Staying Connected

Virtual Meetings with Zoom – The “New Normal”

Learn to Zoom…

For the clubs that have accepted the free ZOOM Conferencing offer, here are some tutorials for you and to share with your club:

How to join a meeting or how how to host a meeting click here 

• Consider shortening the length of the virtual meeting to make it more feasible for members to “tune in.”
• Do keep your fellowship activities if they can easily migrate online (for example, “getting to know you” activities, interesting speakers, and happy bucks/dollars)
• Avoid taking up “video time” with elements of your meeting that would be better shared in writing such as basic announcements or upcoming dates to note – consider sending those in a follow up email once the virtual meeting concludes
• check out Rotary resources on virtual meetings
  • https://www.rotary.org/en/how-take-your-club-online
  • https://my.rotary.org/en/learning-reference/learn-topic/online-club-meetings

Zoom Precautions and Security

Learning Centre

Engagement through Social Media Tools

Social Media is a great tool for engaging members and the general community every day. Clubs can optimize and concentrate their social media channels as a resource to bolster engagement during the hiatus from in-person contact. Many of these strategies can be used once you return to business as usual, so this may prove to be a pilot for your club.

Fellowship
Use social media prompts to mimic the fellowship your members enjoy during your meetings. Included among the resources are social media assets that you may use to start these online conversations. Here are few examples:

• What are you reading?
• Picture Contest: Sunrises
• Kindness is Contagious

• "Getting to know you" activities like Hot Seat or Member Profiles
• Asks members or “guest speakers” to record video presentations to promote through social channels.
  Have a member with an interesting hobby like beekeeping? Any business owners getting creative during the pandemic? 
  Have members who are passionate about particular service projects? Ask them to share a self-recorded video!
  • These can be recorded simply using a cell phone. Try to limit video recordings to 5-6 minutes maximum.
  • Remember to write engaging posts that encourage members and guests to interact with the content.
  • **Facebook Live is a great tool for short presentations featuring your members with interesting hobbies,
    because the audience can ask questions in real-time that the presenter can answer on the spot.

Engagement through Service (from Afar)

• Coloured Care Card Alert System – Householders display a Coloured Card in their window or on their door to indicate GREEN ‘I am OK”, ORANGE “I need assistance” RED “I need urgent assistance”. To enable people to have a system other than online/social media of advising they need help. A simple solution to reach out to community members who may not have access to online social networking and where volunteers can take an active roll to check up on friends, and neighbours or people who do not have many community connections.
• A variation on "Pay it Forward": For example, Pay for a meal for home delivery from a local Restaurant for some one less fortunate.
• Online Art Competition or Story Writing Competition.  The online contest will encourage children to use their imaginations and connect with each other through this challenging time and provide parents a focused activity to provide them with. Entries will be submitted to a generic email address and uploaded to a photo album to a website page, facebook and posted to instagram. A modest prize of say $50 - $100 weekly prize, in gift cards to local restaurants for takeout or local stores think may work best and also support struggling business in the community (half a cash card for the child, and half a gift card to a local restaurant so they could order take out etc.)
• Use your video conferencing creatively, think differently why not hold a virtual coffee morning meeting or a virtual happy hour meeting just for social interaction – Just have a chat. 
• Offer to book meetings on your new Zoom Account to other community organizations. For example your local PROBUS Club or other non for profit community organisations to help them stay connected.
• Why not donate a one year subscription to Zoom to another non for profit organisation to help them connect through this difficult time.
• Choose a local charity and ask all members to highlight it using their social channels. Choose a new charity each week! This is a great way to leverage the influence of Rotarian leaders to elevate causes that matter to your local community (and it might even sprout a future project collaboration!).
• Coordinate with local hospitals or nursing homes for members to send cards or letters to combat loneliness from isolation in facilities that have limited visitors.
• Ask members to make blankets for My Very Own Blanket or similar organizations
• Challenge members to look through their homes and sort items that can be donated to charity. Once it is safe to do so, hold a group donation day to a local charity thrift store (remember to take pictures!).
• Ask members to record themselves reading children’s books and post through your club’s social channels for parents to share with their children for “alt-tv time” during school closures.
• Start a gift card drive. Ask members to purchase gifts cards (bonus points if it’s a local small business) and then mail them along with a note from the Rotarian to organizations that would be able to put them to good us