providing sensible solutions .....in a silly world!
	Holmes Consultancy Services (HCS) was established in 1999 to provide consultancy and training in computing, charity management, governance and fundraising. Working in the UK, primarily with organisations in the voluntary sector, small businesses and homeworkers, we provide a quality service tailored to our clients’ individual requirements which, we believe, offers value for money. We are committed to maintaining the highest standards of professional conduct within a framework based on Christian principles. As we do not resell hardware or software we can be completely independent, and give impartial advice.
Site last updated 13 June 2009 visitors since September 2002	Latest News . . . On Wednesday 8 July 2009 at 5pm Mike will be stepping out onto the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square as one of the 2400 people involved in Antony Gormley's One & Other art project. Ruth will be providing support, so if you are in London please come along and watch the event live! If you can't make it then you will still be able to watch on the website www.oneandother.co.uk. Charity Consultancy News South Holland Funding Advice Fair - Tuesday, 14 July 2009 Ruth will be presenting free 60 minute workshops at the above event, taking place at the National Centre for Food and Manufacturing, University of Lincoln Holbeach campus. The topics for Ruth's workshops are: 1) Budget Basics - looking at the key costs to include in a project budget and the steps to prepare a realistic budget. 2) Made to Measure - looking at terms around monitoring and evaluation, methods of mointoring, and why it is important to monitor and evaluate projects. 3) Making Ends Meet - looking at different ways of generating income for a voluntary organisation, including tax effective methods. Aimed at community groups, the Fair provides an opportunity to talk directly to funders and access free advice and information. For further information, or to book a place on one of the workshops, please contact Karen Johnson on 01775 764868 or email karenjohnson@sholland.gov.uk. Really Useful Stuff (RUS) Handbook The RUS Handbook was produced by Lincolnshire County Council as a practical toolkit to running a voluntary or community group. It was written by a selection of external consultants - Ruth was the author of the Running Your Group chapter. Copies of the RUS Handbook can be downloaded from the Healthy Communities section of the Lincolnshire County Council website by clicking here. Computing Consultancy News With the increase in usage of computers for storing music and photos Mike has rewriten his backup program to make it more efficent. The new vesion 2 is currently being rolled out to all his clients. Mike is also testing out the new Microsoft Windows 7 operating system - so far it looks a considerable improvment on Vista. Using the LogMeIn service Mike is now able to easily access machines from wherever he is - in addition some clients are now using this facility for accessing their desktop machines from home. If you need to be on the road sometimes then the new broadband modems from 3 and t-mobile are now working very well - using a pay-as-you-go service can also make them very cost-effective. If you are required to produce PDF files then this can be done either using OpenOffice which provides a built-in facility or by installing PDFCreator, a free open-source tool. If you have need of a good contacts system, we are now using Time & Chaos to provide a shared contacts address book, appointments and to do lists. We are very impressed with this program - if you want to know more just talk to Mike.