Happy smiles on friendly faces. The excitement of seeing each other again. A welcome feeling of normalcy and routine. This is what Club President Susan Domoko’s Club ‘Lunchime Talkers of Durham Region’ experienced after taking the plunge into putting our club meetings online. In Susan’s words:
But what didn’t we count on?
We’re becoming skillful in online technology, despite ourselves. Young and old, tech-savvy or not. Every one of our members is learning how to speak clearly and professionally in an online medium, and the improvement is staggering. We’re mastering additional skills too: online meeting management and leadership.
All of this is what we’ve found to be the joy and unique opportunity of online Toastmasters meetings.
How can you implement online meetings in your club, during these ‘interesting’ times? There are three basic phases that can help your club become a beacon of support to your club members and community.
- Decision phase.
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- This can be summed up in one phrase: Just Do It.
Make a firm decision. Nothing real happens without a firm decision prefacing it. “WE ARE PUTTING OUR MEETINGS ONLINE.” Period. Done. Once you decide, it’s 50% completed.
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- Embrace the glorious—and I mean glorious—imperfections that will follow.
There will be lots of them. But isn’t that what Toastmasters do? Take ordinary people and give them the environ to transform themselves into sparkling diamonds? It takes time. And glorious imperfections are what happen when we’re doing something for the first (or fifteenth, or fiftieth) time. It’s natural.
Expect it. Anticipate it. Relax into it. And most of all? Enjoy it.
- Prep Phase.
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- Get the technology into place.
Find out if a member is already paying for Zoom or a similar web conferencing utility. If not, check costs for a business account and sign up online. (At this time, in Canada, Zoom is just over $20 a month.)
Before that, if you like, get a free account to play in. This gives you lots of time to learn how to use it. Zoom is very user friendly.
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- Email your members, and assure them the online meetings are not about perfection.
We literally put that into our weekly invitation email and repeated the message for many weeks. We added that we would take the time to get everyone hooked up at the beginning of the meetings. By doing this we eased worries about exploring a new medium. Make it safe. People have enough stress right now.
In our club, we haven’t missed one meeting to date, something I’m crazily proud of.
The last point to online meetings, and to continuing with our Toastmaster mission, even during these tumultuous times?
- Implementation Phase.
Just. Show. Up.
The initial goal—and it may be the only one for a while—is simply to HAVE the meeting. Connect with those lovely faces, and our Toastmaster family. And then?
Back to learning. The goal? Mastering this new online medium so our voices can once again be heard clearly and passionately—in ‘isolation’ or not.
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