More Than Oliver Twist Digital Celebration

Many thanks to those who were able to join us last Thursday for the More Than Oliver Twist Celebration - it really was a joyous occasion to celebrate all that we have achieved. Whilst it was a shame we couldn’t enjoy tea and cake together Helen’s poem was almost as good!
 
We started with reflections from volunteers, enjoyed a live Q and A session with our artists Mel Rye and Morgan Tipping, heard news about what the network is going to do next and most importantly said an ENORMOUS thank you to all of you who have contributed so much time, effort and passion to the project and the Network.
 
Don’t worry if you missed it. We will be making the film content available within the next few weeks on our website and YouTube channel. We just have a few minor edits to make to correct some sub-title spellings.  We will share the links when they are available.
 
Our next steps are now to plan the major press launch of the exhibition and eHive database. More on this next week - but do let us know if you have any contacts with press or media outlets so we can reach as wide an audience as possible.
 
Even before the exhibition is formally launched we have had really good statistics from the site. During October The Workhouse Network Google Arts and Culture site saw 1193 viewers. Interestingly it is having a global reach that we would never have achieved with a physical touring exhibition - with people looking at your work from Australia, Belgium, Brasil, Canada, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Kuwait, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, El Salvador, Taiwan, Ukrainian and the United States. Plus, of course, the United Kingdom. What a phenomenal international audience. Something we never anticipated or expected and undoubtedly a benefit of working with such a well-known platform.
 
It is worth noting over half of these visitors accessed the site directly from Twitter - if you have an account keep tweeting about the exhibition!
 
Users also came from Facebook, via Google and went directly to the site. Please keep sharing your work proudly with friends, family and colleagues widely:
 
https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/the-workhouse-network
 
https://ehive.com/communities/1167/more-than-oliver-twist
(now featuring 325 biographies - it goes up every time I look!)
 
We are currently researching how to get statistics from the eHive site and will report back once I have figured it out.
 
Our next steps after the exhibition launch are to plan how to formally evaluate the digital exhibition and to begin to pull together ideas for the next big grant application.
 
We are looking forward to working with you on this and hope you are as excited about the future of the network as we are.
 
Thank you so much for all your efforts for More Than Oliver Twist and watch this space for the next big project!
 
All the best
 
Megan