I facilitate a SMART Recovery meeting on Monday nights. We have people attending the meeting via Zoom because, while they are from here, they aren't currently living here. Because our meetings last longer than the free version allows for, I am paying for a Zoom Pro account, which allows for up to 100 people in a meeting at the same time. It seems a shame to be paying for something that I use for only an hour and a half per week, so I was thinking about scheduling maybe a weekly SENIORSonly Club Zoom meeting if anyone's interested. Accounting for the time zones of those who may be interested, we would want to find a time that would be doable for the largest number of members.
Nope, I tried it once and said never again! My hearing is too bad so I shout at the computer plus my use of profanities might not set well with some. Also, I usually just wear a sports bra on top while computing and that could be an issue.
Using headphones or earbuds might help with that, @Faye Fox . My daughter got her dad a set of AirPods to use when he was on the phone, and she said it helped a whole bunch. Not only could he hear her better when they talked, she said that he usually slurred his words and was hard to understand; but when he wore the AirPods , then he spoke plainer and at a better volume for her to understand him. Zoom meetings can be done with either visual or just audio, so anyone who wanted to participate and not be on camera could also do that. When I do FaceTime with my family, we sometimes use the camera and sometimes not. My younger son, who grows a garden, likes to take me on trips through his yard to show me how the roses and raspberries are doing; so we use the camera, but not looking at each other. If we had the meeting when you were in town, @John Brunner , then you could connect to a public Wifi and not have to worry about using your allotted amount for the month. You go out to eat , and grocery shopping, and most stores offer free Wifi that you can connect to. Once you do that, your phone or laptop should save the connection for when you were there again and used the same Wifi . I am not decided whether I would like doing a zoom meeting or not. With the forum, we just participate in whatever threads interest us, but with a zoom meeting , there would be actual conversation, and I am not sure how that would work . Anytime I have done this kind of thing, there was a purpose for the meeting and that was what was discussed. I would like @Ken Anderson to share more about his idea of how the meetings would work, and what we would discuss.
Headphones do help @Yvonne Smith and also donning a tee shirt, and washing my mouth out with lava soap might help, but I am also very hard to understand in person with my lack of teeth and damaged jaw. Then John wants me masked so no one would understand me anyway.
I want you to be masked so we would not be subject to Pumice Breath. Actually, I was thinking of anonymity.
I feel people meeting face to face would probably open up better communication. What I mean is, I know I am way more able to have better understanding of a person, their personality, and less apt to take them wrong when they share. I'd like people here to know me better, and for me to know them better. We only get to be here so long on this planet and I know there's been hard feelings on forums many times just because we can misunderstand someone.
We could have a topic each week, and @Faye Fox have you used your aids to listen to your TV? They work great but have to have bluetooth capability. I can have my TV way low so it won't disturb my neighbors, and still turn up my aids so I can hear it. Nobody has to say anything, they can just listen too if they aren't comfy talking to "strangers".