let's be social

We’re finally going to move the focus away from just elected Council Members, and start offering the resources we have to the public for community and voluntary groups now!

We’ll probably skip the session in April so get our heads together and work out exactly how this will happen, such as where we can hold these events for starters!

In the meantime, we’d be welcome for any feedback you may have, relating to things you would like to see, and venues in Solihull which are open until 8ish, and serve cofee, with free public wifi available! (Pubs are not a good venue, as there are many people who will not come to a pub for whatever reason).

Hopefully we’ll have something sorted out for May, this will be more likely if you’re able to help us find somewhere (hint hint)

The WMCSMS blog has now been imported into this one, so you only have 1 place to look for all of the Solihull & Acocks Green area social media projects in the area, and any other stuff I am involved in within the general Birmingham area

As this blog develops, I’m now wondering if it should incorporate the WMCSMS blog so that all of the social media projects I’m involved in are all in one place. It would certainly help me but how about people reading it?

Any opinions?

my Councillors gave to me, 3 blogs!

OK so two were set-up previously, but they all spent the evening learning more about how they work, and ways in which searching for local data can be useful.

Ken Hawkins

Martin McCarthy

Mick Corser

Hopefully we’ll see more blogs over the coming months, and these ones getting more content, so please be supportive.
Thanks to Paul Hadley, Dan Slee, and Lorna Parsons for helping the Councillors this month!

Thanks to David Viner, Gavin Wray, Paul Hadley, and Kate Hughes for volunteering to be the surgeons.

We had Cllrs Bell, Reeve, and Hawkins at this SMS, and all were deeply engrossed in conversation with their surgeons.

Visit the blog for more info

The first two sessions have been booked for Solihull’s Councillors, and these will primarily be an introduction to social media, and how it can be useful to them, and their communities.

CivicSurf have kindly sent out some DVDs and about 70 booklets for me to distribute to the Councillors, and directors, so I really hope this generates some interest in these social media surgeries.

I have been very careful to aim this at the Councillors themselves, rather than the whole council, as these members do not have budget, and are not paid, so I really hope that some of the volunteers from the Birmingham Social Media Surgeries will be willing to help me out here. As this is all about them being able to engage more with their communities, in the same way that we have been helping community and voluntary groups to engage.

In the first two sessions (currently booked for the 7th, and 11th of September) I am only going to introduce them to the concepts, and answer some questions. From this, we should have some people who are genuinely interested in learning, and setting up their own blogs, presence on Facebook/Twitter and so on. I would like to run four surgeries in total with the first towards the end of September, then the other three over October and November.

Without Councillors active engagement through blogs, and social media, I honestly believe we have lost something after spending so long helping community groups make their presence felt online. If they can both engage with each other, and the public together, surely the outcomes will be better for all.

Please let me know by email, or in the comments below if you would like to be involved.