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September 2010

FRuIT already feels like home for humberMUD. This second event held in the area tagged “one of the coolest places in Hull” was an undoubted success, with MUD's community turning out in force yet again.

A dynamic duo from Kingston Art Group (KAG) led the speaking duties. Andi Dakin and Andy Pea – the Hairy Bikers of the arts world – looked incredibly comfortable as they sat on the stage to give their insightful overview of KAG, now in its 21st year of existence.

The group, we learned, has had 80 members over the years, having rapidly grown from an original membership of eight. KAG is currently 16 strong with artists lining up to add their name to a waiting list, hopeful of selection when the opportunity arises.

KAG has three main aims – to provide affordable studio space, a collective provision for artists and to create a network for its membership.

A recent move to premises in the historiic Fruit Market area has opened KAG up to a whole new audience and the group will also expand to new premises on Barmston Street. The footfall through the new gallery space at 27 Humber Street since the doors opened on the Clipper weekend stands at an impressive 2,400 visitors.

“Moving here was an opportunity that we couldn't miss,” said Andi Dakin. “This can be the hottest cultural spot in the north of England if the creative energy can be used to sustain the faith that exists, Hull City Council continue to back the area and the private sector invests.” And, both men added, they were told recently by council leader Councillor Carl Minns that the council's backing for Humber Street is assured.

For their part, once the studio space is up and running upstairs at Humber Street, the gallery space will be open with greater frequency.

“We have to be prepared to open the doors to the public,” said Andy Pea. “That's what taking premises down here is all about. We are now 21 and it's time we stepped up and showed our work a lot more.”

The MUD stage was thrown open for announcements from members between speakers. The opportunity was snapped up by hyperfruit.net (Hull's first hyperlocal site which is now up and running), iHull's Leo Kolassa, who promoted a job opportunity, the University of Hull's Arts Programme and a new online survey, and Hull School of Art &Design, who announced their Adobe Certified Training courses.

MUD's ebullient chair Mal Williamson provided some in-depth information regarding the first-ever humberMUD expo!, waxing lyrical about the four day series of events that will take place from October 21-24. Tickets for the Old Technologies Ball, on Saturday, October 23, also went up for sale.

Woof founder Dave Foy was the night's 'headline act', making what could have been a very dry subject – search engine optimisation – feel more vital than sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Dave's presentation, titled Relevance, Relevance, Relevance – how to win the search engine wars, was a rapid-fire look at how we can ensure our websites are relevant to Google and, therefore, appear at the top of the search rankings.

Dave created a scenario involving two rival companies, demonstrating good and bad practice.  The speaker suggested that we create pages on our sites that do one thing and then ensure that page titles, main headings, the URL, image descriptions, meta tags and the website copy contain  relevant words.  Questions from the floor came thick and fast but Dave posed – and answered – the big questions himself frequently admitting that he was merely scratching the surface and could talk for hours, days and weeks on each of the subjects he touched briefly on. “But it's my talk,” he laughed, “and I'll do what I like.”

Dave emphasised the importance of links back to our website (“an entire talk in itself!”), article marketing (via Ezine Articles and sites such as Squidoo), the need to balance the number of search results with an acceptable level of competition and the essential monitoring site statistics. Those interested can purchase Market Samurai, Dave's preferred site stat tool, from www.marketsamurai.com/c/fuzzyness

Another great night down at FRruIT then. The sound issues of last month were resolved with the canny use of a roving microphone, the #humbermud hash tag was cropping up on twitter and, somehow, between all this, humberMUD lost a speaker somewhere. If you see him, say hello...

Dave Windass