We at Shrewsbury Morris (or at least some of us) are very keen to use social media (mostly Twitter & Facebook) – not only to advertise our dance programme and how to join us, but also to support the whole online Morris community. And a thriving and vibrant community it is too!

A recent example of this was being able to highlight the plight of the Britannia Coconutters, and after a sustained Twitter campaign to spread the word, we were delighted to see that their story had been seen and passed on by over 50,000 people on Twitter (including Bellowhead and Mike Harding) and eventually made it to several national newspapers and the Radio 2 breakfast show.

So – what’s the story with #MorrisHour?

Here in the beautiful and friendly county of Shropshire, for a little while now we’ve been running a Twitter hour every week called #ShropshireHour. The aim is to find about about and support local businesses and organisations. Everyone uses the #ShropshireHour hashtag and introduces themselves and what they get up to. We all then RT (retweet) each others Tweets, sending them out to a wider audience. There’s also lots of conversations,following, recommendations and chat going on too and it can turn into quite a frenzied hour! It’s a great way to build and nuture our online community for Shropshire and really spread the word about our artists, artisans, countryside, residents and businesses. Plus – great fun!

So, last night, #MorrisHour was born. Suggested by @shrewsmorris and orchestrated by the highly efficient @CatFereday, it will take place every Wednesday from 7-8pm. Come and post your morris, clog, rapper and longsword news. Tell us all who you are and what you are up to. RT everyone else’s news and they will RT yours. Follow a morris side you might not have heard of and have a chat with a dancer from the other end of the country! Compare notes on sticks, bells, garlands and clogs. In the immortal words of Ripley Morris Men, come and ‘talk bobbins’!

If you’re not on Twitter and are wondering what it’s all about, feel free to email us and we’ll have a chat with you about it – we know it’s helped us start growing the Shrewsbury Morris side this year and the Morris community is a wonderful, friendly one to be a part of.

Shrewsbury Morris tweet as @shrewsmorris, with much support (or possibly interference!) from @cathyab and @langtonray and you can find us on Facebook too. We look forward to chatting with you on Wednesdays 7-8pm!