And seven times a day Thou answerest,
‘I cannot do without thee.
Once did My Son live thy life,
and by His faithfulness did show My mind,
My kindness, and My truth to men.
But now He is come to My side, and thou must take His place.’
From ‘Hebridean Altars’, Alistair MacLean

http://www.northumbriacommunity.org

I’ve been working with the Woodhouse Community Centre in Leeds and a number of local churches in Bradford to improve the presentation of their communities online.

The one big stumbling block, it seems to me, is the availability of decent images. Community organisations are about people, what they do and how they relate to each other. The use of images can show who you are and what you do much more powerfully than endless paragraphs of explanation.

Text heavy websites or magazines are simply not going to be engaging enough for the majority of people these days. Of course we do our best to find images we can use but they are often of poor quality and don’t represent the range of people and activities in our communities.

The safeguarding issues around children often mean that children are not represented on websites at all, or at least very little. The photos we use rarely represent smaller groups where the presence of a camera may be intrusive.

The absence of images can make us invisible – for example whenever my wife an I go on holiday you’d think she went on her own by the absence of photos of me! Our churches may seem to be populated by older people who stand in rows smiling and looking towards the camera but not actually doing anything.

If we are going to do this properly we’ll need three things in place.

1. A policy for obtaining photos and using them online. This means understanding what we can and can’t show, how we obtain permission and what the copyright rules are, among other things.
2. People who know what they are doing – i.e. photographers who understand the rules, the needs of the website and how to take a decent photo. Publishers who know the history of the photos and can make good decisions about how they are used.
3. A place to store and catalogue the photos so they can be accessed by the people who need them.

Here I’m going to suggest that we use Flickr to store and catalogue images. It’s only a suggestion and I’m open to any other thoughts about how to manage an accessible library of images for use on the web and other publications.

Heres a video. To see it properly you may need to use the ‘full screen’ button bottom right of the player.

This ancient toolkit is well documented and discussed, and maybe you’re already familiar with it but if not here’s the gist.

Laddering support through tiers of engagement
They become a follower, engage with the discussion, join a group, then become an advocate.

Empowering Superusers
Offering further support to the committed advocates – the connectors

Providing source materials for user-generated content
Videos, speeches, photos and how-to guides

Going where the people are
Concentrate on the most influential networks and use tools and language people are familiar with.

Ensuring that people can find your content
Making the content discoverable.

Mobilising supporters through mobile devices
Mobile is now an even more essential part of the mix.

Harnessing analytics
Constantly listening and improving outreach materials.

Essentially it’s about giving people on the ground the resources and tools, and trusting them to spread the word.

It’s good stuff and you can download the in depth document here

My own recollections of it are as a building full of crazy life.  Having a BBC dinner sitting next to Del and Rodney dressed ready for Only Fools and Horses, Warren Mitchell and Johnny Speight having an intense discussion over treacle sponge and custard, sharing a lift with Benazir Bhutto, John Prescott having a ding dong in reception.  On one famous occasion the Queen’s double, Jeannette Charles dressed in full regalia , got lost and had to ask directions (that way mam).

In the late 80s I spent much of my time doing evening shifts on BBC 1 continuity and in the next studio, Pres B, was The Old Grey Whistle Test.  Dr Who was filmed at the centre and you would sometimes find mutant aliens stopping for a pee in the gents.

In the basement is a stone which has the inscription “this stone was laid in 1957″ my own vintage. So one can’t help but make a connection.

Anyway,  take a look at this film with some excellent clips.

I’m hopeless at working on my own.  There’s a confession!  If I try to work on my own I’m prone to distractions or tend to trust myself too much, so I need people to keep me focused and to give me a reality check every so often.  I have a home office, and do in fact work on my own for much of the time and so I value the supportive friends whom I see, usually at the local Cafe Nero.

The teams I have worked with in the past have often been based in a single space – round a big table – where the banter is part of the business.  If an idea pops up in conversation it can be quickly evaluated and moved

forward or ditched.  Arguments can be resolved quickly and excellent work praised in a timely and meaningful fashion.  But what do you do if the team isn’t in the same room, a dispersed team?

Increasingly organisations are requiring teams to connect with each other remotely.  This is for a number of reasons – perhaps because its members are part time or because they also belong to other organisations.  It can also be because team members are fast tracking and juggling with several projects or tasks at the same time and so don’t have time to meet.

There is a value in engaging with people embedded in different situations and yet part of a small dispersed team.  Small teams can become blinkered by their own context and not see beyond their immediate environment, they can bed down into thick walled bunkers.  So, having a close knit team made up of people with quite different outlooks can can have enormous value.  Perhaps they can share insights from different parts of the country of the world

At Oblong in Leeds I work part time with a group of volunteers who come and go.  The organisation is run through a series of collectives which come up with ideas and make decisions through their weekly meetings.  Every six weeks there are assemblies of the whole organisation.  The meetings and assemblies have been inconsistently attended, agendas poorly formed and the meetings devoted to catching up.  The problem was communication.  Getting people motivated and briefed before the meetings was the challenge.

The solution we have found is YAMMER.  Yammer is a tool for connecting work groups around an organisation and enabling them to share conversation and resources freely wherever they are.  Yammer works like a simple and well structured Facebook account where you can see to structure of your organisation & who belongs to which team.  You can follow and connect with relevant people and choose appropriate levels of privacy.    Yammer also gives you the opportunity to create networks outside your organisation.

The benefit to Oblong has been a vast improvement in the internal communications and briefing of the team members.  We can clearly see where people belong in the organisation.  When we meet there is an improved level of attendance and commitment and we can devote the time to decision making rather than catching up.

Anyway.  Advert for Yammer over.

Addingham Moorside

What a great couple of days we’ve had.  Yesterday we went to see some friends who have recently moved into a farmhouse on Addingham Moorside, an absolutely superb spot.  From there we walked up to Windgate Nick and it really looked like we were in the Alps.

Today we went to the Hockney exhibition at Cartwright Hall in Bradford – highly recommended with some work I hadn’t seen before.   There’s a great photo of a young DH appearing in a Methodist Church play as a robot. He has a box on his head so I trust it was him.

Cartwright Hall

I’ve been thinking about community websites lately and my conversations with local churches getting more regular.  Already today I have  found myself in a huddle discussing Twitter, Facebook and web design.  Apologies to Deborah who assumed that I have Sundays off from all this   These are just jottings from a couple of conversations.

• Some websites fail because they are seen as a dumping ground for random information and links. Ones with a single minded focus and purpose are much stronger. A purpose might be,  ”to engage with people outside the organisation and grow membership”.  A statement like this would determine the choice of stories, language, design etc.

• Confusion often about whether the site is outward or inward looking – aimed at engaging with new people, or there to serve the internal organisation. An outreach would fail if the content is muddled with material that has little relevance for an external audience.

• Some websites are seen as an isolated activity disconnected from other communications platforms like social media, newsletters, notice boards etc. Much better if there is an wider communications plan and that the activities are linked together – editorially, technically and in terms of design.

• Website design is more than trendy graphics and buttons. A simple layout and clear navigational hierarchy is as much a part of the design. Commercial templates often provide elements which confuse rather than clarify the brand. Much better to choose an unobtrusive and clean template and then focus on the navigational structure, excellent copywriting and photography.

• Economical writing, story structure and a balanced layout of text and images is a very rare to find. Possibly because the writers have little inclination or knowledge to address these aspects.

• The inclusion of consistently presented images and video is a daunting technical obstacle for many publishers. The use of Vimeo and Flickr for hosting and embedding video and photos (rather than uploading directly to the website) is a good option and provides further linkage to social promotion.

• Twitter is good for directing users TO stories on your website. Facebook is a good place to publish stories FROM your website for sharing and discussion.

• Always include a call to action or opportunity for further engagement in a posting.

Not advice just notes.  Feel free to contradict of comment in any way.

The stations of the cross there are hidden away in the trees and a great place to reflect, pray, look, listen.  The music for the mediation is by Tino Alberti who gave me permission to us it.  At first the music seems random and formless but out of it comes amazing grace.

If you would like to use the video a download is available via Proost

I’ve just been chatting to the lovely people in the Bradford Diocese mission control and this is the idea they have for tweeters over Easter.   If you are a CofE parishioner in the Bradford Diocese may I encourage you to get behind this.

The Church of England is asking Christian tweeters to share the good news of Easter on Twitter by using the hashtag #everythingchanges. It’s hoped that #everythingchanges will trend on Easter day as people tweet from their sunrise services until the last service of the day.

If your church is willing Alison Bogle at the CofE in Bradford would like to follow your activities and maybe write up an article for the #everythingchanges story in local media.  

Please contact Alison communications@bradford.anglican.org  if you are interested  in being a tweeting guinea pig (now there’s an oddity).

About the Project
LS12 Film is a dynamic award winning film-making project that engages young people from across Leeds, inspiring them to tell their stories through film. The project gives young people the opportunity to work alongside artists, actors, screenwriters, animators and editors to produce high quality films and learn skills in film-making and working in the industry. The project is funded by First Light Films.

The group meet every Wednesday, from 5-8pm at Interplay, and the group is open to young people aged 13-19 (or up to 25 with learning difficulties). No experience in film making is neccessary, all we ask is that young people come willing to learn, open to meeting new people and working together to create high quality films.

For more infomation and to find out about our other activities visit  www.interplayleeds.co.uk/project