When the idea of a new website covering council matters was first mooted at a meeting of Belmont Rural PC, Councillor Ron Loft said he for one would have no idea how to use such a facility. That may have been strictly true, but Ron is no Luddite. He owns a reasonably new computer and the only reason it's not connected to the Internet is due to a perfectly justifiable antipathy towards the cost of broadband.

This website's editor offered to give Ron a hands-on tutorial at one of the Belmont Library's computers at Eastholme Community Centre. Librarian Anne Jones gave her permission for the photography (see above) and for the running commentary instruction. To tell the truth, the need for the latter was probably superfluous once Ron was logged on. He clicked handily round the site (as yet it is a fledgling enterprise) even though, as he maintained afterwards, it was his first attempt.

He was complimentary about what he saw and thinks the Parish Council-related pages are an asset to the PC. Then he was off. The whole session was contained within the half hour allocated to individuals by the library.

It's a wasted effort trying to encourage people to use the net from the net. But it was a reminder to this editor, at least, how close many non-users are to becoming users.

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