Bill SituClub President It's safe to say that COVID-19 has caught everyone off guard in some way. Our club, and by extension, the Toastmasters organization is no exception. A few months ago, we never foresaw that the pandemic situation would require us to hold meetings virtually. In fact, there's still no say at this point as to when we can hold in-person meetings again. I had always thought that online meetings weren't ever going to be great. However, the past few months have proven otherwise. Not Looking Forward at FirstI really was never a fan of virtual meetings before the public health emergency. Many virtual meetings that I'd in the past were simply not great. I can still remember several times on Skype or Google Hangouts where there were technical problems of all sorts. Often, they had to do with audio quality or Internet connection. I, like many other people, started experiencing wonky Internet connection at the start of the pandemic. This has been a huge bugbear for me over the past few months. Given this, I really wasn't looking forward to online club meetings at the beginning. Still, our club figured that holding club meetings virtually was at least better than putting off on them entirely. As such, we went ahead with them. Getting AccustomedDivision E International Contest on Zoom The first online meeting that our club did back in March was actually through Skype. I didn't know about Zoom's existence then, let alone how it even worked. Going into the meeting, I was seriously thinking that it was going to suck. However, the meeting proceeded one agenda item after another. By the end, it turned out much better than I had anticipated! We didn't have any major issues, which was a miracle! Before the next meeting, one of our club coaches advised us that Zoom was the platform to use for Toastmasters meetings. This meant that our first step was to figure out how Zoom worked. As the club president, I took the lead on this. I actually don't enjoy playing around with technology much, but Zoom seemed more straightforward than I had imagined. I also saw for myself why Zoom is more preferable for club meetings. From that point on, we've been doing online meetings weekly. Over the past few months, we've practically gone from being beginners at Zoom to now becoming experts at it! Benefits Where I Least Expected ThemToastmasters is very much international after all! I did mention that I initially didn't expect to enjoy online club meetings. However, my thoughts on this have since evolved, and in many unexpected ways too.
For one, there's no commute required to get to meetings. Online meetings means I can participate from wherever I may be (which has for the most part been home). I'm happy to say that I've saved on some gas for my car! Sure, fuel prices have been uncharacteristically inexpensive in the past few months. Still, it's definitely less time spent on the road! What's been even more amazing is that we've gotten plenty of visitors, including those from around the world! I was actually expecting at first that fewer guests would show up to meetings. However, we've had guests from places like Kingston (Ontario), the United Kingdom, and even India! I certainly never saw this coming! Wow, Toastmasters International sure is living up to its name :) By this point, I'm definitely holding back on my initial thoughts. This may sound cliché, but our recent experience with online meetings has shown that life requires us to be adaptive. It's often a challenge at the beginning, but settling in will always follow suit. I'm happy and thankful for the club members for having been willing to adapt to the circumstances and make things work. What has your experience with online meetings been like? Post in the comments to let us know :)
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August 2020
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