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The experts are a panel of real people with specialist expertise who will interpret and understand your question, and reply usually within 24 hours.

Business Planning

Jane Berry	Elizabeth Gray-King	Peter Gray	Cathy Crowfoot

The role of this forum is to help organisations (in the voluntary and community sector, and those considering Social Enterprise) to plan their future development.

As well as helping with ideas, vision and processes, the forum will signpost to the other Experts for specific advice, for example on Legal Structures, personnel issues, or on ICT Communications policy.

One key service in this forum is to provide organisations with templates to help their planning, specimen documents which they may use to inform their own policies and procedures, and development and administrative tools.

Community Engagement

Patrick Shore	Elizabeth Gray-King	Stephen Kearney

This expert area deals with any issues relating to community engagement such as empowering local communities, tackling social exclusion, delivering training to hard-to-reach learners, or promoting and fostering involvement in community projects.

Computers and Communications

Brian Rich	Paul Henderson

All your ICT questions are answered here. Questions asked have ranged from: Use of Firewalls through Client Tracking Systems to Disappearing Desktop Icons. The forum also includes alerts about viruses, anti-virus measures and operating system 'loopholes'. Both PC and Mac users are catered for.

Employment Issues

Frances Hall	David Head

This expert area deals with any issue relating to recruiting and managing staff and volunteers within a voluntary and community sector organisation or SME. Topics covered include Equal Opportunities, contracts of employment, job sharing, working from home, entitlements of part-time staff and pay.

Finance Management

John Ditchfield	Peter Gray	Andrew Rolls

This expert area deals with issues relating to both personal and corporate finance, such as employee benefit schemes (pensions and personal insurance), ethical banking and investment, and pension and retirement planning. The forum also covers accounting and bookkeeping issues and advice on budgeting and Full Cost Recovery.

Grant Funding

Bruce Wright	Patrick Shore

The Grant Funding forum highlights sources of funding to support ICT-enabled Learning, Inclusion and Regeneration as well as funding sources for more general projects. Users can also request detailed reports from the GRANTfinder funding database as a follow up to funding searches that they have run themselves via the GRANTnet portal.

Legal Issues

Charlie Cattell	Jane Berry

This expert area deals with Charity Law and the legal aspects of running a Community or Voluntary Sector organisation. Questions asked have included: Charging for a public screening of a DVD film in a Community Centre; Disability Law; AGM Papers; the implications of becoming a charity.

Rural Services

Suzanne Roast	Clare Ramos

The purpose of this forum is to help rural communities and those who support them to maintain and re-shape the delivery of services in rural areas. It was set up initially to support communities through the Post Office's Network Change programme and beyond. However, its remit covers all services (not just Postal Services) and all aspects of rural service delivery.

Users are free to use all of the other Experts Online areas. To improve rural services you might need advice on Funding, Community Engagement or the type of community group to set up. All of these areas and more are covered by Experts Online.

This service is completely separate from the Post Office Ltd consultation process. Any queries you may have with regards that process should be addressed to Post Office Ltd.

Project Planning

Elizabeth Gray King	Al Bell

The role of this forum is to help organisations (in the voluntary and community sector, and those considering Social Enterprise) to understand and analyse the practical detail of projects and to manage one or more projects effectively. Projects may be anything from daily service delivery to fundraising events to one-off activities.

As well as helping with project language and processes, the forum will signpost to the other Experts for specific advice, for example on Legal Structures, personnel issues, or on ICT Communications policy.

A key service in this forum is to provide organisations with spreadsheets, matrices and templates to help their planning and administration as well as project monitoring.