A while ago we received an email from someone who follows WV11 on twitter asking about us live Tweeting from PACT and wondering of there was a less intrusive way of covering the sessions. Last night at  the Wednesfield South PACT meeting I remembered our exchange and we realised that she may not be the only one who thought this way so we’re going to share our conversation here so everyone has a better idea of how these things play out for us:
To WV11:
You do a great job, but can I just make a small suggestion? Would it be easier, and better for your Twitter followers, if you sent out fewer Tweets but linked to this website for full coverage of PACT meetings in future?
Tonight’s barrage of Tweets reminded me of the E&S coverage of the Royal Wedding last year, when we were inundated with too many messages giving real time accounts of things we could have digested in one go later.
As I say, I do think you do a great job and I hope you find this bit of criticism constructive and not a case of someone moaning!
From WV11
Hi
Thank you for the feedback, we always appreciate it when people take the time to get in touch.
With regards to your suggestion of linking to the website instead of tweeting so much during meetings. It is something we considered, but it just doesn’t allow for the same level of engagement
The idea of us updating live is to encourage interaction and conversing with people who couldn’t make it to the physical meetings and a static page on the site just doesn’t work. On twitter we take comments in real time and feed them back to the room, responding online as we go and this has been a successful approach for everyone.
Tonight also for the first time we used the hash tag to display the tweets as they appeared in real time on a screen in the room to connect the online and offline activity.
The meetings only happen bi monthly in each Ward so our volume of tweets only reach this level once a month at the different meetings. We’re sorry if this is too much for you. You can use twitter apps such as Seesmic that will filter out requested content so could block both the #wspact and #wnpact tags to stop us filling up your timeline.
Once again thanks for taking the time to contact us.
Steph and James
So now you know – we fill your timelines once a month to give everyone a real time idea of what happens at PACT and to allow for people who can’t attend the meetings an opportunity to engage. We appreciate even this doesn’t reach everyone but we like to think it’s a start.