Are you interested to meet or socialise with other GOC members online, from the comfort of your home?

Join our new Online group, Weekly Online Social and scheduled online events!

Probably like most members, I didn’t join the Gay Outdoors Club to attend online meetings – least of all to lead them. It turns out, however, that there is now an interest in connecting, meeting and socialising online, even among members of an outdoor club like GOC.

So, after managing GOC’s Twitter and Facebook feeds for a year or more, I have stepped up to launch and co-ordinate a new Online group as well. Initially at least, I am offering to support GOC’s 1,400+ members (assuming that not all will be interested!) to use Wonder and Zoom, in conjunction with Calendly, to connect and socialize informally and to schedule and host their own online meetings and events.

What follows is todays’ news post launching the new Online group, and the member-only page How to use Zoom and Wonder with member-only links and passwords omitted.


Join our new Online group, Weekly Online Social and scheduled online events!

Are you interested to meet or socialise with other GOC members online, from the comfort of your home?

Perhaps you don’t find it easy to join many of our outdoor events for one reason our another, or you’re interested to connect with members beyond those that you usually meet in person? Perhaps you are a co-ordinator of one of our other local or specialist groups and you are interested to host events online as well as outdoors, or to meet online to co-ordinate and plan your group and its outdoor events?

Since we first announced our new online meeting tools in a news post just before Christmas, members have taken the opportunity to mingle and socialize informally online with others from around the country and even to schedule and host their own online events for their own groups. There has been sufficient interest that we are now launching a new specialist Online group to co-ordinate and promote the new Weekly Online Social and scheduled online events.

Whatever your interest, and whatever your level of technical experience or expertise, please join us – you are welcome!

  • For further details of the group, the weekly Tuesday night social and other events, and how to join, please check out our new Online group page.
  • For further details of our new online meeting tools, available to all members and groups, check out our new member-only page How to use Zoom and Wonder.

I hope to see you online soon, if not also outdoors!

Martin Gilbraith, Online group co-ordinator.


Join our new Online group, Weekly Online Social and scheduled online events!

How to use Zoom and Wonder

Are you interested to network or meet with other GOC members, online from the comfort of your home?

Please join our new Online group to receive group updates of news and online events, however you don’t need to join the group to use new our online meeting tools – they are available for all membership:

  • Our Zoom meeting room is suitable for the kind of private online meeting that you might otherwise hold in a physical meeting room. It is accessible on a computer, tablet or smartphone via an app, or with more limited functionality via your browser or you can even dial-in by telephone. Scroll down for how to schedule a meeting in Zoom and invite other members, whether for GOC social or ‘business’ purposes.
  • Our Wonder networking space is suitable for the more fluid kind of online socialising that you might otherwise do at a GOC event outdoors, or in the pub or tea room afterwards. It is accessible on a computer via Google Chrome, Firefox or Microsoft Edge – sorry, not yet on a tablet or smartphone or via Safari or other browsers. Read on for how to meet, mingle and network freely with other members in Wonder.

Meet and mingle in Wonder – from 8pm every Tuesday, or whenever you please

Our Wonder space is open 24/7, and it is entirely free to GOC. You can meet others there by arrangement, or you can drop by to see if anyone is there – for our Weekly Online Social from 8pm every Tuesday, or whenever you please. You are welcome to use it any time, and for as long as you like.

Wonder can accommodate up to 1,500 at a time in self-organising ‘circles’ of up to 15 – like zoom breakout groups, but more fluid and more fun. You can lock your circle for a private meeting, or you can leave it open to allow others to join you. If you are curious to know more about Wonder, see this report from Tech Crunch.

To use Wonder for the first time, take a few minutes in advance to view the short video (here and below) and follow the steps access the space. There’s no need to create a new account or log-in, or to download or install new software. Your browser will remember your settings for your future visits, so you will only have to go through these steps once. You can view the same steps also in writing here, and you can find additional support at Wonder Help and Troubleshooting Guide.

To add an event in Wonder to the GOC events calendar for other members to join, just submit an event in the usual way. You don’t need to worry about whether anyone else will be using the space at the same time, because there is plenty of room for everyone. In the member-only information under ‘meeting point’, include a link to this page How to use Zoom and Wonder and the following link and password for direct access to our Wonder space:

  • To access our Wonder space click here – the password is XXX.
To use Wonder for the first time, take a few minutes in advance to view the short video

Schedule a Zoom meeting and invite other members

Our Zoom meeting room can accommodate just one meeting at a time, so you will need to schedule your meeting in advance at a time that is not already booked. Use the Zoom calendar (below) to schedule a one-off meeting in the next 30 days, or email Online group co-ordinator Martin Gilbraith to request a recurring meeting or a meeting more than 30 days ahead.

When scheduling your meeting in the calendar, allow an additional 15 minutes before and after if you need it as another meeting may be scheduled directly before or after yours. Please do not schedule more time than you need, however, so as to leave time available for others. If you find the date and time that you want is not available in the calendar for a longer meeting, you might find that it is available for a shorter one. After scheduling your meeting you will receive login details by email that you can share with your guests, and a ‘host key’ that you can use to ‘claim host’ and access host features.

A small group can meet quite successfully for a short conversation in Zoom with minimal technical expertise or experience of Zoom, and with minimal hosting by the meeting leader. For a more complex meeting or with a group of more than around 10 or 15, you will probably need enough familiarity with Zoom to manage breakout groups and other host features such as screen-sharing, recording and security settings, and you will need one or two people to be prepared to lead the meeting and manage the technology. Our Zoom meeting room can accommodate up to 100, and it has a wide variety of features and functions available. For support or with questions about Zoom see Zoom Help, and for a guide to remote facilitation and online meetings see SessionLab.

To add an event in Zoom to the GOC events calendar for other members to join, just submit an event in the usual way. In the member-only information under ‘meeting point’, include the login details that you received by email. Share the host key only with anyone that will need and be able to use the additional host features to host the meeting.

  • To schedule a Zoom meeting and receive login details to share, use the Zoom calendar (below):

Use this Zoom calendar to schedule a one-off meeting in the next 30 days.

If you have any other questions or requests for networking and meeting online with GOC, please email Online group co-ordinator Martin Gilbraith.

Our Code of Conduct and other GOC polices and guidelines apply to online events as they do to others.


See also about me, how I work, who I work with and recommendations & case studies, and please contact me about how we might work together.

Tired but hopeful after an online Management Team “Away Day”


How can we take time out to reflect, learn and plan together as a team when the COVID19 pandemic prevents us from coming together for an in-person ‘Away Day’, as we once would have done?  What can be achieved by an online ‘Away Day’, and how could that work?

These were among the questions that led the Director of a national public sector educational service to approach me for facilitation of an online Management Team “Away Day” earlier this year.

Context

The Director had written in advance, by way of context:

The service is a business unit of the central government department rather than separate from it. The service is provided by 221 individual providers working across 23 offices nationally.  We are a busy senior management team of 9, always progressing and developing and allowing ourselves little time to think and reflect on the bigger picture. We are hoping to take time together to do that, and to come up with a plan for how to go forward. We started off with the idea that we need an organisational review to look at our function and form and adjust our form to meet our evolving function.

The team had cleared a precious two days in their diaries for their ‘Away Day’ – a Friday and the following Monday, later that month. We quickly agreed to schedule a maximum of two 2-hour online sessions over each of those two days, and turned our attention to how to best spend that time – and any asynchronous time that the team could make available in advance.

Aims

Following further conversation, we agreed that the aims of the ‘Away Days’ were to be broadly as follows:

  • to reflect and learn together on the team’s experience of the unfolding story of development and change of the Service, over time and in context,
  • to develop and agree principles that should be upheld in how the Service is structured to best fulfill its changing functions,
  • to develop and consider models of how those principles might best be applied in a new organizational form,
  • to agree next steps – including perhaps consultation with staff and other stakeholders, and
  • to build shared clarity, confidence, and commitment toward to a new way forward together.

Approach

The approach I proposed drew on the methods of ICA’s Technology of Participation (ToP). Pioneered and refined by ICA in over 50 years of experience worldwide, this is a proven system of methods and tools that can be adapted and applied to help all sorts of groups accomplish a wide variety of tasks together. The core values of the ToP approach, which inform all of my work, are inclusive participation, teamwork and collaboration, individual and group creativity, ownership and action, reflection and learning.

The Focused Conversation method provides a structured, four-level process for effective communication which ensures that everyone in a group has the opportunity to participate.

The Consensus Workshop method is a five-stage process that enables a facilitator to draw out and weave together everybody’s wisdom into a clear and practical consensus.

The Historical Scan method combines elements of these two. It provides a participatory approach for a group to review the past to prepare for the future, to reflect and learn together from their own and each other’s experience of the team and organisation’s change and context.

Tools

We agreed that the sessions would be held in Zoom, for it’s audio, video and chat functions, and use Mural for visual brainstorming and clustering of ideas.

The team used WebEx for their regular online meetings, but they were familiar with Zoom and quick to agree to use that – it was an ‘away’ day they wanted, after all!  They were not familiar with Mural, but the Director was encouraged by a quick demo and quick to agree the advantages of such a visual approach.

Process

The agenda for the two days comprised three 2-hour sessions, two on Friday and one on Monday afternoon, plus asynchronous individual or small group work on Monday morning:

  Friday  Monday 
Morning.

10am–12 noon

Session 1

  • Opening & welcome, introductions & hopes
  • Overview of aims, process & tools
  • Historical Scan – what can we learn from the unfolding story of the Service, over time and in context?
  • Reflection & close
Individual or small group work

Developing models of how those agreed principles might best be applied in a new organizational form for the Service

  • visually in Mural or on paper
  • physically in Lego, playdough or whatever you have to hand!
  • or in a chart, diagram or text.
Afternoon.

2-4pm

Session 2

  • Opening
  • Consensus Workshop – what principles should be upheld in how the Service is structured to best fulfill its changing functions?
  • Your assignment of individual or small group work for Monday afternoon
  • Reflection & close
Session 3

  • Opening
  • Presentation & review of models – reflections & patterns, insights & implications, how can we build on the best of them all?
  • Next steps – commitments & deadlines
  • Reflection & close.

On the Monday before the away days I circulated details of the aims, process and tools to the whole team. I invited them to familiarize themselves with Mural in advance, by watching a short video tutorial and sharing introductions and hopes for the sessions there on digital ‘sticky notes’. I invited them also to bring some brainstorm ideas to our opening session if they could – in answer to the question: “What are some key events and milestones in the unfolding story of the Service and its context, from 2000 to the present (and, as you might anticipate, ahead to 2030)?”

I was joined for the sessions by fellow ICA:UK Associates Orla Cronin (session 1) and Megan Evans (2 & 3). Neither of them was available at short notice for all three sessions, but the three of us were well enough acquainted with each other and the ToP approach that that barely mattered.

How it unfolded

Even for such a relatively small group and simple process as this, it did prove invaluable to have Orla and Megan with me in the sessions to play the role of producer. We certainly could have managed without, but only at the cost of time and attention – both especially precious commodities online. They were both able to alert me to things I hadn’t noticed in the group and its process, even while taking care of the tech so that I and the group could pay attention to the group and its process.

The group took very quickly to both the process and the tools. Giving the group a chance to use the practice Mural in advance was a good idea, as was a second email to encourage them to try it. While one or two found Mural to be something of a distraction to them on occasions, all three small groups chose to present their models on the Mural board in session 3. One group added not just photographs of their models, but lots of additional material as well.

Our impression was that their time for asynchronous working on Monday morning had been very valuable in thinking about the future format of the service. All participants appeared very engaged in the discussions, although perhaps also concerned about the reality of developing new ways of working in a post COVID19 world.

Giving participants enough time in the Consensus Workshop in session 2 to discuss their ideas in groups certainly paid off. Little clarification was needed and discussions were constructive. As they were a small group who knew each other and the organisation very well, the naming stage proceeded remarkably quickly. The participants inputted their ideas directly onto cards pre-loaded onto the Mural with no problems and in the next stages the fact that as facilitators we could see which cards they were moving despite them being in breakout rooms helped us to manage the time well.

All of the sessions could have benefited from more time, and we did extend a couple of them a little in order to end them well. However, we were glad not to have packed more screen time into the two days than we did, and to have allowed for 10 minute breaks with each session.

I learned that sharing shortened bit.ly links to the Mural boards, as a more user-friendly alternative to the very long and cumbersome original Mural links, in fact excluded some whose security settings prevented them from following the links!

What the participants had to say

 


See also about mehow I work and who I work with, and please contact me about how we might work together. Please do not delay before contacting me – the earlier I hear from you, the more chance that I will be able to help and the more helpful I may be able to be.

Register now on Eventbrite for my free facilitation webinars, and for my regularly scheduled ToP facilitation training courses in London and Brussels and now online too.

Promoting inclusion in online facilitation – free facilitation webinar recording & outputs

Thank you again to everyone who participated in yesterday’s free facilitation webinar, and especially to Judy Rees for inviting me to co-facilitate with her and to Bhavana Nissima for inspiring the topic – and to Bhavana for her gratifying feedback on the session, below.  Here below also you will find the session recording and other outputs.

We took a slightly different approach to my previous free facilitation webinars this time – not least in that this free, 90-minute, interactive online session offered an experience of virtual facilitation in Zoom rather than in Adobe Connect.

Our approach was largely inspired by a 3-day online European Regional Forum of Amnesty International, originally conceived as a 3-day hybrid event in Brussels, that Judy, Orla Cronin & I had just designed and prepared in three fast-moving weeks and facilitated together this past weekend. It involved over 100 delegates from around 25 member organisations across Europe, asynchronous collaboration over 10 days in Basecamp, and five Zoom sessions of around 2 hours each in which we also used Mentimeter, Googlesheets and Jamboards. That experience merits a post of its own – see Judy’s Online Events: Preparation That Drives Participation – suffice to say here that participant feedback included:

  • “The tech and facilitators were amazing, it felt super inclusive”
  • “Technology facilitated a more inclusive meeting than is usually possible in person.”
  • “Technology! Great to have breakout sessions with so many different people. It makes everything very inclusive.”
  • “Great facilitation. Great diversity and inclusion.”
  • “Best facilitation ever (thanks Martin, Orla, Judy), more equal interaction than at any other meeting, no flights (climate thanks us). Virtuality rules!”

“Promoting inclusion should be the business of all facilitators” write the IAF Social Inclusion Facilitators. But how does that work online? In these circumstances our groups are often more diverse than in-the-room gatherings. Power differentials abound, but they may be less apparent.

Online meetings are shaped by the technologies in use, which place constraints on how we can recognise diversity and promote inclusion:

  • With audio-only groups, non-native speakers of the call’s language are at an automatic disadvantage.
  • When we encourage the use of video to build personal connection, we reveal differences in skin colour, clothing and calling location.
  • With most conferencing systems, online breakout groups can’t easily be seen or overheard by the facilitator: what difference will that make?
  • Text chat perhaps gives away the least about who is making each comment – which brings its own challenges.

All of these technologies have advantages and disadvantages for facilitators seeking to promote inclusion.

In these environments, how might we challenge or learn from prejudice and intolerance as appropriate? As experienced online facilitators we have our own tried and tested tactics – but we know we still have lots to learn. This event brought together a wide range of perspectives to develop our practice.

The recording and other outputs follow, from Mentimeter & Jamboard in Slideshare and the Zoom chat in pdf. Thanks also to Noel Warnell for the sketchnote!

Promoting inclusion in online facilitation - sketchnote


See also about mehow I workwho I work with and recommendations & case studies, and please contact me about how we might work together.

Promoting inclusion in online facilitation – free facilitation webinar

 

Tuesday 24 March 2020, 14.00-15.30 UK time 

“Promoting inclusion should be the business of all facilitators” write the IAF Social Inclusion Facilitators. But how does that work online? In these circumstances our groups are often more diverse than in-the-room gatherings. Power differentials abound, but they may be less apparent.

Online meetings are shaped by the technologies in use, which place constraints on how we can recognise diversity and promote inclusion:

  • With audio-only groups, non-native speakers of the call’s language are at an automatic disadvantage.
  • When we encourage the use of video to build personal connection, we reveal differences in skin colour, clothing and calling location.
  • With most conferencing systems, online breakout groups can’t easily be seen or overheard by the facilitator: what difference will that make?
  • Text chat perhaps gives away the least about who is making each comment – which brings its own challenges.

All of these technologies have advantages and disadvantages for facilitators seeking to promote inclusion.

In these environments, how might we challenge or learn from prejudice and intolerance as appropriate? As experienced online facilitators we have our own tried and tested tactics – but we know we still have lots to learn. We hope this event will bring together a wide range of perspectives to develop our practice.

Event Format

This event will happen online, but it’s not a standard “webinar”. It’ll be a facilitated conversation with a group of fellow professionals. Expect to be heard and seen throughout, and to actively participate.

To join in, you will need to call from a quiet place with a good internet connection, a webcam and a headset.

For this latest in my series of free facilitation webinars I am excited to partner with Judy Rees, and take a slightly different approach this time – not least, this free, 90-minute, interactive online session will offer an experience of virtual facilitation in Zoom rather than Adobe Connect.

Join us to share and learn – register now on Eventbrite!


See also about mehow I workwho I work with and recommendations & case studies, and please contact me about how we might work together. Please do not delay before contacting me – the earlier I hear from you, the more chance that I will be able to help and the more helpful I may be able to be.

Register now on Eventbrite also for my regularly scheduled ToP facilitation training courses in London and Brussels.