Webinars, Teaching and Speaking

Sharing experience and expertise

Education and teaching are at the heart of Mark’s passion. Imparting the accumulated years of knowledge and experience is the way to ensure that skills are improved and best practice continues. Sharing experience broadens and deepens everyone’s knowledge and is fundamental to good communication.

Expert subjects

2024 Speaking dates

You can catch Mark at any of the following events.

The Council’s Digital Playbook: Security, Accessibility & Information Rights

29th February 2024, 12pm
28th March 2024, 12pm
18th April 2024, 12pm

Description

A series of three, lunchtime webinars designed specifically for parish and town councils to learn how to improve their online security, compliance and communication.

Webinar #1:
Web accessibility, compliance and .gov.uk domains

Dispelling myths and practical guidance for website publishing compliance and improving the online messaging.

In the first of the series of webinars, presented over Teams and in partnership with council sector experts, David Hall of Cloudy IT and Dan Purchese of Breakthrough Communications, Mark Tomkins, Founder of Aubergine, council website experts and web accessibility champions and authors of the NALC Website Accessibility & Publishing Guidebook, will be looking at how website compliance is improving communities’ access to council information.

He’ll be providing helpful day-to-day tips on keeping your council’s website compliant and discussing how the .gov.uk domain use by all parish & town councils is a positive step forward in these days of increased cyber threat and for improving authenticity of message and that there is a simple process to start that journey.

Mark will cover:

  • Web Accessibility compliance & tips
  • The difference between .gov.uk & other domains
  • Security & authenticity of message
  • .gov.uk domain registration requirements & obligations
  • The registration process
  • Deployment – how to get a .gov.uk website & email
  • Ongoing commitments & considerations
Webinar #2
Microsoft 365 Security and Cyber Essentials for Town & Parish Councils

Webinar #3
How Effective Online Councils stay Compliant with GDPR and FOI

Book your place for these webinars

Be an Effective Council Online – round table with the experts

6th June 2024, 12-1pm

In this round table webinar, council sector online experts, Mark Tomkins, David Hall and Dan Purchese will be hosting an open forum discussion session for council clerks, website admins and those involved in council communications to join a discussion to help explain the common issues around publishing online. It will be a highly practical session for attendees to pose questions to the experts and discuss topics that include:

  • Website Accessibility Compliance – and the change from WCAG2.1AA to WCAG2.2AA from October
  • .gov.uk domains and what’s involved in getting one for your council
  • Day to day tips to ensure you publish accessible content and how to check it
  • How councils can comply with UK GDPR and FOI
  • Dealing with UK GDPR and FOI requests without the stress
  • What’s your council’s online communications strategy?
  • What’s your council’s message and who are you trying to say it to?
  • Best practice for using social media and your website as tools to communicate and engage
  • Listening to what the community has to say
  • Microsoft 365 Security overview
  • Securing your information, messages and email with Microsoft 365
  • How to manage a subject access request in Microsoft 365
  • Benefits of your council being Cyber Essentials Certified
  • The importance of Cyber Security training for your staff and councillors

If you would like to send in questions ahead of the event to ensure they can be discussed, please contact the organisers here.

Book for the Round Table Webinar

Council Domain names explained: The difference between .gov.uk and all the others

For Bucks & Milton Keynes Association of Local Councils (BMKALC) webinar

21 February 1-2pm

In this session, Mark Tomkins, Parish & Town Council website and publishing expert and Founder of Aubergine, will explain the difference between a website and email domain name that is on .gov.uk and all the other domain suffix, such as .org, .org.uk and .com.

In these times of heightened cyber threat and fraud, making sure your council’s online message comes across as authentic and trusted, both in the website websites and emails, is critical and which domain name your council operates from is the first stage to improve both authenticity of message and increased security.

Mark will explain what each domain name type means, what the pros and cons are of each and what you should consider for your council. The session will be highly practical, presented using plain English and non-technical terms.

This is a BMKALC member-only event. Visit BMKALC website to find out more.

A 60 Minute Masterclass in Web Accessibility & .gov.uk

For Devon Association of Local Councils (DALC)

In this session council website expert, Mark Tomkins, will provide tips, guidance and best practice for making sure your parish & town council website and its content are accessible and compliant. He’ll cover testing tips, formatting and how to make the web pages and documents accessible and how it all fits with improving the council’s online presence with a .gov.uk domain’

Included in the session:

  • Most common accessibility fail points- what to look out for
  • Headings, text formatting and styling
  • Page structuring – what and where to place content for best accessibility
  • Link formatting
  • How to treat images & video in an accessible way
  • Accessible document & file formats
  • How to check your site for accessibility easily and freely
  • Setting up a checking process
  • Maintaining compliance with accessibility laws & Transparency Code
  • Using .gov.uk domains – what’s involved, and why you should do it.

This is a DALC member-only event. Visit DALC website to find out more.

Benefits of Using a .gov.uk Domain and What’s Involved

In this webinar, council website compliance and web accessibility expert, Mark Tomkins from Aubergine, will provide an outline of what the .gov.uk domain name means to councils and both if and how you get one.

Using non-technical language and highlighting the benefits Mark will describe what’s involved and how you go about planning for moving over to a .gov.uk domain for your council.

By the end of the webinar you will have all the information you need to take back to your council for consideration and planning.

The session will cover:

  • Non-technical description of what a .gov.uk domain is and differences between it and other domains, such as .co.uk or .org
  • The benefits of using .gov.uk domains
  • The minimum requirements and what to consider before changing over
  • How it can be used – e.g. website & emails
  • How to get a .gov.uk domain registered
  • The ongoing commitments – technical and financial

This is an SLCC event – visit the SLCC website to book

    Small & Mighty Enterprise Mentoring Programme for Small Business Owners 2024 webinar

    22 April 2024 10am-12pm

    In this session, experts Mark Tomkins and Katherine George will provide a practical session to help small business make use of their most powerful market and sales tool – their online presence. Through best practice website design and management through to content and publishing techniques on Social Media, the experts will be giving practical, first-hand experience to help small businesses succeed online.

    Booking via the Small Business Britain website.


    Looking for a Webinar for your group?

    Do you run a group that would benefit from a webinar? Whether professional business networks, local associations & authorities or universities, a webinar is a low-cost and convenient way to offer training and rich content to your audience.

    Mark is a highly experienced presenter and can provide a webinar from 30 minutes to 4 hours for one-off events or provide regular sessions as part of a programme on expert subjects.

    Podcasts & Radio

    Podcasts are a growing market for organisations to deliver content that makes it convenient for the audience. Mark is the presenter of The Website Owners Playbook podcast and has appeared on other podcasts that include The Local Council Podcast and Small Business Britain among others.

    In addition, regular appearances on radio shows, such as Milton Keynes Secklow FM Business Hour & Radio 5 Live with topics to help small businesses with understanding web-related subjects.

    Seminars & conferences

    Presenting to associations & groups on a wide variety of topics such as website accessibility for councils and best practice website management to search engine promotion is a very popular and can be included in your event. From 30 minutes to 3 hours, the session content can be crafted to suit your audience and event.

    Group training & workshops

    Often, providing group training on a subject can help the audience engage more – especially when it’s a technical subject. The audience can ask questions and get involved which helps to absorb new knowledge.

    Practical workshops on website accessibility, website admin system training and improving online search engine visibility are just some of the training and workshops currently available.

    Workshops & training sessions, either in-person or virtual can last from 60 minutes to 3 hours and are fully supported with documentation for the attendees.