.
Kirsty McIntosh
That sounds like a party to me, that sounds good.
Graham Johnston
Brilliant, well that sounds probably enough for today , thank you everybody for their contributions. Please keep listening, please keep sharing and we’ll see you next time.
Kirsty McIntosh
Yep, bye for now.
Graham Johnston
See you.