Another way to enjoy your hobby

John

Had Kippers (2) plus bread with lashings of butter and coffee.

Another way to enjoy your hobby!!!
What the H*** has that got to do with ME...
The only twitter I get is from all my hens when I go up at about 6.00 and feed them
Bob

Edited By Springbok on 20/08/2013 12:27:37

Bob,

I think that was a tongue in cheek reply

..... or maybe Foot in Mouth John?

Seriously though why are folk surprised that ME is an "an ageing interest group"? It requires a lot of time and needs considerable cash investment. For most of us time and cash are in short supply until we are got a bit older. I've always found that MEs are welcoming and helpful to youngsters and , although younger folk may be interested, when you are young there ARE MORE interesting things to do than spending time in the workshop ( as I vaguely remember) !

Norman

Good Luck Patrick,

I spent most of my working life in IT, so I'm not exactly a Luddite where it's concerned.

But I have no interest at all in Facebook or Twitter - in fact I try to avoid these 'Social' sites like the plague. I do like Forums though, I guess there is some kind of subtle difference but I've not analysed it deeply. Something to do with getting useful information back (as opposed to useless drivel) I suspect.

So whilst I'm sure you would like to atttract a younger audience to Model Engineering, I doubt that this is a good route to their attentions and I'm pretty sure that it won't appeal that much to many of your existing (cough) "ageing" customers either.

Regards,

IanT

I don't know, looking at some of the tweets from ME whoever is doing them may attract a few more like minded five year olds as thats what they look to have been written by:

"Postmans bought me something nice this morning"

"Postman's been! Look - he bought my latest ME magazine"

"Ye-Ha!"

"My new Model Engineer Magazine arrived today!"

Why not "latest issue available in the shops now" or "Latest subscription issue mailed"

Are we allowed to know if whoever is posting these tweets has any actual ME knowledge or are they just a MTM employee who spends their whole day tweeting about all the publications.

J

Hi JasonB - good to see you're getting bitten by the bug and venturing onto twitter.

You missed some of the updates with your edited version, of course.

They can be quite informative and with links to news articles (not just our own), events around the UK - or this website.

VOLUNTEERS from the The North Wilts Model Engineering Society miniature railway at Coate Water recently held a...

If you or your club are organsing a special event this summer, why not publicise it on our events page? This...

A day out? Remember: tickets for the 2013 Model Engineer show are on sale via Myhobbystore

Get involved - contribute to our library of machine tool manuals and help an engineer who's bought second-hand...

Model Engineer has news of the St Albans and District Model Engineering Society annual exhibition being held on...

I posted 6 photos on Facebook in the album "Highlights from the Club News pages"

My new Model Engineer magazine arrived today! Have you got yours yet? on sale at the newsagents from this...

Remembering the Great Train Robbery and those who were affected by it 50 years ago today.

Rail fan? This new publication celebrates every British railways diesel class locomotive issued with a TOPs...

Great news! A new 127-metre model railway on Llandudno's West Shore, run by the North Wales Model Engineering...

SO as a moderator why have you not posted this lot here or are the kids going to be interested in "the great train robbery" a Mr Biggs. Do you remember him maybe you were still at school at the time.
I want an assurance that any answers of help I give will not be automatically posted onto one of these idiot sites. And I am sure all members feel the same.

Bob

They can ... and I suspect they will ..

This is quoted from section 3 of their T&C on Posted Content.

Any Content provided by you by, for example, posting messages to bulletin boards or chat forums, uploading files, inputting data, or engaging in any other form of communication through this Website, although owned by you, is subject to a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, unrestricted, world-wide licence allowing MyTimeMedia to use, distribute, copy, sub-license, adapt, transmit, publicly perform or display any such content. You agree to irrevocably and unconditionally waive on your behalf in perpetuity in respect of such Content the benefit of any provision of law known as moral rights of authors or any similar law in any country.

Dave

Hi folks. I agree with all the comments about "facefingy" and "twaddle" BUT not about "men sheds" Age UK run "Men in Sheds" in a number of areas in the north west. I am a volunteer at the Crewe shed,where we have well over a hundred chaps (55 or older) who attend on a fairly regular basis. We mainly do woodwork, but recently bought a seig SC3 from Arc Euro as did the Northwich "shed" and quite a few of those who attend are keen learners. I know of two other "sheds", one in Chester, and one in Ellesmere Port. All are thriving workshops.

Cheers Derek.

P.S. Google Men in Sheds/UK

Isn't that a bit sexist? don't you allow the ladies into your sheds?

J

Yep ! very sexist, just like the WI and the "knit & natter" group at our local health center who don't want blokes around. We don't ban them really but we just don't have any lady toilets etc. They often call in to order various items to be made, and often stop for a brew and a chat,but so far (3years) none have asked can they stay to work on a project.

Cheers Derek.

Edited By jason udall on 20/08/2013 18:51:22

We came to talk about facebook at work today and I was surprised to find out that the kids are leaving facebook for other foras like instagram - whatever that is.

In addition I also see very many comapnies going to facebook to get a lot of "likes" like a contest to see how many one can get, and to get the most the offerings are sugared with "good deals" or "contests". This in itself I think shows that facebook as a serious channel for connecting to people is more or less worthless. This because too many are doing the same thing and swamps the "area" which of course rapidly falls out of interest.

On the other hand, I think the publishers are thinking in the right direction, but please target something else, facebook is old and gone shortly.

What could be a way forward would be to create something like a forum for general and technical science to describe and explain the ingenuities and technologies we use and have used over time. Simply trying to answer tthe youngsters question on "how do this work?" would probably take it a long way and far more effectively than facebook.

BR

/Peter

I don't have anything to do with FaceAche, Twaddle & the likes & actively disengage with companies who offer content exclusively through these channels.

If the publishers really want to move forward, then I think they will have to start actively generating interesting & varied content & present it in different ways, rather than relying upon the readership to fill the magazines for them.

If you want an example of a better way of engaging with your audience, i suggest taking a look at Flory Models site - plastic modelling rather than model engineering, maybe, but a great many varied video & photographic articles, reviews, featured builds, techniques etc. These are updated daily Monday-Friday, meaning there is some fresh content on most visits to the site & the back catalogue is available as part of the basic subscription (unlike this site !). All for less than £3 a month.

As I find that the Flory Models site is more engaging & interesting than MEW, and as the publishers have chosen to make the MEW subscription less attractive by removing the back issue rights I signed up for originally, I have cancelled the MEW DD in favour of the internet only, no published hard copy, updated daily Flory Models subscription.

£0.02

Nigel B.

edit for spelling correction

Edited By Nigel Barraclough on 20/08/2013 21:10:28

I dont let anybody in my workshop unless they are related or very close friends and even then they are asked to keep quiet about my workshop and where it is and what I do in there, as for having strangers and kids in there poking there fingers into places that are a danger to the uninitiated,NO THANKS.

Dick

I am not sexist I let men visit my workshop (as long as they go home again and don't try to move in . ) But I never seem to get invited to see theirs: maybe they are worried that I might take a liking for their tools .

And don't forget most companies lock out access to social media websites, forums are not locked out.

Jo

Facebook is like writing G Code for a Goldfish, they only understand G02 and G03

Ok chaps, it may surprise you to know that if you block the Facebook link on site threads, the reply to postings is disabled, curious that eh!
I've just tried to reply to this post and others, and couldn't until I re-activated 'facebook.net' (I use 'NoScript' which disables Javascript & Java unless you opt to allow it!
This must be new, as it's always been blocked before, maybe Peter Astill has had a hand in this development?

Now, I do use Facebook, but in a deliberately Very limited way!
(a) to keep in touch with my Sister, nieces and Nephews, all of whom live near 100 miles away from me, so it's a convenient way to keep up to speed with Family and what's going on in their lives, plus private messages through their FB messages goes straight to their iPads and Blackberries or whatever fruit they communicate with, it's often faster than waiting for them to read Emails!

(b) I keep tabs on a Private Jaguar owner's site of which I'm a founder member and which amongst many useful attributes, actively notifies members of stolen cars and scam sales on eBay and the like!

(c) My Gym posts up events and member concessions etc!

I do not follow Model engineer, because I have the homepage tabbed in my browser, and I don't wish to give any entity other than family members access to my homepage!

That being said, my FB account is locked solidly down to 'Friends Only', and I regularly check my security setting because Facebook are (allegedly) absolute ***** for constantly updating policy to deliberately circumvent member settings - do not ever allow 'Friends of Friends or Public access to your account because anything that ever appears on another member's account is there for life and you can't delete it!
Never use 'App's either, they're a warrant to spam you into oblivion as companies track you accross the web via the cookies they embed in your browser cache, some of which are 'super cookies' which don't die with a cache clearout, and if you don't know what they are ~Google it!!

I also entered a fictitious Birthday and home town in my Facebook account, both of which are required by default if you wish to open an account!

Facebook also have very serious privacy issues, many of which are constantly being highlighted by Sophos, the antivirus security company, the two links below are just tasters of what's going on:

**LINK**

**LINK**

Twitter is a waste of time, space and effort frankly, I have an account and can't be bothered with it, I don't follow anyone except my gym, I have no followers there and don't want them, I'll be closing that account soon!

As far as Facebook and Twitter and this site are concerned, the users on those sites are predominantly younger very tech savvy users, if they clicked to enter this site and had to wait the excruciatingly long periods of time some of us have to wait for pages to load, they'd be off like a shot never to be seen again, they'd also quickly pick up how crap the site software is, and ditto, they'd probably bin it!
Although there may be a new template in the offing, it may have been pertinent for management to have delayed pushing FB and Twitter associations until such time as they updated the site so it worked before alienating prospective new members, it smacks of microsoft pushing out new operating systems before it's ready and hoping not too many users pick holes in it!

Use those forms of media to drive people to this site by all means, 1% of whom may turn out to be seriously interested in the pursuit of Model engineering, but Please make your main announcements here to the very people who do actually support the site and have contributed to its continuing success to date in spite of its foibles, not to sites like Feacebook which are populated by dissaffected schoolkids spawning porn and bullying!

John

Edited By Diane Carney on 22/08/2013 00:31:12