Meet Rinske van Noortwijk and Corian Hugenholtz-Sasse – they make wishes come true.
I met them both in Rotterdam, invited through the wonderful Maurice Specht to speak to the Association of Initiative Brokers ( @inimakelaar ) in Holland, organised by Rinske.
Two days before, Tessy Britton and I had been in The Hague speaking to senior civil servants from Dutch central government. Read more
It’s odd how when you look away your friends seem to go and do some really interesting stuff. I first met Willem Guizeman in 2005 when he was in Birmingham planning some work on the Residents university for the Residents for Regeneration. Then he was fronting a Europe wide organisation which was working with the EU.
Last month we saw each other again in The Hague, his home town. Now Willem is doing something much more Read more
I think I just got paid with a hug. Full of the joys of social media surgeoning Lorna Prescott from Dosti put her arms around me and said thank you. (sorry Lorna for being embarrasing and thank you!)
It is really one of the reasons I love social media surgeries – they make me happy and they seem to make others happy too.
This was the first Dudley Social Media Surgery, organised by the remorseless energy of Melissa Guest from Dudley CVS and Lorna. We had been involved with some work helping them pland and organise the surgery and some social reporter training as part of the Black Country Take Part Pathfinder programme.
30 people turned up and the proportion of surgeons to patients was just right. This rather dark video shows just how busy and absorbed people were:
I shared the evening with two wonderful people. Michael Dennis turned up thinking he was there to get some help for the St Thomas Community Network – but because he does web development he got wordpress ganged into being a surgeon. It turned out Michael also run a successful ning network for foster carers.
Michael worked with Jackie McGuirk from Dudley Lions.
He helped her understand why social media might help their work. She said up a blog and wrote here first post (and this jackie is your first trackback). The worst part for Michael seemed to me interviewing them both:
Great evening and a great start to surgeries in Dudley.
Later this month we are running another social reporter training programme, building on the work we have done for Birmingham Local Democracy Week and the Black Country Take Part Pathfinder.
This time our work is funded through the support Birmingham City Council gives to Neighbourhood Forums in the city . The details are below and you can download them here. If you want to come contact: Read more