Our 250th Post – thanks to Social Media Surgeries!

This is our 250th BrumCityCentre blog post!

It seems like a good opportunity to say thank you to Nick Booth and all the other Social Media Surgery volunteers. Nick Booth from Podnosh organised the first social media surgery in Birmingham in October 2008. Nowadays volunteers in a variety of places help many people to learn how to use social media to help their community groups and local charities, or otherwise increase their effectiveness as local active citizens, at free and friendly meetings.

We went to a Central Birmingham meeting in November 2008 and were taught how to create this blog, amongst other things. Various members of our committee have received help since, and also helped out as a ‘surgeon’ which is great fun! The blog/website has been very helpful for our Neighbourhood Forum, helping us keep residents informed, attracting new interest in our Forum, and also helping to get us taken seriously and be kept informed by third parties.

Whether you want to learn about WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, or a variety of other tools, and no matter how much of a complete beginner you are (or not), if you want some help and advice using the internet to help your local community group I strongly recommend checking whether there is a surgery near you. And if you are reading this blog because you live in Birmingham City Centre then I hope you will come and say hello to me at the Central Birmingham Surgery (I hope to be helping out at the next meeting Mon 3 October 2011 at The Studio 7 Cannon Street Birmingham).

You can find out more about the surgeries at http://socialmediasurgery.com

Thanks again to all involved with them!

Karen Caine