Not much writing
All I wrote during this last month was my blog on Pentecost – late, I should have done it a month earlier.
I had given a draft copy of “The Church has a Past – has it got a Future?” to a member of our Bible study group for criticism. She gave me it! Very useful. I need to do quite a lot of revision and I have another member of the group to keep giving me feedback.
I revised the text of ‘Discovering Psalms as Prayer’ which I will be recording for audio with Peter Walters next month.
However, my main focus has been:
Marketing
I have had three phone conversations with Wishpond this month, and worked at getting them access to my Google Analytics account and Google Ads. There has been a big jump in the number of people clicking onto my website, from 10 per day to up to 40 per day at the end of the month. My top three countries are Canada (28), UK (93) and USA (162). Clearly my biggest market is over the pond.
I have also had to produce a workable logo and after one false start Nat Gillet and I settled on this.
Social Media
Two campaigns this month. The first was sparked by finding the new ‘Black Chapel’ by the Serpentine Gallery. I posted my photo of it and continued with photos of six more chapels. I am now doing a series on ‘ The Bible – Too Long?’ etc. focussing on Bible in Brief. Not popular, but I will continue to focus on BiB over the next few weeks.
I am getting more interest from church people on LinkedIn. I just need to set aside TIME to engage with people who engage with me. I find I don’t do it well on the phone. My laptop in the afternoon is probably the best.
BiB
I’ve got a bit fired up about my ‘Bible in Brief’ ever since my friend Kate in Singapore told me how great she found it. I am now continuing to go through it myself, and putting my comments on the ‘Read and Discuss’ tab, where you can also read the passage. I am almost half way through the book. I really like doing it because there is plenty of space for whatever comments I want to make. The tab does not include the suggested questions or give information about that part of the Bible. Also, no pictures, and no quotations from other cultures. For these you need the book. Only £9.99 from bibleinbrief.org (no p&p in UK) or Amazon.
I am also learning how to use the ‘Divi visual builder’ which will allow me to change the home page and produce better blogs, when I have got on top of it. Emma, my website administrator, is helping me with it.
New possibilities
On 9th, with the help of my trusty Crockfords’ Clerical Directory, I contacted Canon Odoemena about his interesting website. We met for tea on Sunday afternoon and talked about sharing blogs, dong podcasts together and other exciting things. Watch this space!
Music at Hill
The music society of which I am chairman continues to flourish. We are about to acquire a harpsichord which will be great for baroque recitals, though we have to keep it in another nearby church.
In July we celebrate the music of J S Bach, and I undertook to produce fliers for the festival. Sadly, I failed. I could not upload the artwork to Solopress’ website, largely because my MacBook is unable to create A5 documents and Solopress has become more digital. Any suggestions anyone?
Family
The biggest news this month is that Linda’s mother Anne died early on the morning of 7th. Linda managed to get to the hospital just in time to be with her when she died. It was of course devastating for her and specially for her father. I went down the week of the funeral when Linda gave a most moving talk. We are still coming to terms with the whole situation.