Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Video conferencing platforms beyond Zoom? What works for you?

[Pare Gerou (paregerou]

Hello Murial,

I like the secondary email address idea and will use it! We do most of the
suggestions already mentioned, but I can add one scheduling choice that I
know is obvious but is useful.  We don't need more than one account because
we just use breakout rooms for two or more meetings occuring at the same
time.

We use our personal meeting room link for everything (you can shorten it
and even customize it).   For recurring circle meetings, the link goes out
automatically with the calendar invite for the circle meeting, and all
circle leaders have the generic email address and Zoom password to open the
Zoom link for the meeting.  Everyone else just clicks on the link in the
calendar invite and is in without any other action.  You can set that all
up easily on Zoom as others have mentioned.  Double scheduled meetings just
go into breakout rooms, and all recurring meetings start on the hour, but
we are religiously consistent because we have people in time zones all over
the world and have few times when all are awake.

I don't know that you had in mind non recurring meetings.  But for what it
is worth, ours now go out through Monday project manager platform into
email or Slack, and the Zoom link is automatically there within the
particular task and communication about it.  No one has ever complained or
had to do anything but click on a link and come directly into the meeting.
and for spur of the moment phone chats we just use WhatsApp audio or
FAcetime video so we don't need to depend on circle leaders or me to open
the link.  This is likely way too much structure for an existing community
that sees each other face to face all the time, but it works well for us at
this particular moment.

I wonder who else has a group formed during the pandemic and thus has
mostly interacted on Zoom- a strange experience, but one that opened our
membership to the entire world more readily.  While we meet in Greece every
3-4 months, we are exclusively on zoom until our village is built.  I
wonder whether we and the very few others like us- pandemic babies- will be
somehow different as a result.  Wish us luck that this strange Zoom social
experience will create strong enough bonds to succeed.  It certainly has
been a boon for sociocratic rounds.  Everyone's voice is definitely heard
when Zoom actually silences anyone attempting to talk when someone else is
taking their turn!  It is like the facilitator having their own mute
button.  I bet some of you enjoying the luxury of face to face meetings
sometimes wish you had a mute button :)

Pare
Greek Village Cohousing


On Thu, Dec 29, 2022 at 8:07 PM S N Martin <snmartin [at] pobox.com> wrote:

> Hi Muriel and all,
>
> I second Fiona's suggestions.
>
> When scheduling the recurring meeting via the web, there is an option to
> select "No Fixed Time." You could also use the Personal Meeting ID as a
> recurring meeting with no fixed time.
>
> The host key (
> https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/205172555-Using-your-host-key)
> belongs to the account not a specific meeting, so works with any meeting.
>
> In addition to the suggestion of using a generic gmail account for the
> address, for one of the organizations I help support, we have set up the
> generic account (zoom [at] orgname.org) to specifically forward the
> verification code emails to the three people who use the account most
> frequently so they don't have to bother logging into the generic account
> for the verification code.
>
> Stan
> @Acorn Creek Community
>
> On Thu, Dec 29, 2022 at 4:08 PM Muriel Kranowski <murielk [at] vt.edu> wrote:
>
> > Fiona, this is a pretty genius idea! But how do you set up an "any time"
> > meeting? Zoom wants day of the week and time of day when I schedule
> > meetings, whether recurring or one-time.
> >
> > Also, does the host key belong to the meeting (or series of meetings) or
> to
> > the Zoom account?
> >     Muriel @ Shadowlake Village
> >
> > On Thu, Dec 29, 2022 at 3:53 PM Fiona Frank <fionafrank [at] gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > We use the generic user email at Lancaster cohousing but even a generic
> > > email sometimes asks for authentication SO you can do two other things
> > with
> > > zoom to make it easy
> > >
> > > 1. Set up a generic any time recurring meeting and make sure there’s no
> > > waiting room on it.
> > > 2. Get people to book the account on a google calendar or similar so
> > there
> > > aren’t clashes
> > > 3. Let everyone  know the link for the generic any time recurring
> meeting
> > > and also let them all know the  ‘host key’ of the account (find it
> under
> > > ‘profile’) - someone can ‘claim host’ (it’s under ‘participants’ on the
> > > right hand side) and do everything that a host coming in through the
> > > account can do.
> > >
> > > This saves you having to set up new meetings using the account thereby
> > > needing the irritating authentication pass number .
> > >
> > > Love
> > > Fiona Frank
> > > Lancaster Cohousing
> > > (Self proclaimed zoom expert !!)
> > >
> > >
> > [snip]
> > > > On Thu, Dec 29, 2022 at 12:18 PM Leah Halper <LHalper [at] garlic.com>
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Hello, CoHo community.
> > > > >
> > > > > Our current use of Zoom is starting to not feel sustainable. We
> have
> > > ten
> > > > > or more committees trying to set up meetings, and only one official
> > > > log-in
> > > > > person; we have the $14.99/month Zoom  Pro Plan. It requires
> two-step
> > > > > authentication, as they all seem to, and that is getting to be too
> > much
> > > > for
> > > > > the one person who can authenticate based on the emailed or texted
> > code
> > > > she
> > > > > is sent.
> > > > >
> > > > > What do you use?
> > > > >
> > > > > We need a way to authenticate/empower more committee chairs with
> > their
> > > > own
> > > > > logins, but our research suggests that depending on the provider,
> > each
> > > > > login will cost between $3 and $20/month. Anyone out there using
> > Zoho,
> > > > > Google Meet, Teams, or another video conferencing platform? What is
> > > > working
> > > > > and what is not? We are wondering if we should pay for four or five
> > > > logins,
> > > > > divide them among committees, and set up gmail email accounts to
> > > receive
> > > > > two-step authentication codes for each login. Anyone trying that?!
> > > > >
> > > > > Any help much appreciated.
> > > > >
> > > > > Leah Halper
> > > > > Faciliation Committee
> > > > > Yulupa CoHousing, Santa Rosa, CA
> > > > > _________________________________________________________________
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> >
> >
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