Featured Posts RSSThu, 26 Feb 2026 08:16:51 GMTA few of you have asked why some group covers here look great and others look like a screenshot from 2009. Fair question. Covers are the first thing you see when you browse groups and spaces, so I've written down the rules we now use when setting up new ones.Show the activity, not the logoA photo of people doing the thing beats a logo every time: a choir mid-song, a workbench covered in parts, a dog on a muddy walk. Logos belong in the avatar; the cover is for atmosphere.Leave room for the titleThe group name sits over the bottom of the cover on most screens, and the mobile app crops the sides. Pick images with the main subject in the upper middle and a calm area underneath.Avoid text in the imageIt gets cropped on phonesIt doesn't translateScreen readers can't see itUse your own photos when you canStock photos are fine to start with, but a slightly blurry photo from your own meetup says more about a community than a perfect one of strangers. If you have one, post it in Help & Support and a moderator will swap it in.Over the next few weeks I'll go through the older groups and nudge owners whose covers could use a refresh. No pressure, and nobody is getting a stern letter.

]]>Thu, 26 Feb 2026 08:16:51 GMTWhile going through the year's numbers for the end-of-year update, I noticed something I had half suspected: when new members post for the first time, a surprising number of them post a photo of their pet. Cats, dogs, a rabbit called Admiral, one very patient tortoise. Not a hello, not a question, just the animal.At first I took that as a sign our welcome flow wasn't working. Now I think it's the opposite. A pet photo is the easiest thing in the world to share with strangers. It says something about you without asking you to explain yourself, and it is almost impossible to reply to it unkindly.What happens next is the interesting bitPet photos get replies fast, usually from other pet owners, and those replies turn into conversations. A good share of the people whose first post was their dog went on to join a space, comment on someone else's post or turn up at a meetup within a month. A cat asleep on a keyboard turns out to be a very good on-ramp.Much of the credit goes to Mice and Cats, the pets space Jane Okafor runs. It is one of the warmest corners of the network, and she and the regulars make a point of welcoming every newcomer who wanders in with a photo.So, a small changeFrom the new year, the welcome message will suggest a photo of your pet, your desk or your view as an easy first post. If you have been lurking and don't know where to start, consider this your invitation. And yes, I will be posting my own cat.

]]>Mon, 29 Dec 2025 06:53:58 GMTEvery November I try to find a way to say thank you to everyone who turned up this year: the litter pickers, the coat swap sorters, the people who lent us a gazebo and never asked for it back. This year we skipped the shop-bought cards and made our own, and it turned into one of my favourite evenings of the whole year.The set-upWe borrowed the back room of the community centre for two hours on a Tuesday. A neighbour who does block printing brought carved rubber stamps, and everyone else brought whatever they had: coloured card, washi tape, old seed packets, pressed leaves from the autumn clean-up. Total spend was under twenty pounds, mostly on envelopes and glue sticks.Fold the card first, decorate second. We learned that one the hard way.Keep one table for glue and glitter and one table strictly for writing.Put the kettle on before anyone arrives, not after.Thank you, in every language on our streetOur neighbourhood speaks a lot of languages, so instead of printing one message we asked everyone to write thank you in their own. By the end of the night we had cards in English, Somali, Polish, Urdu, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Portuguese, Welsh, Tamil and Igbo. My mum checked my Igbo over the phone, twice. The illustration at the top is the one we put on the invite, and it pretty much sums up the mood.One of our original litter pickers moved to Norway in the summer and still sent a card back to the group, with a photo of the view from her new weekend hike. We also tucked in a picture of the last squash from the community garden plot, because it deserved a thank-you too.If you coordinate volunteers anywhere, I can't recommend this enough. It costs almost nothing, it gets people chatting who normally only see each other in hi-vis, and the cards end up on fridges for months. Happy to share the stamp designs if anyone wants them, just ask in the comments.

]]>Fri, 28 Nov 2025 02:50:09 GMTEvery Thursday morning for the past three months, a retired greyhound called Biscuit has visited our practice with her handler, a volunteer from a local therapy animal programme. I was sceptical at first. I'm not anymore.What we noticedThe waiting room is quieter on Thursdays. Children who usually dread their vaccinations spend the wait stroking a very patient dog. Older patients who come alone stay a few minutes longer to chat. Several told our receptionist it was the best part of their week.It isn't only patients. Staff spend their coffee break with Biscuit, and Thursday has quietly become everyone's favourite day. In a profession with a lot of burnout, that matters.The practical sideNot everyone loves dogs. Some people are afraid or allergic, so Biscuit stays in one corner and patients can choose a different seating area.Hygiene. The handler carries hand gel, and the dog never goes into examination rooms.Consent. Nobody is approached. People go to her if they want to.Trained animals only. The programme assesses both dog and handler. A calm temperament is the whole job.I'm careful about claims here. This isn't treatment, and I can't point to a number that proves it works. But I've watched a lot of tense shoulders drop on Thursday mornings.Over in Health & Wellness we're starting a thread for the animals that get you through hard weeks. Dogs, cats, the neighbour's chickens, all welcome. Share a photo and tell us their name.

]]>Thu, 29 May 2025 05:17:47 GMTOver the past few weeks I've been quietly building the courses section of this network. The first two courses, Community Management 101 and Moderation Essentials, now have most of their lessons in place, and before we open them to everyone I'd like a few fresh pairs of eyes.What we needAbout a dozen members, ideally a mix of brand-new community managers and people who have been moderating for years.Roughly an hour over the next two weeks, at your own pace.Both phones and laptops. Lessons should be readable on a small screen, and I suspect some of them aren't yet.What to look forAnything that confuses you, bores you or feels wrong: lessons that run too long, weekly tasks that don't make sense for your kind of community, advice you disagree with. Broken layouts and typos too, but I care more about whether the lessons are actually useful.If you're in, leave a comment below or post in Help & Support and I'll add you to the courses. Thank you in advance. Everything here gets better when members poke holes in it.

]]>Fri, 08 Nov 2024 08:55:05 GMTI keep a small folder of pictures on my desktop. Not inspirational quotes, just three close-ups that remind me how a community really works when I'm tempted to fix everything at once. They're attached below, and since a few of you asked about them on a call last week, here's the thinking behind each one.The gearsNo gear does anything on its own. Moderation, onboarding, events and announcements all have to mesh. If your welcome message points people to an events calendar that's been empty for a month, one gear is spinning freely and the whole thing stalls. When something feels off, I look for the place where two routines don't connect.The zipA zip joins two sides one tooth at a time. That's how newcomers and regulars come together: not through a big launch or a clever feature, but through one introduction, one reply, one "you two should talk" at a time. Skip a tooth and the zip splits further up. Skip the personal welcome and the new member drifts away a few weeks later.The flowerYou can't pull on a flower to make it grow faster. Communities have seasons. Some months are busy, some are quiet, and a quiet month is not a crisis. Water it, pull the weeds, give it light and be patient.What do you keep around for the hard days? A photo, a note from a member, a line from a book? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

]]>Wed, 23 Oct 2024 10:21:30 GMTEvery so often someone suggests we invite a well-known person to join and post here. A famous musician for Music Lovers, a sports star for the Baseball space, a big-name founder for UNA Builders. The logic is simple: they'd bring their followers, and the followers would stay.I understand the appeal, and I've watched it tried on other networks. Here's what usually happens. The celebrity posts twice, gets a wave of likes from people who joined for them, and moves on. Most of those new members never post themselves, because they didn't come for each other. A month later the activity graph is a single spike with a long, flat tail.What actually grows a communityA handful of members who reply to newcomers within a day.Hosts who show up every week, even when only five people come to the event.Small rituals people look forward to: the Friday photo thread, the monthly open mic, the welcome post.None of that needs a famous name. It needs people who are reliably, unglamorously there.So, hello there. If you've been reading quietly for a while, this is your nudge. Say hi in the Welcome Lounge, tell us what you're working on, and reply to someone who just joined. That does more for this network than any celebrity could.

]]>Thu, 05 Sep 2024 11:18:19 GMTA while ago I asked members of the Patient Support Network what had helped them through a diagnosis, a long recovery or a stretch of caregiving. Not medically, but in the evenings, when you need something to read, watch or listen to. The answers were thoughtful enough that I wanted them in one place.BooksBeing Mortal, a surgeon's book about ageing and the end of life, came up more than any other book, especially from members caring for older parents.When Breath Becomes Air, a young doctor's memoir written during his own illness, which several people said they read slowly, over weeks.Plenty of members said the best book during treatment was a light novel with nothing to do with illness at all. I think that's worth saying out loud.ListeningAudiobooks and podcasts were the surprise winner. On tired days, members told me, listening is easier than holding a book or a screen. Comedy podcasts were mentioned almost as often as health ones.WatchingComfort rewatches dominated: old sitcoms, nature documentaries and anything with a happy ending. One member called it "television that doesn't ask anything of you," which I'm going to remember.I'll keep this list updated through the summer, so send suggestions my way with a line on why they helped.

]]>Wed, 03 Jul 2024 05:54:03 GMTLast weekend a friend talked me into joining his motorcycle club on their ride from Bishkek to Issyk-Kul. I'm not a serious rider. I own one bike, I'm nervous on gravel, and I'd never ridden in a group bigger than three. I came back with sore shoulders and a page of notes about community building.Before we left, the organiser paired me with an experienced rider who stayed behind me the whole way. He never lectured. He flashed his lights when I drifted too wide and pointed out the good tea stop. Every new rider gets one of these, it costs the club nothing, and it's the best onboarding I've seen anywhere.Their whole code of conduct is printed on a laminated card that lives in every tank bag. Ride your own pace. Never pass on the inside. Stop if the rider behind you disappears from your mirror. That's most of it. I thought about the six-page guidelines document I wrote for this network in our first year and winced a little.Then there was the evening. When we reached the lake, nobody wandered off to their phones. Everyone sat down together, ate, and each person said one thing about the ride. New riders went first. By the time it got round to the veterans, I felt like I'd been part of the group for years.So I'm stealing all three for our own welcome process: a buddy for every newcomer, rules that fit on one card, and a moment where new people speak first. If your community has its own version of the laminated card, I'd love to see it.

]]>Fri, 14 Jun 2024 12:11:00 GMTWhen we opened the Patient Support Network, I assumed most members would join from a laptop at home. I was wrong. Almost four in five visits come from phones, and a surprising number of posts arrive between midnight and 4am, when worry is loudest and the surgery is closed.That changed how I think about what a support community needs to be. Here is what we've learned so far. A reminder first: peer support is not medical advice, and our moderators point people to urgent care whenever a post sounds like an emergency.Readable when you're exhaustedLarge text, short paragraphs, plain words. Our members include people on strong medication, carers running on four hours' sleep and older people whose eyesight isn't what it was. If a page needs zooming, it's a barrier.Quiet by defaultNobody in a hard week wants their phone buzzing every time someone likes a post. New accounts start on a daily digest, and people can switch more on once they're settled.Privacy people can understandA private group for each condition, with approval to join.A plain note on every group page explaining who can see posts.The option to post anonymously in the most sensitive groups.Help one tap awayEvery page links to a "talk to a moderator" form and a short list of crisis lines. When someone writes at three in the morning, the first reply often comes from another member in a different time zone. That's the quiet magic of it: lanterns in the dark, held up by people who have been there.If you build community software, I'd love to hear how you approach these things. And if you're a member who struggles with any of it, please tell us. We'd much rather fix it than lose you.

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