Ripon & the Dales Social Media Surgery

Graham Richards, our archdeaconry children's worker, alerted me to this:

The first Social Media Surgery for local voluntary organisations will take place in Ripon this Monday 10th Sept at Ripon CVS' offices, Community House in Allhallowsgate from 6-8pm.

People need to book a place via email: reception@riponcvs.co.uk

This is a free service to all voluntary organisations needing help to learn how to use Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Pinterest, etc for their work.

Graham is a real wizz at all these things and also good on how and why we should use them. It's really important to choose the media that you feel comfortable with and that will work well for you, so do book into this session (or subsequent ones) if you would like help either for your church or another group.

'And the Word became flesh' - Jesus came among us to show what God is like in a form that puts words and communication using words very much at the heart of God's relationship with us. I think that, had He been around today,  Jesus would certainly have used social media and IT to help Him communicate. On Friday morning we had the 'old wineskins and new patches' reading from the Gospels. Our very wise priest said that the old can have much that is of value and the new can have much to teach us - we need to discern the appropriate use of each. That is relevent to this - we need to participate in the ways people are communicating now and this does not alter the fact older methods of communicvation still have great power. I will be ever grateful to my father who, in 1987, gave me some money and said, 'go out and buy a computer and teach youself to use it - that is where the future lies.' I bought an Amstraad (you remember the ones with white on black type and a daisy wheel printer - even before the green on black screens?) I'm of the generation who have always had to teach ourselves to use computers and new media - we didn't have them at school or university - and so we are a bit nervous! If you feel like this about facebook, twitter, blogs, websites then this is probably the surgery for you! It's not difficult to get started, honest!