For libraries & community hosts

How to run a Tea & Tech morning in your town

A one-pager for a librarian, parish secretary, community development officer, ETB tutor, or any decent neighbour who reads it and thinks “yeah, we could do that.”

This is the artefact that lets Tea & Tech happen in places its founders will never visit.

What it is

A Tuesday morning for people over 65 who’d like to get the hang of the AI everyone’s talking about — without feeling like they’re back in school. Tea, scones, and a patient hand. 90 minutes. By the end, every person in the room can talk to Claude on their own phone.

It’s run, not taught. The host is a friendly neighbour, not a teacher.

Where it happens — the library, ideally

The local library is the natural home for Tea & Tech.

Religiously and politically neutral. Anyone walks in, no hesitation at the door.
Librarians are professional helpers and already run digital skills sessions under Libraries Ireland’s Right to Read and Healthy Ireland at your Library programmes. Tea & Tech slots in naturally.
The over-65 demographic already uses the library. The poster on the noticeboard reaches the right people without trying to.
Wifi, insurance, accessibility, and safeguarding are already in place to a public-service standard.
Libraries open every week on a fixed timetable. That makes a recurring weekly morning genuinely sustainable.

Fallback venues if the library isn’t an option: parish hall, GAA clubhouse, Family Resource Centre, Active Retirement Ireland branch room. All work. The library is just first among equals.

One thing to check at the library: food and drink rules vary by branch. Some are fine in the meeting room, some prefer it in the foyer. A 5-minute call with the branch librarian sorts it.

How it pays for itself

A jar by the door. €1 if you’d like — covers the scones. Coin only, no card reader, no names against payments.

15 attendees × €1 = €15. The library room is free. Tea, milk, and a tray of buns from the local bakery cost about €15. It pays for itself.

The €1 isn’t really about the money. It’s about the social contract: people who paid feel allowed to ask the question that’s bothering them. People who turned up free hold back. The euro flips it.

A local sponsor (credit union, SuperValu, the pharmacy) is optional — useful for printed booklets or to pay a host for their time, but not load-bearing. Sponsor pack available if you want it.

What you need

A room. Library meeting room, ideally. Tables, chairs, a kettle, wifi. 8–15 people is the right size.

A host. Someone comfortable using Claude on their own phone, comfortable speaking to a small group, and comfortable when wifi breaks. Doesn’t need to be a tech person. Often the best hosts aren’t.

A rover or two. One extra pair of hands per six learners. TY students are excellent at this. So are the host’s own family, and library staff.

A jar and €15 worth of buns. That’s the budget.

The pack. Host script, booklet PDF, poster PDF. Free. Email [contact] and we’ll send it.

What you don’t need

Sponsor money for a first run.
Anyone who knows about AI.
A booking system. People just turn up.
A budget approval. €1 jars don’t need one.
Faith that the wifi will work. (It won’t, sometimes. The host pack tells you what to do.)

How a morning runs

15 mins tea and chat. 5 mins welcome. 60 mins of guided learning, broken into four short bits with the host narrating slowly and the rovers helping. 10 mins wrap and a one-page cheat sheet to take home. 15 mins of refills and lingering questions — the most important fifteen minutes of the morning.

Full script in the host pack. You don’t have to write a word.

What people leave with

Claude on their phone, and the confidence to talk to it.
A booklet to put on the kitchen table.
A cheat sheet for the fridge.
A reason to come back next Tuesday.

Why it works

Older adults rely on family for the small tech questions — what is this email, is this a scam, how do I do X on my phone? — and family is busy until the weekend. Tea & Tech is a place to bring the question on a Tuesday morning, with a bun, in a room of people in the same boat.

The AI part isn’t the headline. The not-waiting is.

Ground rules

No sign-up form on the poster. People just turn up.
No photos of faces without explicit permission.
No PPS numbers, card numbers, or passwords entered into anything, ever. The host watches for this and steps in gently.
No teacher voice. If it starts feeling like a class, you’ve drifted.
The €1 is voluntary. If anyone forgets or can’t, nobody mentions it.

To start your first morning

Email [contact]. We’ll send you the pack.
Ring your local library. Ask if they have a free meeting room on a Tuesday morning.
Pick a date four weeks out. 10:30am works for most.
Print 20 posters. Five for the library noticeboard, the rest for shop windows in town the week before.
On the day, turn up half an hour early. Boil the kettle. Put a jar on the table.

That’s it.

Tea & Tech is made by Linguist. We don’t run it. You do. We just made the pack.