A new blogmaster for the UKCPS Blog

As Bob indicated in his post on Friday, sadly he's stepping down from running the UKCPS blog, just as he indicated at the end of August that he has already retired from membership of the UKCPS Executive.

I've known Bob for quite some time now. I'm sure that very many people will agree that UKCPS without Bob being around will feel like a very different place. He will, of course, continue to be a member and will always be greatly esteemed as the Founder of UKCPS.

A new blogmaster: In future, I'm going to be the new person posting news about UKCPS and its members on this blog. My name is Katherine Tyrrell.

I've been blogging since the end of 2005 and at the AGM last year I suggested that UKCPS should consider creating a blog. I then helped Bob to set up this blog nearly a year ago. I think it's been very successful at improving online communication with members. Even CPSA have decided to get a blog now! ;)

Different roles: Many of you may already know me from one or other (or both!) of my personal blogs Making A Mark or Travels with a Sketchbook in....... (the latter having sketches in CP). What I want to do in this post about the transition is highlight the difference between the role I'll be playing on this blog and how that will be different to the person I am when creating posts on my own blogs. Not least because I still want to be able to be me on my own blogs! If I ever do feel the need to express an opinion on this blog - which won't be often - I'll indicate clearly that it's my own view and not that of the Executive or the Society as a whole.

Here are the differences.........

UKCPS Blog	My Blogs
Purpose: News about UKCPS its interests its members any thing else relevant to UKCPS	Purpose: Posts about my drawings my interests my observations my opinions
Role: Blogging is impersonal - representing UKCPS	Role: Blogging is personal - I'm me

UKCPS blogmaster: For this reason in future, I thought it best for the person running the blog to be known as the UKCPS blogmaster, rather than by name, to avoid any confusion. So that's what you'll see when I create a post or whenever I respond to a comment.

Contact me: If you want to contact me at any time, you can see the email address which relates to my role on this blog in the image at the top of this post (done like that so as to avoid spam!). So if you want to contact me that's the way to do it.

For those of you not familiar with this way of writing an email address all you need to do is substitute the @ symbol for [at] and put in a full stop where it says [dot].

Blog Housekeeping: As Bob has not been well of late, I've started to do the blogger version of a little bit of housekeeping on this blog. You'll notice a few changes in the right hand column as recent innovations by Blogger are introduced to the blog. I might even have a go at trying to get the blog to look a bit more like the website!

Blog Content: As a blogger I learned very early on that if blogs are going to be any good it's because of their content. So I'll also be talking with the Executive and interested members of UKCPS in the near future about how we can best continue to develop and improve this blog and its content.

You can comment too: You can of course tell us all what you think about UKCPS news or changes by commenting below.

This blog welcomes comments because comments are what makes this a blog rather than a noticeboard. Anybody can comment - you don't need to have a blog or a Blogger Account. (If you've got any queries please let me know)

All comments are moderated by me to make sure they are civilised and haven't wandered too far off topic - which means they may not be published straight away if I'm out or in the middle of doing something else. Spam is never published.

I've greatly enjoyed blogging since 2005 and I feel very privileged now to have been able to become the new UKCPS blogmaster. I'm looking forward to hearing your views and hope that together we can all build on the excellent foundations laid by Bob and help the UKCPS blog to continue to grow and develop to meet the needs of the society and its members.

PS If you'd like to say goodbye to Bob Ebdon as he takes leave of an active role as an officer within UKCPS why not let leave a comment on his post So Long, Been good to know ya... ?