Life With Brian
Online opportunity beckons
29th Aug 11
When you look at neighbourhood centres as a nation wide movement we have a considerable presence. Close to 1,000 centres across the country each embedded in an engaged with its local community; thousands of staff, association members, participants and a small army of volunteers.
Yet because we belong to the community, because we are local, because our energies are normally spent engaging our community rather than talking up our achievements, the profile of our centres outside there immediate community is often low to non-existent. If we are honest sometimes even in our own community more could be know about who we are and what we do.
We are aware that social media give opportunities for an online presence, but too often are unsure of the nature of these opportunities and wonder about their cost in terms of finance and time.
In establishing our new website we have taken our first tentative steps into social media with our LCSA facebook page http://www.facebook.com/#!/LCSANSW . One thing I have found is that this has given me immediate connection with many of our colleagues in Victoria who have developed a stronger online presence via facebook than most centres in NSW.
At our conference we shall be helping LCSA members to develop their social media presence.
Wouldn't it be a powerful statement if Neighbourhood Centre Week 2012 saw every neighbourhood centre and house across the country and many of the particiapants in our centres linked with each other via social media.
Together we can be each others best publicists. Together we can tell each others stories. Together we can be seen and known.
Comments on this article
I agree there is a much greater push from many different sources to get involved with social media. At Southlake Neighbourhood Centre we even think it is a matter of keep up or be left behind.
This is why our Neighbourhood Centre Coordinator, Brooke Murphy, has recently created both a Facebook Page and our own NHC Blog.
Sometimes we may lack both the skill and resources to devote as much time as may be necessary to be successful, but if you look around your volunteer base or even extend it into new areas, you might be lucky to unearth someone with the skill and time.
For ours, we enlisted the assistance of a student placement - but you could use TAFE students, high school work experience or interested community members.
Check out our blog at www.southlakeneighbourhoodcentre.wordpress.com and leave us some feedback on what you think; or contact us for information about how you might go about setting up your own venture into social media.
Let you know in the future about its value!
Peta and Lynda are right - the only thing you can see on the blog is the original blog - how do we see any comments that have been added?
Sorry Chris, I was in Melbourne all day yesterday at an outcomes workshop and have only checked the posts this morning, which is why it was not approved immediately. Normally we will monitor this more closely when we have posted a blog so comments come up quickly. The issue on the other blog was a timing issue on a live blog when it looked as if no more contributions were being made so we stopped monitoring. Please keep at it as we leanr how to use the tachnology better.
Thanks for the explanation Brian - looks like we are all still learning, which is a good thing! You know what they say about you if you ever stop learning ... I will not be so impatient next time
You are very gracious Chris, the problem was tardiness on our part rather than impatience on yours.