Meeting info

[Willeke]

I feel we need to draw more attention to our meetings on the web.
I have had a look at the Guild website and all I can find is a rather hidden (you need to look in the diary, and then click on to the events to find it) 8 line anouncement.

I tried to get people to read about it by posting in the announcements section of this forum.
So far it has been seen by at most four people besides me.

So can any of you suggest more ways of getting attention?
Or do we not need to get more people seeing the info on the web?

It is not just the IGKT AGM that suffers from this problem, the national knot meetings are often overlooked on the web too.
And last year when I did organise the meeting in Den Helder, getting messages on the web was the last thing I thought about.

So do we need a separate person to take care of this or can we go on ignoring the posibilities the web has for meetings in person?

Willeke

[bazz]

How Do All,

Maybe the responsibility to advertise such events, should be that of the person'(s) organizing the event?
this could be something as simple posting a notice on the forum, with contact details for more info.
If they do not have access to a computer, they could probably ask someone to do it for them.

This could work for all events that have some sort of IGKT presence at them, not just IGKT meetings.

I am sure Mel would be able to pet up another forum section, just for meetings to be advertised. People may take more notice of it then, rather than having it hidden in the announcements section.
I have to admit, I would have not thought about looking in the announcements section for meeting details.
What do you think Mel, would you be able to do that?

Take care,
Barry

[WebAdmin]

Evenin' All

Unfortunately the information can only get posted if I am sent it.

I try to pick up as much as I can regarding meetings,  events etc, from Knotting Matters and add them to the Meetings and Events pages, and sometimes members inform me of events they are attending or Branch meetings.   These also get posted with as little delay as possible.

I think there is usually a message at the top of the Forum page suggesting that people might like to check out the relevant pages.  

I wonder if getting bods to look at another Forum would be just as difficult as getting 'em to check out the Diary.  You can lead a knotter to the website but you can't make him (or her) look at the Diary.

Lesley

[Willeke]

That is the main problem and the reason I asked about what we can do more.
I think we need as many adds for the meetings as we can get.
That is also why I posted in the announcements part of the forum.

Willeke

[squarerigger]

Hi Willeke, Gordon, Bazz and all who are fortunate enough to be going to the AGM.  I wish you all good speed, fair leads and a following wind - I am there in spirit with you!

Lindsey

[Dan_Lehman]

Maybe the responsibility to advertise such events, should be that of the person'(s) organizing the event?

OTOH (OnTheOtherHand), maybe some few who are quite handy with computer
presentations on the WWWeb could design a simple & effective format for such
announcements, and more easily make the e-announcement than the person
whose main skill in heading organization might have been only greatest slowness
to escape when a volunteer was solicited.  

Such a general format might have the benefit of reminding organizers of all
of the sorts of information that are needed.  (I recall one newspaper sales ad that
--oops--neglected to mention which STORE had the sale !!  pity, that)

--not to preclude some originality/individualization if the spirit & skills move them,
but it might be a big help in many cases.

--dl*
====

[DerekSmith]

To make the biggest notification impact, you need to do one of two things;

Either post your announcement where the greatest 'footfall' is, or;

Send your announcement to each potentially interested individual.

For the first of these, I would hazard a guess that the IGKT web presence gets its greatest number of hits through this forum and in particular, this sub forum (Chit Chat).  Logically then, post details of every meeting, webchat, whatever here in 'Chit Chat'.  You will find that doing this allows those who attended, to add comments both before and after the meeting which can further help attract more attendees at future events.  Also, feedback through this forum to the meeting organisers will help them improve the content or structure of future meetings.  As this forum is 'Chit Chat' there is no reason why meetings and their discussion should not be posted here, and creating a new sub forum or webpage will not get the message over because the footfall is here in 'Chit Chat'.

For the second route, doubtless all events are already detailed in the KM.  But a more focussed web based method is to use the list of email addresses for everyone registered to this forum and send a timely reminder to them by email.  If you prompt your contributors ca 10 days before the event with a summary of what the event will cover, then it will save them missing the post if they have not been to the forum lately.  Don't worry about annoying folks, if they don't want any more prompts, they will soon let you know and you can remove them from the mailing list.

finally, dare I suggest it?  Put a Meetings section onto the Wiki and use the above two routes to direct folks to that section.  This route, you can even have folks contribute content to the meeting for use at the meeting should the speakers chose to include it.

[squarerigger]

So,

What happened at the AGM?  Anyone got any news?  Are we still smiling?  

Looking forward to hearing from those who went...

SquareRigger

[Willeke]

More meetings are coming up:
There is one in Germany anounced on the events page.
I have copied the information in the anouncements for the people who just come in the forum.

I would like to add the information on the American meeting(s) too, but I do not have it yet.
So if you have dates, location or other information, please post it here, in the anouncements or send it to Lesley so she can include it in the events page. Or all above.

Willeke

[squarerigger]

Hi Willeke and all who care to know,

The Pacific Americas Branch are having their annual demo on the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco on July 1 & 2 this year.  We will have demos by Carol Wang & Lindsey Philpott of Carol's decorative chinese knotting, and Lindsey showing how to splice wire rope and how to tie a fender, among other knots that will be shown off from our Pacific Americas Branch collection.  Come and join us any time from 10 am through 4 pm both days.

Lindsey

[Willeke]

Lindsey,
As you may have noticed, I did add this info to the announcements part of the forum.

Did you send it to Lesley to be included in the events part of the site?

Willeke

[WebAdmin]

OOPs - sorry, that one slipped past me.   I've added it now!!!

Lesley