'Our Society is run by volunteers. Whatever the role, we do it for the love of sculpture.'
Well kind of... but seriously, let's face it, we don’t function as the Surrey Sculpture Society, if we, as members, don’t all give a little bit of time and effort to maintain the Society and its activities.
We totally get that some roles are more time consuming than others and also understand that depending on life’s other commitments, there is only so much time you can give us as volunteers.
But never let that stop you from offering to do your bit because whether it be as part of an Exhibition or a well-defined role, there is always something for each of us to do.
love, the Society xx
The Social Media Queens (maybe)
written by Elizabeth Cooke
In the beginning:
Back in 2022 some of my work was accepted for my first SSS exhibition at Landmark. Having read all the rules and specifications for volunteering, I was slightly horror-struck that volunteers were expected to be sociable. Sociability is not my strong suit. My studio is called the Hermitage for a reason! I came up with an idea that maybe I could quietly help out with the social media and keep myself well in the background while still fulfilling my volunteering task. So I casually asked Caroline Wheaton if I could help with the social media, if the Society were interested. She was keen and so it began…
At this point there was a small team and an advisor. We met on Zoom every so often and discussed content and strategy. At the moment it is just Caroline and I but we have had some great help over the last few years from willing volunteers.
Back in 2022 some of my work was accepted for my first SSS exhibition at Landmark. Having read all the rules and specifications for volunteering, I was slightly horror-struck that volunteers were expected to be sociable. Sociability is not my strong suit. My studio is called the Hermitage for a reason! I came up with an idea that maybe I could quietly help out with the social media and keep myself well in the background while still fulfilling my volunteering task. I casually asked Caroline Wheaton if I could help with the social media, if the Society was interested. She was keen and so it began…
At this point there was a small team and an advisor. We met on Zoom every so often and discussed content and strategy. At the moment it is just Caroline and I but we have had some great help over the last few years from willing volunteers.
Information Technology
IT is not my strong suit! Social media is a rapidly evolving technology so it was suggested that we create our content in Meta (what’s that I said?). Well we tried and we tried and we tried, regularly resorting to our old methods. Eventually I gave in and said to Caroline that I would try to fix it properly to make it automated (ha ha - hubris!)... Time to introduce 'Sam Serpent.'
Sam Serpent:
In order to get our account up and running on Meta, we needed to enter all our passwords. We discovered everything was registered to the mysterious “Sam Serpent”. Their email, phone number and passwords were all needed in order for us to move forward. Caroline took on the role of sleuth but sadly was unable to track down our slithery friend! Meanwhile it was time to call in the heavies. My long-suffering husband and IT expert and yes... it defeated him too! So we started again from scratch, set up a completely new facebook page and got Meta working. The skillset Caroline and I brought to this monumental effort was tenacity, persistence, doggedness and refusal to be defeated by faceless corporations.
Day to day running
After that obstacle was overcome, we went about our social media business. Our main priority is to advertise our exhibitions and showcase the artists. Showcasing takes quite a team of people, including a photographer who photographs every piece in situ. It is easy to take photos for granted, however, they really are brilliant and show our work off in its very best light. We try our hardest not to leave any artist out and keep lists in the hope that this will prevent any mistakes. Sometimes, it gets a bit pedestrian especially with a long exhibition. We mixed it up a bit at Claremont by doing an alphabet of sculptures and at Savill by working through how sculptors work with different media. Hopefully this alleviates any tedium for the audience (and us!).
Jollies
Over the months Caroline and I will have a Zoom, leave voice messages for each other so, last year we decided we needed to meet in person.
We had a long period of time eating, visiting the Portrait Gallery and eventually got down to business over tea and cake (it’s a hard life!). We planned the next 6 months or so - careful not to go too far ahead otherwise there would be no more excuses to meet up.
We often have to rack our brains for the fallow periods between shows. We were very keen for people to do takeovers for a week or more. We have had some great ones and then we also ended up taking over ourselves.
We generally post around 4 times a week. Previously, we use to be able to use tricks for increasing our reach but now the instagram algorithm is constantly changing and I have no idea what the current trend is. Any help and advice is always welcome.
So there we are….. the life of the Social Media Queens!