Scotland's first ever all-day third sector social media conference, Social Media for Social Good, will take place on 26th April 2012 at The Albany Learning and Conference Centre, Glasgow.

The event will be packed with amazing talks and a selection of practical workshops, encompassing topics such as video for the web, better blogging, facebook and twitter tips, social media strategy, online fundraising and more.

We’re keen to keep the conference affordable so tickets will be under £100 – they’re going to be available via the GCVS website from 1st March onwards. I’ll let you know the full speaker and workshop line-up soon!

If you're a fundraiser, someone new to the profession or if raising funds is part of your wider role then it's hard to ignore the potential of online tools and social media. For many charities their online giving strategy starts and stops with a donate-button on their website, often with little thought put in to how they'll encourage people to part with their hard earned cash. 

Our Third Sector Lab Online Fundraising workshop is here to help. Hosted by Sara Thomas, Fundraiser with MND Scotland and former Be Good Be Social speaker, the half-day workshop will give you everything you need to get started fundraising online.

Part of the GCVS Learning and Development programme, the training workshop is just £65 for members or £85 for non-members. The workshop runs twice on Thu 23rd February 2012, allowing you to choose between a morning or afternoon session.

What Sara will be covering:

· An introduction to online fundraising tools – how to get started & notes on best practice

· Incorporating online fundraising into your overall fundraising strategy

· Practical workshop – how do we make this work in your organisation?

What Sara wants participants to bring:

· Enthusiasm

· Curiosity

· Any questions that they have about online fundraising, especially ones specific to their organisation.

What Sara wants participants to take from the session:

· A clear idea of the range of online fundraising tools available

· To feel confident about getting started, or feel more secure in their existing knowledge

· To feel confident about integrating online/digital fundraising into their existing strategy

· Ideas for the use of online fundraising that’s specific to their organisation

· To come away with practical tips about digital fundraising that are drawn from case study and real life experience

Book online now.

£65 GCVS members, £85 non-members.

You can choose between a morning or afternoon session.

Thu 23rd February 2012 9.30am - 12.30pm

Thu 23rd February 2012 1.30pm - 4.30pm

You can contact Stacey on 0141 332 2444 or stacey.anderson@gcvs.org.uk if you'd prefer to be invoiced or to have a booking form sent to you.

This workshop is part of a range of social media training workshops available at GCVS in partnership with Third Sector Lab.

I've become slightly addicted to the wonderful If This Then That (ifttt). In essence, ifttt is a way to put the internet to work for you by creating tasks that fit this simple structure: if this then that. For example:

TThere's tons of ifttt Channels (DropBox, Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, YouTube and more) which define Triggers and Actions, the basic building blocks for creating ifttt tasks.

I thought it would be interesting to have a play about with ifttt tasks and I came up with @WeegieWeather - an ifttt powered weather channel for Glasgow. This ifttt powered twitter account tweets when certain parameters are met, utilising the Yahoo Weather Channel as a trigger. So you'll get a tweet to let you know if it's going to be snowing tomorrow, if it's about to turn to rain in the afternoon, if it's bikini weather tomorrow, if it's going to be clear skies and so on. I've added a fair few weather triggers so weegies need never get caught without an umbrella or sun cream again.

I take no responsibility for the accuracy of the tweets as they're powered by Yahoo Weather not me. Don't moan to me that your picnik at Kelvingrove Park got rained upon if the tweets said it was clear skies.

A rather nice ifttt trigger/action I've set up means the @WeatherWeather twitter avatar should always reflect the weather right now in Glasgow. I used Creative Commons images for this:

Cloudy day (Clydeport crane) shot by Kristian Dela Cour.

Rainy day (Gibson St umbrella) shot by Neil H.

Snowy day (Glasgow uni) shot by Ian Dick.

Anyone can create their own weather channel for their city based upon the ifttt recipes I've shared. I'd love feedback on this and I'm especially interested to hear from other people using ifttt.

Just a very quick post to say thanks to all the kind folks giving up their time for free to help out at our social media surgery for Scottish third sector organisations on 21st Sept.

If you're coming along you'll get top-notch advice from one of these lovely people:

@thirdsectorlab
@craigmcgill
@kylemacrae
@conradr
@abigailstein
@mmeluna
@keanearrow
@babbleoftongues
@stuglen
@hollyjunesmith
@youngscot
@ian_c_elliott
@simpsonrc
@LockhartL
@ldnnow
@finwycherley
@ResearcherEmer
@cabowick
@DrummondoLive

There's tons of great events happening in Glasgow during Social Media Week, you can check out the Be Good Be Social Top Ten for inspirtation.

For the lazy amongst you who haven't been following the Social Media Week Glasgow blog, this video beautifully illustrates what Social Media Week 2011 is all about.

Remember, as part of #SMWgla, Be Good Be Social – The Surgery will take place at Big Lottery Scotland, Glasgow, on Wed 21st Sept. Free to charities, social entrepreneurs and community groups you’ll get 30 minutes with one of our surgeons.

Tickets available on the Social Media Week site from 6th Sept onwards or sign up for our updates and we'll email you once they go live.

Presented by Alan Bissett www.alanbissett.com; illustrations by Lauren Currie We Are Snook www.wearesnook.com; production and concept by Inner Ear www.innerear.co.uk and twintangibles www.twintangibles.co.uk in collaboration with New Media Corp www.newmediacorp.co.uk
Video shot at SocietyM - CitizenM Hotel Glasgow www.citizenm.com
Music by S-Type beats https://www.facebook.com/stypebeats

UPDATE: Closing date to submit your name is 12pm 17th Aug 2011.

We'll be carrying out some user-experience testing on an arts charity website soon and we need your help. If you're over 18, can travel to Edinburgh or Glasgow and have 45 mins to spare  then we'd love to hear from you. Ideally we're looking for people who don't have a web/design background and you don't need to know anything about the arts.

We'll give you a few simple tasks to complete on the site and we'll ask you your opinion on elements of the site as we go along. What you think about the website matters to us and by giving up 45 minutes of your time you'll be helping the charity provide an even better service (we'll be able to tell you who they are when you get in touch). Oh and did I mention there's a £10 Amazon voucher in it for those who take part.

We'll set a date/time that suits you - if you're interested in taking part or simply want to find out more then get in touch: ross[@]thirdsectorlab.co.uk or @ThirdSectorLab or leave a comment below.

The Big Lottery Fund are organising events for applicants and stakeholders around the development of a new BIG website. They'll be hosting a workshop in their Glasgow office (host venue for the last Be Good Be Social) on Thursday 26th May from 10.30am – 3.30pm and lunch is provided.

Areas to be discussed at this event will include:

• previous experience of applying for funding and, where appropriate, providing advice to applicants
• review of other websites and networks
• requirements for implementing, managing and evaluating BIG funded projects
• what web based resources would help with these processes

BIG are looking for a diverse group of around 10 stakeholders/applicants/grantholders to participate in this workshop. If you are interested in attending drop them a tweet @BIGscotland or email John.Fellows[@]biglotteryfund.org.uk