Join us for coffee on Zoom

[John Kelsey]

Lancaster Woodturners began holding on-line morning coffee hours to help our club members get up on Zoom. We did not anticipate what fun we would have just hanging together on line, checking in and talking shop.

We’re now having Woodturners Morning Coffee every Thursday at 9 a.m. EDT. AAW members and club officers who would like to join us, maybe see what this is all about, please PM me, or find my info on the directory, and I’ll send you the link.

You’ll have to get up on Zoom yourself, lots of online video tutorials to help you. Your spouse might already be a Zoom ninja, or maybe phone a grandchild. It’s easy and free.

 

[David Shombert]

My local club, Woodturners of The Virginias, had our monthly meeting last Saturday via Zoom. I was impressed with how easy it was, and the meeting was more productive than I thought it might be. We had a very short show & tell and even a presentation on finishes (which had been scheduled long before this nightmare started). If anyone's intimidated by the idea, don't be - it's pretty easy. You do not have to have a webcam, although it helps if the others can see you.

 

[John Kelsey]

There's more about our virtual meetings on our website, lancasterareawoodturners.org, plus PDFs summarizing what we've learned so far.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Another option is to do a livestream on YouTube, this is easier for every member to watch the video and they can comment and ask questions using text messages on the screen.
All they need is a browser and internet access. The person presenting the podcast is the only one that needs to be tech savvy.

 

[Emiliano Achaval]

Another option is to do a livestream on YouTube, this is easier for every member to watch the video and they can comment and ask questions using text messages on the screen.
All they need is a browser and internet access. The person presenting the podcast is the only one that needs to be tech savvy.

I much rather talk than type. I have not heard any club doing Facebook live for meetings. Do you know of any club using it Mike?? We have proven that anybody can use Zoom. I have booked 3 IRD's all with Zoom this month, I know of at least 12 clubs doing meetings with Zoom. I would be interested to hear from a club using Facebook live, to me that's the wrong platform for what we want to achieve.

 

[John Kelsey]

, I know of at least 12 clubs doing meetings with Zoom.

Hey Emiliano, could you please share a list of those clubs? I know of eight with several more thinking about it. It’d be great to be able to get in touch and exchange best practices.

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

Hey Emiliano, could you please share a list of those clubs? I know of eight with several more thinking about it. It’d be great to be able to get in touch and exchange best practices.

John these are a few in my area : TAW just had one , the following have either just done one or getting prepared Midsouth Woodturners Guild, Lighthouse Woodturners , Magnolia Woodturners.

 

[Dave Landers]

I did a zoom demo for Pueblo Woodturners last night, and am doing one for Rocky Mountain Woodturners tonight.

 

[Emiliano Achaval]

Hey Emiliano, could you please share a list of those clubs? I know of eight with several more thinking about it. It’d be great to be able to get in touch and exchange best practices.

We have a list of all the clubs doing it at Lucid woodturners. Dave Hulett contacted every club to ask permission to list them. Most accepted with a few exceptions. Make sure you are on the list.

 

[Mike Johnson]

There are thousands of people that do daily, weekly podcasts on YouTube with thousands of viewers watching and posting questions to the meeting.
Posting questions during the podcast allows the presenter the opportunity to focus on the presentation and review the questions at leisure or have an assistant
review the comments and vocalize the questions to the presenter and the viewers of the podcast. Live video streaming with large numbers ends up having
a lag in the audio with people talking over each other and the presenter missing parts of the question quite often. Podcasts also allow a number of people to
split the screen and present to the viewers at the same time. You can also have 2 or 3 cameras set up with different angles to view a lathe demonstration
and the viewers get to see each of these perspectives on the split screen at the same time or the production manager can switch between screens as needed
during the podcast to optimize the quality of the content. Everyone that is a member of this AAW forum could attend a podcast on YouTube in 30 seconds, using
other software platforms require every member to invest in the software, load it on their computers and setup communication, audio and video settings. The free
version shuts off after 40 minutes which is a pain, the pay versions are a monthly fee starting at $15.00 a month which is more than what most club members pay to
participate in a woodturning club. Keep It Simple Stupid. KISS Logging into a podcast takes 1-click on YouTube and you are in the live meeting.

 

[Dave Landers]

The free
version shuts off after 40 minutes which is a pain, the pay versions are a monthly fee starting at $15.00 a month which is more than what most club members pay to
participate in a woodturning club.

No club member attending a zoom meeting has to sign up, log in, and they definitely don't need to pay anything to zoom. The only one shelling out $15/month is the host (the one who starts the meeting) which is usually the demonstrator. In most cases, there is not any cost to the club outside of whatever fee the demonstrator charges.

 

[John Kelsey]

Dave Landers is correct, members attend Zoom meetings free. Meetings scheduled by a paying host have no time limit. But Zoom has suspended the 40-minute limit on meetings hosted by free accounts during the emergency. That never was a real limit anyway, you could just click the original link and resume for another 40 minutes.

To Mike Johnson, yes, podcasts are great, and thanks. But please, a podcast is not a club meeting. We have guys in coronavirus lockdown for six weeks now, trapped inside senior housing complexes. Our club coffee hours and Zoom meetings give these guys a lifeline to old friends and woodturning chat. We need the fellowship in this difficult time.

 

[John Kelsey]

We have a list of all the clubs doing it at Lucid woodturners. Dave Hulett contacted every club to ask permission to list them. Most accepted with a few exceptions. Make sure you are on the list.

Hey we aren't all Lucid members, Love to see that list to be reposted here, Emilio can you manage that? Alan Z?

In the AAW information forum I posted a short list of eight AAW clubs that have contacted me during this current blitz of forum posts. I'm sure there are a lot more, and it really helps us a lot to share, and to know we aren't in this alone.

 

[Clifton C]

Mike, could you send me an invite too your next online woodturning gathering?
thanks, cc

 

[John Kelsey]

I've just enjoyed an illuminating exchange with Dave Hulett re clubs holding virtual meetings. In fact we are working in parallel on two different though related problems.

Dave and the Lucid group have been developing remote demos by pro demonstrators, which clubs would watch remotely on a big screen, during their meeting. We are working on a different problem: how to get our club members up on Zoom so we can hold virtual meetings. It's chicken-and-egg: Little club like ours couldn't participate in a remote demo that we had to pay for because we can't spend more than $100 without a member vote. Can't have a vote without a quorum. Can't have a quorum until we get our members up on Zoom, figure out how to have a virtual meeting, what is the virtual program, how can members participate?

So sure, Emilio, we'll join Dave's list of clubs that are interested in remote demos... after we get our guys on line and learn how to hold virtual club meetings.

 

[Emiliano Achaval]

I've just enjoyed an illuminating exchange with Dave Hulett re clubs holding virtual meetings. In fact we are working in parallel on two different though related problems.

Dave and the Lucid group have been developing remote demos by pro demonstrators, which clubs would watch remotely on a big screen, during their meeting. We are working on a different problem: how to get our club members up on Zoom so we can hold virtual meetings. It's chicken-and-egg: Little club like ours couldn't participate in a remote demo that we had to pay for because we can't spend more than $100 without a member vote. Can't have a vote without a quorum. Can't have a quorum until we get our members up on Zoom, figure out how to have a virtual meeting, what is the virtual program, how can members participate?

So sure, Emilio, we'll join Dave's list of clubs that are interested in remote demos... after we get our guys on line and learn how to hold virtual club meetings.

Hmmm, just a wild guess here, but can you call the members that need to vote, call them the old fashioned way with a phone call, landline or cellular? I emailed you the list, I did not read that you had talked to Dave.

 

[Bill Boehme]

John, if I'm not mistaken the Lucid group is also working on virtual meetings.

 

[Dave Landers]

On average, I'd say my club (Rocky Mountain) is probably just about as tech-savvy as any other. We have a few members with various tech capabilities, and a whole bunch without any at all.

The club's board met earlier this month on zoom, and got their normal business done I'm not on the board, but did "attend" that meeting). It was the first time on zoom for most of them. I think one guy had issues with audio, but phoned one of the others who helped him work it out. There were no practice meetings or anything like that, just a board meeting. The host did start the meeting about an hour early so people could work out their connection issues if necessary. For something like a board meeting, some people can even call in to the zoom on an old-fashioned land-line phone (audio only - and I'm not sure if that's available for the free account).

At the club meeting/demo I hosted the other night, I watched (on zoom) as several folks got online with obvious help from a spouse or grandchild (we also started that one an hour early). I was specifically shocked to see two of our members that normally wouldn't get within 10' of a computer. But they made it and we held a mostly normal meeting with officer reports, a drawing (club giveaway that had been planned for a year), and we did an ad-hoc show-and-tell before the meeting. The only thing that didn't happen (in some way or another) was the wood raffle.

The other club meeting I hosted this week - they just wanted to jump right into my demo. They didn't really seem to have any business they wanted to do. That was ok too.

What I'm trying to say is that you should just jump right in with both feet. Like the rest of us, you'll figure it out as you go.