Jon Dunham is about to find out if the pen is mightier than the hammer!

Sign up to the new Hastings Creatives

Last Wednesday saw the re-launch of Hastings Creatives online directory and email list at Hastings Arts Forum as part of the Festival15 programme. HOT writer and Hastings Creatives creator, Erica Smith, tells us more about her digital community.

When I moved to Hastings in 2002 I set up a Yahoo! email group to put local creatives in touch with each other. I met so many wonderful people living and working in the area, all doing incredible things, but they didn’t seem to know one another.

What started as eight people talking about 5-a-side football, parties and happenings, has grown to a membership of almost 1000. With the arrival of Facebook, many of the more informal topics discussed have found a new home. Conversations in the group now centre around creative practice: exhibitions, workshops, studio space needed, debates about creativity in the town, big environmental changes, events and much more are signposted between members.

Hastings Borough Council funded the rebuild of hastingscreatives.co.uk which has helped me to create a new Directory facility (with the help of Ingserv’s Jon Ingram and Caf Fean). Now it is easier find creative practitioners, and it showcases the rich creative talent in the area.

If you are a member of Hastings Creatives on the old Yahoo! chat group, you have until 1 June to transfer over to the new hastingscreatives.groups.io. New members are also very welcome to sign up: it is free of charge and a fantastic way to connect with other creative professionals in the area.

Visit hastingscreatives.co.uk to search for creative businesses in the area or to sign up to the Directory if you are a local creative. You can post up to three images of your work. To join the email group for up-to-the-minute news about creative events happening in the area, visit hastingscreatives.groups.io

Hastings Creatives web developer Jon Ingram helps Juliet Russell sign up

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