1. The BAA VSS Facebook Page

2. An easy to remember URL : http://facebook.com/BAAVSS

3. Audience Participation Two questions : How old were you when you joined the BAAVSS ? How old are you now ?

4. Answers The age at which members first joined the BAA VSS was fairly evenly spread But only one of the 36 attendees is now aged under 40 This latter result is not unusual nowadays for astronomy groups in the UK If this continues, the groups won’t have a long term future.

5. We need to make the BAA VSS visible to a younger age group (and also give them a reason to join the BAA VSS) (if a bright nova appears tonight, we would like people to send their observations to us rather than (only) to Astronomy Now)

6. Solutions ? Having a web site is good … but people aren’t going to check it for news every day People in their 20s spend a lot more time using Social Media such as Facebook & Twitter You can sometimes see some basic info about people on Facebook without having to join …

8. But to see more, you need to click on Sign Up

10. Then, when you next log in, you can see their recent posts

12. Receiving updates automatically You wouldn’t want to have to check lots of different Facebook accounts every day for updates So you become “Friends” with people … Then their recent updates are automatically visible as soon as you login …

14. Receiving BAAVSS updates You may have noticed that two of the updates on the previous screen were not from individuals For organisations such as the BAAVSS, you don’t have to agree to become “Friends” To automatically receive updates, you merely go to their Facebook page and click on the “Like” button

16. Examples of BAAVSS posts These are shown on the next few screens and include: Announcements from the BAAVSS Publicity about our work Links to news from elsewhere

20. In summary We need to make ourselves more visible to a younger audience Let the world know we’re an active and exciting group that they will want to join We all need to get involved in this If you don’t yet use Facebook, step outside your “comfort zone” and give it a try