UKS - the way forward

[SueL]

Sorry to hear about your bad health, I had no idea. Let's hope 2016 is a much better and healthier year for everyone. I check on the Silhouette cutting machine forum every day to see if there is anything I can add to it. It's not very often I can help, but I would miss the forum very much as at the moment I know it is there to fall back on if I get stuck. Thanks to everyone who makes this forum possible.

[CoventryAnn]

Sorry to hear you have been unwell Maryanne, and hope you are on the mend now.

I do visit UKS most days, and fb every day, so a link between them might be useful in attracting more scrappers back to UKS, if we had links to the challenges and other items of interest on the site.
Glad to say, I am still scrapping regularly, and would not have been able to find any of the crops I have attended without UKS, so have made real life friends over the eleven years I have been scrapping too.

When it comes to challenges, am guilty of not being able to keep up with so many of late, i don't think this is down to UKS, but the increases in workload that have happened in my job over the past 5 years (teaching!) I just find it difficult to have a life anymore in term time, the only deadlines I manage to meet are those linked to my job.

I would be desperately sad to see UKS go, but if the rules on uploading to the gallery (eg for challenges ) were relaxed, so people could not bother with the gallery if they didn't want to as re-sizing can be a pain, that could encourage more to take part. I usually only upload to my blog now, and link to fb, much quicker and easier.

Finally, as for donating, I would be happy to give some cash; after all, there are no British scrapbooking magazines left out there now with a calling on my cash!

[Suky]

Quote 'I am, also, bemused by some comments saying that people don't want others reading their posts..does this mean they have something to hide? If they don't want some people to read what they put, maybe they should consider whether they should be posting things they wouldn't want others to read? '
Elaine, I think that sometimes we discuss things of a very personal nature as close friends and it would make us uncomfortable to think others were reading it.

My teamies and I chat on FB Messenger as it 'pings' to alert us of messages and with modern phone, tablets and the like we can (and do) chat almost everywhere much more easily. As I said in my earlier post, I want UKS to stay but I understand it may have to change and linking to FB may be one of those changes.

[CarolinaUK]

Sorry to hear you have been ill Maryanne and hope you feel better in the new year. Hope your family issues get less stressful too.
I visit this forum every day, mostly the Silhouette/ craft Robo section, and would hate to see it close.I have found members there to be so very helpful and patient , and so knowledgable.
I'd be happy to contribute a little if it would help. Although it wouldn't be much fun talking to myself!
I don't belong to facebook and don't want to as I find it confusing and not so friendly.

[Crafty Lady]

Hello MaryAnn I love UKS and would hate to see it close or go over to FB. Having links to challenges etc between UKS & FB sounds like a good idea. I chat on here quite regularly and feel I have made some lovely friends. I admit that I have not contributed much in the way of scrapbooking for the last 2 years, but had a lot of problems and had to become a full time carer for my DH and no longer had any me time to craft. My DH passed away last June and I have decided that this year I am going to get back into all my crafts. I hope 2016 is a better year for us both and that your health and family situations improve in the coming months.

[AnniB]

I am sorry to hear that you have been unwell Mary Anne. I hope that this is a better year for you.

I too am guilty of not visiting UKS as much as I used to do.

I am a member of a very chatty and active team. We have recently made the decision to cease being an out and out points collecting team simply because we found we were not enjoying some of the challenges being set and scrapping had become a points collecting exercise not a pleasure. We then had to go through all the rigmarole of resizing pictures to load to the gallery and probably deleting something we liked to enter something we didn't particularly like just to collect the points. We are all grown ups. Is it that important that we prove that we have done the LO?

It is much easier to load pictures onto facebook. Is there no mechanism whereby there could be a temporary FB gallery which is cleared on a monthly basis just for the purpose of loading challenge LOs?

Regarding the point on private threads, I am completely in favour of this. My team mates are amongst my closest friends and there have been times when we have discussed matters which have been very personal and the fact that anyone can read the posts is one of the reasons why we now chat in a private facegroup group.

[lebosi]

Sorry to hear of your ill health, I hope 2016 is a better year for you and yours.

Thank you for all the hard work in keeping UKS up and running.

I have to admit that I don't sign in as often as I used to and don't take part in as many swaps or challenges as I have in the past as there seems to be less hours in the day as I get older.

Having said that I would definitely miss UKS if it were to go and would be happy to donate in order to ensure it's survival.

I'm not sure it would work on Fb, I like how everything is set out now.

[Merion]

I am so sorry to hear of your health issues Mary Anne and hope that 2016 is a happier healthier year for you.

I love UKS and would be devastated if it closed.

I am a member of a very happy supportive team and feel as if UKS members are part of my extended family. I love looking at other peoples LOs and it's lovely to see familiar names even of those not in my own 'team' I feel I know them.

I come on here every day sometimes more than once a day and take pride in doing all the challenges. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would feel their lives were somewhat emptier without our special club - facebook is ok for games and stuff but I, for one, prefer the intimacy of our group. Long may it continue.

[stillcrafting]

MaryAnne, I'm so pleased your health is much better now. You had us all worried before. Thank you so much for all you and your team do on here.

My team is one that does use the challenges whenever they have time for them. Also, at least a couple of my ladies set regular weekly challenges for the whole site.

As a former house leader, I instigated a random prize draw for my house for all challenges done during each month. This encouraged more people to take part and being a random draw, it didn't matter if you were a beginner or had scrapped for many years. I personally didn't like the polls for the monthly challenge as it seemed it went more on more on how popular you were or how many people were in your house to vote and also beginners or the more simpler scrappers were left out.

We love our team Social Group and have become so close as a team through it. Unfortunately, sometimes life does get in the way and that's when we are a little quieter.

My thoughts about going to FB are -

1) That there are enough regular UKS people to have things move at such a pace that you can't keep up and lose what you're looking for.
2) We would lose our Social Groups
3) Not everyone has FB and even though I do have it, I like having a different place to hang out with my friends
4) That you can't please everyone whatever you do

If I can help in any way, please let me know.

[scrapnanny]

MaryAnne I am so glad you are on the road to recovery. I love UKS, love my team. Life hasn't been very kind to me for the last 2 years and very nearly gave up crafting. But with the help of my teamies, the challenges and swaps to keep me going how could I. I do lots of LO's but am guilty of not up loading much and tend to read more than chat. I am not very technical and find Facebook overwhelming but am trying so maybe a link would be fine but I would hate to see UKS go,
Maybe a bit easier to upload, and more things like Simple Recipes. Stash Bash, I loved the classes by Shimelle as well and Cyber crops even Mini lones.
I alter lots and make Albums and Journals but never really upload anything. This year I want to get back to more scrapbooking so please carry on.

[Celtic Angel]

Oh Mary-Anne - I'm so sorry that you've been suffering health issues and hope that 2016 proves to be a positive year for you and your family!

I love UKScrappers and my 'go to' tabs in a morning are Facebook, Blogger and UK Scrappers. UK Scrappers was the first forum I joined in order to feed my scrapping addiction. It has become much quieter in recent years which is a shame. Like others I am frustrated at the lack of Scrapbook magazines - the craft magazines shelves are now full of all sorts of other hobbies which is sad. But I'm a scrapper always have been always will be - 270 layouts in 2015 and more than 365 in 2014, so my scrapping addiction is as high as ever if I'm honest.

I agree that the social groups (which are great if you are in a talkative one) did mean the end of generic discussions on UK Scrappers and a lot of people have wandered off to try new hobbies, maybe 2016 should be the year that we encourage people back.

There are 'negative' aspects to UKScrappers, the resizing of pictures, limited gallery space etc don't make it as easy as other sources such as facebook but I've always appreciated that is the case.

I agree that a UKScrappers facebook page - pointing people here would be a sensible - look at the traffic this thread has got because people have posted it on facebook!

I hope the feedback helps

Hugs

[stillcrafting]

I didn't come to this thread via Facebook. I've not even seen anything on FB about it. One of my teamies posted a link in our UKS Social Group.

Haven't we always had separate threads for each team and house? If so, why would the Social Groups make any difference? Maybe I'm missing something there, I don't know. Social Team Groups don't have to be talkative all the time, or at least, mine doesn't. We know we are all there for each other through thick and thin. We have times of talking loads and then we'll have the occasional time where other things need us. But we always navigate back as soon as we can. After all, you can't keep good friends apart for long. I'm worried that that will go if we end up on Facebook.

[MaryAnne]

It'll take me a while to process all this but one thing I can say with near 100% certainty is that UKS will not be moving to PRIMARILY a FaceBook group. I would be more likely to have a PAGE that directed people to UKS and that highlighted things of interest.

On the image resizing issues, the new version of vB we now run does resize things automatically in a thread, but not in the gallery. That is something I can look at.

Just 2 things I noticed in a quick read, I'm sure there will be more once I work thru it all. But I am glad that people have taken the time to comment. Keep doing so. It'll all help shape the future of UKS.

[faerie]

Hope thing are better for you this year MarryAnne
I would hate to see UKS close I check in daily am part of a good points collecting team.For me FB would not work I dont post any LO's on there and things are so fast moving I think things would just get lost. I would love to see less restrictions on points collecting e.g not having a limit on the number of cards and having to send in proof if you do more than the allotted amount of LO's. Maybe points for other paper related projects. I do a lot of mixed media and would love to share more if it could be made easier.
I have found things more challenging with posting as 4 years ago I started loosing my eyesight and have 20% left I had posted a LO and had somebody being very negative as I had made a spelling mistake! I think there would be more negativity on FB.
So I say long live UKS!!

[eClaire]

Hi MaryAnne

I would hate to see UKS go. I am very lucky to be in a chatty team. We have met up and even organised our own retreats, I feel that my team mates are friends and I like having UKS as our "base". I am not a FB fan and am delighted to hear that we won't move there completely, but links seem a good idea for those who live on facebook.

I think the donate button for a small fee would be fine and maybe make people value the site more.