Your group’s ‘Near Me’ page on the MS Society website will be the first thing many people come across when searching for support in their area.
You can find your group’s ‘Near Me’ page by searching the name of your group in the search bar on the MS Society website. Here’s an example of a group’s ‘Near Me’ page.
Each ‘Near Me’ page can include:
a description of your group
a contact number and email address for your group
links to your group’s social media
details of services and events your group offers (these need to be uploaded via the Portal to automatically update your ‘Near Me’ page. You can find further information on this below)
It’s important these pages are kept up to date, so people living with MS in your area can learn about your group. And get in touch when they’re ready to.
So, we’ve developed a form so you can let us know about any changes to your contact details or social media links, as well as submit a personalised group description. We’ll then make these changes on your group’s ‘Near Me’ page for you.
Personalised ‘Near Me’ description
Up until now, we’ve used a generic group description on the ‘Near Me’ pages but we know that each group is unique, from the support you offer to the events you run. So, we’d like to offer you the opportunity to personalise your group description. This means you can welcome people to your group in your own way.
Whilst it needs to be kept brief, it's a chance to add a personal touch so you can engage with more people and give them a taster of what your group is here for. You can find more information on the form below.
Contact details and social media links
On the form, you can also tell us if any of your contact details or social media links are missing or incorrect.
Including your social media links is a great way for someone to get a better idea of what your group is about, particularly if you post pictures and information about any social events or activities you organise.
If you’d like some support to make your social media accounts more engaging, take a look at our new Social Media Toolkit for Volunteers here. It focuses on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and has lots of tips on setting up accounts, writing engaging bios, using social media for recruitment, using handles and hashtags, writing social media posts, building your following, and so much more!
Filling in the form
To let us know changes to your contact details or social media links, as well as submit a personalised group description, you will just need to fill in this form on the Volunteer Website.
Once you’ve filled it in, please save it as a word document on your device and then email it as an attachment to [email protected]
Updating services and events
If you want to update or remove any services or events on your group’s ‘Near Me’ page, you’ll need to do this via the Portal. Once you’ve made the amendments on the Portal, your ‘Near Me’ page will be automatically updated overnight.
You can find instructions on how to do this in the Portal guidance on the Volunteer Website.
Or you can watch a video on how to do this here.
