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Letter From The Chairperson (Matthew O'Brien)
We are replacing our normal Newsletter today with a letter from our chairperson, Matthew O'Brien.
We are in a changing environment and need support from our members if we hope to maintain activity going forward into the Summer and beyond. This note is longer than I would like, but I am reluctant to remove any paragraph. It is important for all our members understand the status quo and have the opportunity to influence what activities we organise, especially during the summer period, but also influence how we operate going forward.
Zoom Meetings So Far
I am really pleased with the many very positive responses to our Zoom based club member events. We have had approx. 60 members per event, capacity (at the moment for 100) and a total membership of approx. 120. Equally, I have been impressed by how members have conducted themselves at the events so far. With these numbers and with everyone on an ‘Open Microphone’ the potential for bedlam in many different guises is ever present, so we have operated in Webcast mode , with microphones initially muted. The conduct to-date allows us to progress this platform and carefully step into "open mike" scenarios.
It is heartening to see such much positive feedback to these events.
Summer Plans
We traditionally close down the majority of our club activities over the summer, including the weekly newsletter, weekly meetings, SWM events, exhibitions and competitions. We do pre-arrange a series of Monday night outings with a committee member taking turns to lead each event and other outings are possible. These are planned and scheduled in the weeks leading up to the Summer break.
Our “Outings Sub Committee” have been chomping at the bit to release a programme of outings, monitoring the ever changing landscape of social protocols. Indeed, this changed again last night. This is under priority consideration and we will need to revise our thinking again to take this latest relaxation of rules into account. Silvia and her team will be submitting their “Protocols For Offshoot Outings” and proposed Summer programme for consideration of the committee next Tuesday night.
George Balmer has been in contact with the leaders of the current SWM groups, with a view to establishing what groups could progress and what groups could consider presenting their results using Zoom. Again, this needs to be reviewed in the light of last night’s announcements.
We are getting feedback that there is a desire to continue current activity during the summer, such as Weekly Themes, Zoom meetings, Competitions and anything else that is reasonable and practical to do. Digital platforms provide us with options to continue activity in a way not possible before. This gives us tremendous opportunities not only for dealing with the current crisis, but ongoing into the future.
The Elephant In The Room.
To continue activity throughout the Summer (and beyond) we need support and volunteers from our membership to enable activity to take place.
Zoom
As a club we need to establish a team to plan, implement, operate and develop our Zoom presence. We will need the following as a minimum.
Offshoot Zoom Champion.
The role initially will be the owner of our Zoom account, who will create the Zoom meeting (very easy to do), co-ordinate with committee and sub-committees in terms of scheduling events, co-ordination with presentation speaker/s on protocols, timing and content of presentations and host the meeting (or delegate the hosting of the meeting to another club member).
Chat Channel Moderator.
A member who will actively moderate the chat channel, mainly to identify queries or questions to the speaker and find an opportunity to direct these queries to the speaker, without interrupting the flow of the session. A safety net also in case of offensive material needs to be suppressed.
Zoom Liaison.
Queries arise from our members in relation to Zoom events, which rise to a peak just before the session starts and continue for 10 or 15 minutes after the event has commenced. These are mostly email, but could be telephone calls, WhatsApp messages or any other means of communication. We can include a contact email address in the Zoom meeting notice, so that all queries for a specific meeting can be channelled to an Offshoot email address, which can be automatically re-directed to member taking this responsibility for a particular meeting.
[Please note, I have managed the sessions to-date with my laptop managing the hosting session, an old MacAir set up to the side so I could view what our members were seeing plus manage the chat channel, my Ipad to my left to deal with email queries and my iphone nearby (muted) to deal with telephone queries. I regret if the presentation of these events did not match the panache of Gay Byrne on the Late Late Show or similar].
Zoom Events.
We need individual members to be prepared to make presentations. These can be projects or subjects close to their hearts, a presentation on specific techniques, tips in relation to their approach to their hobby, how they make use of software to edit their images, what tools from the internet do they use and why. The presentations could be a full presentation or a 15 minute slot, where we can group a number of presentations together.
Offshoot Newsletter.
A massive compliment is due to Ian Gemmells, who has set up such a fantastic IT infrastructure that has served Offshoot so well for so long. It is based on Wordpress, with some specialist modules purchased to provide certain features. A good example is the Newsletter module. In the beginning Ian curated the newsletter content, created the weekly Newsletter document and published it in a timely manner. In parallel, Ian has maintained the various lists vital for club operation, such as our club email mailing list, committee, sub-committee and activities (such as new members). Over the last few years I have shared the burden with Ian in preparing, editing and publishing the newsletter. Since the onset of the Corvid crisis I have handled most of the workload in keeping the Newsletter published.
For the long term health of the club, we need at least one volunteer who is prepared to take on this role. Myself or Ian can provide training on how to edit/publish the newsletter. Familiarity with Wordpress would be an advantage but not essential. Given the sensitivity of this role, someone familiar with club culture and activities will be required. Normally, we do not publish the Newsletter during the Summer, but this year is different, which presents us with unique challenges, described further below. We have short and long term needs in relation to this role.
Flickr Weekly Theme
I have promoted the use of a Weekly Flickr Theme as it was activity based, could be accomplished by our members inside or outdoors depending on individual circumstances and take advantage of our existing Flickr presence. Each week I have created and published a theme, moderated the Flickr Offshoot page. Initially I elected the winners and more recently Joe Tulie has shared this task (I am uncomfortable been the author and judge). This was an experiment and now we can see it has gathered a regular mini-community, with complements received for this activity.
If we wish to keep this activity going forward, we will need someone to take responsibility for creating the weekly theme and someone (or a team) to select the Pics of the Week and communicating this to our members (ie via email or in co-ordination with the Newsletter publication).
Crunch Time.
No doubt, this is an unusual year and it makes sense to continue as many activities as we can during the summer. For that to happen, we need volunteers who will assume responsibility for completing the effort needed to run these tasks. If we do not have the volunteers, then despite the need and aspirations, it just will not happen. To put this into context, I have holidays scheduled for the month of July. At the time of writing, the availability and quality of broadband available to me is uncertain, mobile communications may involve a drive to the nearest mountain. Unless we have the resources then the following activities is the best I can do.
Zoom.
I will host the planned session for the 29th June (or happy if someone else wishes to take on this role). Because our membership have been so well behaved to-date, I am proposing, at the end of the guest presentation to have an ‘Open Mike’ session. We will start with a Q & A with our guest. When this Q & A is over, we will then ask our guest to log-out, so we can have a private members session. We will be happy to accept feedback from any of our members or attempt to answer any queries raised. This will be a learning experience in its own right and we will see how effective this ‘open mike’ session works in terms of planning future events.
I will not schedule any Zoom events for July and will pick up the threads and try to have sessions pencilled in for August.
Weekly Theme.
I will pre-publish the Themes for July and select winners and publish the results on my return in August. If I get the opportunity to get web access during this period, I will select and publish the results via Email.
Newsletter.
I will be unable to edit the newsletter during July, as I will need a reasonable internet connection and mobile devices are not suitable for editing the newsletter, assuming I can get a signal.
Day To Day Activity / Issues
I will be unavailable to deal with any day to day issues or take part in arranging any activity. I will be available by phone to assist as best I can for any emergency issues arising.
Going Forward.
We have a Zoom committee meeting scheduled for Tuesday evening at 8 pm. Members of all sub committees are invited to participate. We will evaluate the resources at our disposal to manage a summer programme at that stage.
So far, Steve has volunteered to present a number of Zoom sessions and Noreen Casey has agreed to moderate the Zoom Chat feature. I express my appreciation of the club to Steve and Noreen.
If you are interested in volunteering for any of these roles going forward, please reply to me chairperson@offshoot.ie or any member of the committee at committee@offshoot.ie. The success of our summer programme is dependent on the response we get.
Yours Sincerely,
Matthew O'Brien
Chairperson (Offshoot Photography Society)
Footnote 1. This week’s Flickr Theme is ‘Nature’.
Footnote 2. The results of last week Pics of The Week will be published in our usual newsletter, which will be circulated tomorrow.
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