by Virginia Simpson-Young, Communications Convenor, from Bulletin 6/2019 (August)
Members of the subcommittee are Virginia Simpson-Young (convenor), Peter Thorogood (website technical person), Flavia Morello, who replaced Andrew Botros (web content manager), Allan Hogan (Facebook admin), Phil Young (mailout team coordinator and Update email creator), Sarah Fogg, Carole Herriman, Bruce Davis, Bill Simpson-Young and Lyn Milton.
During the past year, we continued to coordinate and oversee the Society’s various media – the Bulletin, websites, Facebook pages, Twitter, YouTube, Update Email to members and Eventbrite. We have also sought to assist the Society’s management committee and subcommittees with their communications. In the past year, a particular focus for the subcommittee has been, of course, the Glebe Society Community Festival held from 23 June to 30 June to celebrate the Society’s 50th anniversary.
50th anniversary: Glebe Society Community Festival
The Comms subcommittee proposed and carried out a number of activities for the 50th. Our pièce de résistance was undoubtedly Allan Hogan’s film, 50 Years of the Glebe Society: the Bulletin Editors’ View. The film’s title may be somewhat uninspiring, but the same cannot be said for the film itself, which appeared to stir the inner activist in quite a few of its audience members. Appearing in the film were Bulletin editors from the foundation of the Society 50 years ago until the present: Sandra Darroch, Vernon Winley, Ted McKeown, David Reeve, Jan Macindoe, Edwina Doe, Roberta Burke, Bruce Davis and me.
A small but very interesting part of the communications subcommittee’s contribution to the Festival was the display, In the Beginning there was … Paper. This display showcased a number of the Society’s early documents as well as selected press clippings from Kate Smith’s press clippings book kept in the Society’s Archives at the City of Sydney. The material was collated by the Society’s archivist, Lyn Milton.
A late addition to the subcommittee’s contribution to the 50th was the very important task of recording proceedings. This work was overseen by Bruce Davis who roped in Phil Young as videographer and took many photos himself – as did Vicki Hannan, professional photographer working pro bono. As these photos and video are processed they will be made available to members.
Of course, the Festival organisers required the subcommittee to get involved in promoting the Festival and in enabling people to book to attend events. We created a website for the Festival – basic but generally serving its purpose. Peter Thorogood was assisted in this task by designer, Tarny Burton, who provided some design elements for the website.
Communications subcommittee members were involved with other Festival activities as well – too many to mention here; but a special mention must be made of Allan Hogan who looked after all the Festival’s audiovisual needs.
Our media
The Bulletin: The Bulletin continues to be main means of by which the Society communicates with its members. It was very clear as we prepared for the 50th anniversary, that they Bulletin is the key document of record for understanding the Society’s history, and will continue to be so.
Content for the Bulletin is provided by management committee members and a handful of regular contributors who are not on the management committee, including Lyn Collingwood, Edwina Doe, Sarah Fogg, and Rodney Hammett. Photos are often provided by Phil Young. Of course, there have also been occasional contributors throughout the past year.
This year, our two proof-readers were Edwina Doe and Martin Lawrence. After ten years, Martin has retired from proof-reading the Bulletin, so we are now looking for his replacement. As Bulletin editor, I am extremely appreciative of Martin’s advice on the Bulletin draft each month, and I will miss him. I can attest that his input made the Bulletin immeasurably better than it would have been without it!
Each month, over the last 10 issues, about 200 Bulletins were distributed in hard copy and 220 sent via email. This is the first time that the number of email Bulletins has exceeded the number of hard copy Bulletins. Please remember that you can choose your preferred medium – paper or electronic and if you want to change your preference, email Jude on secretary@glebesociety.org.au.
Bulletin distribution is done by our trusty ‘mailout team’ who meet on publication day at one of their homes to address each paper Bulletin. The pile is then divvied up and many Bulletins are hand-delivered to members’ letterboxes and the remainder taken to the post office. The mailout team is led by Phil Young and comprises Bruce Davis, Edwina Doe, Bryan Herden, Carole Herriman, Madeleine Jennings, Jeanette Knox, Neil Macindoe, Alison McKeown and Jude Paul.
Each month, the most recent edition of the Bulletin is made publically available on our website and promoted via the Facebook page and Twitter; and copies placed in the Society’s archives.
In the previous reporting period, the subcommittee completed the Bulletin back copies collection on our website. In this period, we turned our attention to the incomplete holdings at the National Library. We sent them the Bulletin issues that were missing and the listing is now up to date.
Websites: The Society has three websites – our main one (www.glebesociety.org.au), one for the Glebe Island Bridge (https://www.glebeislandbridge.com/) and the Glebe Walks website (https://glebewalks.com.au/)
The main website had 327,565 visits; an average of 897 a day. This is up 41% from last year. Interestingly, hits on the Glebe Island Bridge website was 83% on last year with an average of 37 visits per day. The Glebe Walks website had about 104 visits per day which is the same as last year.
There are two people who, for most of the year, who have been responsible for the website: Peter Thorogood as web technical person and Andrew Botros as web content person (formerly referred to as ‘webmaster’). Andrew and his family have moved to New York and we have very pleased to welcome Flavia Morello as the new web content person.
The Comms Subcommittee believes the website needs an overhaul, but has put this off because of the workload associated with the 50th anniversary. This is something we’ll get onto in 2019-2020.
The Glebe Island Bridge website has been lying low for some time but is ready for action if need be – that is, should it be needed for a campaign to protect the Bridge.
Facebook: The Society’s Facebook pages are also maintained by the Communications subcommittee; these are the main page (www.facebook.com/TheGlebeSociety) and the Glebe Island Bridge page (http://www.facebook.com/GlebeIslandBridge). Around 1,100 people follow our Facebook page which is a 34% increase on about this time last year. The number of followers increased steeply during the Festival, which suggests that the Festival was successful in attracting people to find out more about the Glebe Society.
The most popular Facebook post in the last year showed a picture of the burning Diptheria Cottage and suggested that people come to the exhibition to find out what was going on. 420 people clicked on the post and about 85 people shared the post with others; leading to an eventual reach of 5,400 views. We can probably assume that this was one factor contributing to the large numbers of people attending the exhibition.
As with the website, the Society is often contacted via Facebook, including by journalism students following up a story and people with family history enquiries.
If you know of anything you think could be shared on our Facebook page email us at facebook@glebesociety.org.au.
The Glebe Society Update Email: One of the subcommittee’s roles is the compilation and distribution of the Glebe Society Update emails that are sent on an irregular basis to those members who have provided us with an email address. The Glebe Society Update emails include breaking news that can’t wait for the next Bulletin and updated information on important issues that the Glebe Society is working on. The number of our members who can be contacted by email is 93%, the same as last year. If you are not receiving the email update and would like to, please let us know on communications@glebesociety.org.au, and we will add your email address to the list.
Eventbrite: As anyone who attended an event during the Glebe Society Community Festival knows, Eventbrite is the main way the Society takes bookings for events. We are aware that not all members can or want to use it, so we offer manual booking methods as well.
Twitter: Alice Simpson-Young stepped down as Chief Twit for work reasons and the role has been taken up by the subcommittee in general. Although we are not as active on Twitter as we’ve been previously, we have a respectable following of 446 people.
YouTube: No new videos have been uploaded to the Society’s YouTube channel in the past year. The YouTube videos have had 2,345 views all-up. The most viewed video is Glebe: Now and Then with 1,122 views. Expect traffic to increase on our YouTube channel soon – given the huge amount of video recorded at the Festival! The Society’s YouTube channel can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBT7r3R0FaaI_dK6kV9sCbg.
File sharing, storage, archiving and email management
We’ve been thinking for some time how best to support file sharing, storage and archiving, as well has how best to manage the Society’s email for these purposes. The Society’s documents are now often in digital form, when once they were on paper; this includes reports to the management committee and minutes of subcommittee meetings. Similarly, email communications to and from management committee members, subcommittee members etc should be archived for future reference. In the past, the president and others wrote and received paper letters which could be collected and stored in the archives. Now that so much correspondence is via email, it’s imperative that we have a systematic means for collecting and storing important email correspondence for archival purposes.
A number of systems were identified as being potentially suitable for these purposes. The subcommittee will continue to explore these options and hope to achieve a satisfactory solution in 2019-2020. Once a good system is in place, it will still be necessary to find and collect existing material that has fallen through the cracks.
What’s next?
Now that the 50th anniversary Festival is over, the subcommittee expects to focus on a few key areas over the next 12 months, as well as the ongoing support for the Society’s media (Bulletin, website etc). These areas include disseminating material from the Glebe Society Community Festival, overhauling the website and improving archiving / file sharing. These tasks will be more than enough to keep us busy until the 2020 AGM.
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