Urban Sketchers UK - all the events on one page

I've noticed on every London Urban Sketchers sketchcrawl that I've organised that we always seem to get people coming along who are temporarily visiting London.

Plus we also have a large group of people from around the UK (e.g. Oxford, Cambridge, Northampton, Southampton) who regularly come to the sketchcrawls in London

It struck me that maybe other Urban Sketchers groups in the UK and other sketchcrawls run by these groups could also have more visitors if maybe our sketchcrawls got a higher profile and were shared around more.

Example: I'm off to a sketchcrawl at Magdalene College in Cambridge next weekend because I found out about it from somebody who came to our one in London on Sunday!

Especially as all sketchcrawls are FREE and open to all comers!

They are certainly not reserved just for those who belong to a group - and people are welcome to joint the numerous groups around the UK - and we need to get that message out!

So I've decided to run an experiment for the next two-three months.

I've set up a new Facebook Page called Urban Sketchers UK - Events. The aims of the new Page are as follows:

• highlight the Sketchcrawls run on a regular basis around the UK by various Urban Sketchers Groups
• make the number of groups - and how to join them - more accessible to people around the UK and visitors from overseas - see List of Urban Sketchers Groups in the UK (accessible via the Facebook Page)
• highlight official urban sketchers group exhibitions and approved workshops to a wider audience
• if successful - provide support for the people visiting the UK next year for the Urban Sketchers Symposium 2016 in Manchester.  Three of the urban sketchers groups will be supporting the activities of the symposium run by Manchester Urban Sketchers and planning events in their own areas.  They are:
• London Urban Sketchers (which I belong to)
• Birmingham Urban Sketchers and 
• and Urban Sketchers Yorkshire

What's on "Urban Sketchers UK - Events"?

On the new Facebook Page you can

• check out event listings which replicate those in the host group - all in one place (see the events tab on the top menu). They tell you the date, the venue, the timings and what's on offer.
• find out How to set up an event on "Urban Sketchers UK - Events". 

In other words it's just a single point of contact for all the listings.

It's not talking over the events created by the host groups. Indeed no event will be included unless it already has a listing on the host group!

The big question is how to keep it up to date. One of the ways I hope to do this is to get input from "Editors" appointed by the different groups who contribute and update the page for their events as and when required.

But you don't have to be able to use Facebook or set up an event in order to get one listed - you just need to leave a comment on the Page and tell me the link on wherever you post information about your group's sketchcrawls and other events.

Please note I only started this last night(!) and don't yet have all current sketchcrawls on the new Facebook Page - but you can see a sample of them for next weekend below.

UK Urban Sketchers Events - this is what is accessible via the events tab.

Click the link to see event details.

Click the link on that event page and go straight to the host group.

Your input

I'd be very interested in people's comments about this initiative - which took off last night when I wanted to see if I could make it work - and how it could maybe be improved. 

• So far we have c.50 people who like the idea. Will you be one of them?
• What do you think might make it better?

Links: 

• CHECK OUT the urban sketchers groups in the UK! 
• London Urban Sketchers Sketchcrawls - this page on the blog lists the planned sketchcrawls (dates and venues) for the next four months up to the end of 2015