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Post by keff on Jan 18, 2023 16:58:58 GMT
Morecambe Bay Piano Group(MBPG) embarks on its new season with the first 2023 meeting on 28th January. The aim of the group is to help pianists from all backgrounds and with all abilities to play in front of a live supportive audience and thereby increase their performance experiences. People are welcome to play other instruments.
MBPG is a small group continuously trying to expand and has been able to do this by previously having its own web page that prospective members have found in a Google search. Unfortunately support for our webpage facility has been withdrawn and I am now looking for an easy to use page construction site and a very cheap web hosting site. If any member of this forum is able to point me in the right direction I would be most grateful.
Please let me know if you would like any further information about MBPG activities.
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Post by pavane on Jan 18, 2023 18:58:41 GMT
My wife uses a company called WIX and says they are pretty good. She knows absolutely nothing about setting up a website but has set something up she is quite happy with. She pays a bit for business facilities but I think the basic site is very cheap.
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Post by keff on Jan 18, 2023 19:18:30 GMT
My wife uses a company called WIX and says they are pretty good. She knows absolutely nothing about setting up a website but has set something up she is quite happy with. She pays a bit for business facilities but I think the basic site is very cheap. Thank you pavane, I will look into that. |
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Post by Zi on Jan 19, 2023 8:17:15 GMT
It used to be free many years ago. I've used it for mocking up prototypes. It was pretty impressive then. I see Google's free site build and hosting has morphed into free design but pay for space... It seems really excessive to have to pay for a whole site if all you want is little more than an advert...
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Post by keff on Jan 19, 2023 8:32:17 GMT
We would like a cheap site because of having no money as it has all been used to pay modest hall rentals. I am happy to subsidise the group just to keep it going but it would be nice just to attract say five additional members at each meeting so we would break even. There are a great number of amateur pianists in our area. Either they don't know we exist or have good reasons for not coming.
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Post by Zi on Jan 19, 2023 8:35:17 GMT
I'm assuming you've tried notices in local shops and little slips of paper with contact details they could take away from a music shop. I'm not the kind of ex-computer scientist that thinks computers are necessarily the best solution! We have a village notice board here - it would be perfect for your kind of advert.
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Post by keff on Jan 19, 2023 9:21:26 GMT
We have notices in the local music shop in Morecambe, in Morrisons and have yet to visit Sainsburys and at least one other supermarket in next few days. Last year our page in 'OurLancashire' website was noticed by the local BBC radio station and six of us trundled to Blackburn for a hour's interview. It was quite enjoyable but we didn't ask how many listeners they were expecting at 7:30pm on a weekday evening. We have about thirty people on our mailing list most of whom have come to meetings at one time or another. The ideal number of attendees would be between 12-15 as we would break even and have a quid or two surplus.
I spent my working life in science/engineering sometimes programming computers to do long/repetitive calculations or engineering data manipulation.
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Post by Zi on Jan 19, 2023 9:35:12 GMT
We have notices in the local music shop in Morecambe, in Morrisons and have yet to visit Sainsburys and at least one other supermarket in next few days. Last year our page in 'OurLancashire' website was noticed by the local BBC radio station and six of us trundled to Blackburn for a hour's interview. It was quite enjoyable but we didn't ask how many listeners they were expecting at 7:30pm on a weekday evening. We have about thirty people on our mailing list most of whom have come to meetings at one time or another. The ideal number of attendees would be between 12-15 as we would break even and have a quid or two surplus. I spent my working life in science/engineering sometimes programming computers to do long/repetitive calculations or engineering data manipulation. That's all the things I'd do as well. Re computers - then you know. They aren't always the best solution. We're working on some ideas here. I'll report back if we get anywhere. edit: We use these: www.fasthosts.co.uk/web-hosting£1 a month for the first year but then it goes up... But you could go somewhere else then... We're still working... |
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Post by keff on Jan 19, 2023 10:01:24 GMT
Thanks, £1 per month is as much as I'm thinking about.
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Post by Zi on Jan 19, 2023 10:08:40 GMT
Thanks, £1 per month is as much as I'm thinking about. It zooms up thereafter. But that's a different problem. It gives you time... My husband says there's a WP deal but that's just for 6 months - same provider. At the risk of being repetitive we're 'still working' as Star Trek's computer would say... We're a bit rusty... it's been 10 years since we've had to think about things like this... |
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Post by evergreen on Jan 20, 2023 0:29:04 GMT
Would it be worthwhile joining meetup.com to reach a wider number of people?
Also, I don't know if you fulfil the criterion for joining the U3A (retired from full-time employment) or if they have a group in Morecambe, but if so, it might be worthwhile starting a group within the U3A so that you reach all their members too.
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Post by keff on Jan 20, 2023 8:33:38 GMT
Thank you evergreen for these suggestions. Meetup.com is very successfully used to organise piano groups in Manchester and Liverpool and I must look into the cost of using them. Affileating with the U3A is something that had not occurred to me and is a very good idea.
Welcome to this forum.
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Post by Zi on Jan 20, 2023 9:10:00 GMT
I'm guessing you thought of using something like Blogger? www.blogger.com/about/?bpli=1I'm not sure how that works these days but in its original form (before it was taken over by Google and shortly after) it might have served well as you could have updated it with the group's activities and it links well with youtube etc. |
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Post by keff on Jan 20, 2023 10:01:53 GMT
Hi Zi, No Blogger hadn't occurred. I will take a look.
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Post by Zi on Jan 20, 2023 10:17:59 GMT
Good. It was a bit haphazard when Google bought it out and they did clean it up. I liked it haphazard and free. It was like flickr in the early days. It may have become a monster.
I'm not really clear what your aim for the website is because I'm not clear how you'll get people there. Is it simply to be somewhere to send them when they read your adverts in the supermarkets, libraries, theatres, pubs, gyms and doctors and anywhere else you can stick one? Or do you have other intentions with it. We have talked about adding a domain name to our domain and offering space but it solves nothing. You'd be better off with an advert at Piano World - because at least they're pianists or The Morecombe Ramblers because at least they're in Morecombe. I like evergreen's suggestions because at least it's narrowing the world population to something a bit more manageable.
It's a fascinating problem (for me) and I'm still 'working' on it. I assume you've approached local piano teachers. It's a shame they're aren't still evening classes...
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