mad4bb.com

[Simon_Horn]

At the Nationals competition last weekend I met the new BFBB Liason Officer, Terry Luddington. He seems like a really nice, forward thinking guy with lots of ideas on how to promote brass bands.

He pointed me onto a new website he has created where brass band organisations/individuals can share best practice and find out how to get involved in things like arts funding applications and 2012 Olympic planning: www.mad4bb.com

I don't see the site as a replacement for TMP but at first glance it does allow for some different functionality that will help organisations share latest ideas and information.

Take a look and see what you think...

Thanks, Simon

[kp51]

Thanks for the tip - but if there's one thing guaranteed to put me off a site, it's forcing me to register before I can even see anything from it or about it. I started signing up, but then it insisted on having my birthday, which is totally irrelevant, or should be optional at best. So I gave up. You don't promote a cause by hiding it behind locked doors.

Feel free to pass that on to the organizer.
KP

[Owen S]

Yes. He was collaring people as they finished having their photo taken, and the first two Egham people he grabbed pointed me out as webmaster. I promised to take a look, and then, amusing, another three Egham people passed me their copy of the flyer when we got back to the changing rooms.

A website that where you can't see content until you register will never work, full stop. Either they need a listing of what's there, plus some some example content pages that can be seen by everyone, or, preferably, guests should have read-only access to the whole site.

The age thing, I suspect is for legal reasons, so they can protect minors or similar. If that's the case though, they should state that on the sign-up page, not just show "your age will be kept private", and only then if you hover over the question mark button.

I will register to see what's there in the next few days, but I doubt it will attract enough users to become a viable site if it remains set up as it is now.

[GinGinnie]

Somebody calling themselves "A touch of Brass" is advertising this website by clogging up the vacancies section of 4Br.

It's really annoying and has made me vow not to look at it.
Please stop it.

[David Mann]

I signed up, doesn't seem so bad..

[tsawyer]

I signed up, doesn't seem so bad..

Would you care to suggest reasons I should sign up? What's there?

Thanks,

Tim.

[David Mann]

Would you care to suggest reasons I should sign up? What's there?

Thanks,

Tim.

Seems like a LinkedIn or FB site for brass bands. It will need to attain critical mass to be useful. What you can do, copied from site, is:

Here is a quick summary of what you can do on Making A Difference.
1) You can update your profile page "My Page" with the correct information about you (e.g. your photo, location, contact details and your interests in Brass Bands).
2) You can invite your friends who also have an interest in brass banding to join "Making A Difference" and start to create your own social network specific to your brass band or group. If you have the authority from your committee you can create an entry for your brass band / ensemble / association and invite all your members to join your new social network on Making a Difference. Click here for more information.
3) You can request to join other social networks of brass bands / ensembles / associations on Making A Difference that interest you.
4) You can add your favourite brass band photos to the network to share with others (e.g. photos of your band, your concerts, your local bandstand). These can be uploaded from your own computer, your mobile phone or loaded automatically from your Flickr account.
5) You can add your favourite brass band music and play it on the pop out music player provided.
6) You can add your favourite video clips to the network to share with others. These can be uploaded from your own computer or loaded automatically from the internet (e.g. You Tube, vimeo, hulu, etc...) by copying the embed code from the host site.
7) You can add your favourite annual brass band events that you would like to share with other members of the network.
You can get the latest brass band news feeds from 4barsrest, the mouthpiece, world of brass, brass musician under the media tab.
9) You can join the discussion forums to add your own contributions to how we can all help Make A Difference working with Brass Bands in our local communities. We are particularly interested in sharing best practice, collaborating on creative projects and development opportunities for your brass band.
10) You can share content with others using Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc...
11) You can use the search facilities of Making A Difference to find the information that is of most interest to you (e.g. search for members who play the same instrument, have the same interests, events happening in your locality, bands in your locality, search for creative projects involving education, cultural olympiad, composition, etc...)
If you require further assistance on any of the above then please contact the BFBB Liaison Officer.