Ana Sutherland introduced today’s speaker, Chris Cochrane. He’s past President of The Passport Club and serves currently as Chair of Public Image for his club and for our District. He’s been given the moniker “ Mr. Zoom“  for his extensive use and teachings on the platform and he was in the very first group of Rotarians to adopt the Zoom platform for club use back in 2015. In 2012,  he helped to start and grow the eClub of SouthWest USA based in Arizona. In 2015, he was one of the founders of the eClub of Silicon Valley based in California. Today these clubs are recognized by Rotary International as standards for eClubs. Hopefully today he'll give us some ways we can leverage being online to make our club better. 
 
Chris began by thanking our club for the invitation, remarking he loves the way we do things in our club.  Chris tries to follow the “5 Way Test” – the fifth question is, “is it fun”.
Chris loves to talk about the idea of Zoom and hybrid meetings, because they have so many advantages. They will become the new norm for Clubs that want to have increased impact.
Some of the advantages are;
  • absent members are kept engaged because they can attend from anywhere;
  • make-ups are easy;
  • you have a recorded reference copy of you meetings if you choose;
  • members are retained because conflicts are overcome (that why e-clubs like the Passport Club were started);
  • Clubs can attract younger member, because in general young people hate traditional meetings, but 95% will attend an on-line meeting;
  • Board meeting are easier, because board members can be anywhere;
  • Speakers can be from anywhere in the world.
Chris recommends recording the speaker (or the whole meeting) and posting it on social media channels.  With high quality speakers or time zone issues, speakers can be pre-recorded. With speakers from anywhere, members can be from anywhere too! The Passport Club started with only members from District 7040, but they now have 6 international members.
Chris also recommends live streaming meetings.  It’s great for attracting new members and for major events like project launches.  He offered advice on how to do this, and noted the cost is low (or free, if you consider Facebook).  This also opens the door to world-wide fundraising.  There will be a seminar available soon on how to accept money through the Club website. Chris can help by giving us the tools – how we use them is up to us.
 
Questions
Michelle – I really enjoyed the breakout sessions when Holger Knaack spoke, are the easy to do?
Chris – yes, the host (Ana in our case) controls that.  You can create however many you want, and allow Zoom to auto-assign people to rooms. Messages can be sent to the rooms, and rooms can have a facilitator (although not using auto-assign).
 
Greg Mumford – what do we need for hybrid meetings?
Chris – the website has suggestions, but it’s quite easy. You can start with just a laptop facing the speaker.  If you want to broadcast a discussion versus a presentation, you will need more equipment (like a webcam).  There are many ways to work it out.  Ana added we need internet at the Oddfellows Hall, which we are looking into.
 
John Farrow – the best thing is the ability to have speakers from anywhere.
Chris – yes, the Passport Club has been successful at this.  Chris suggests contacting Embassies in Ottawa, Ambassadors love to speak about their country. Also, there was a program to get speakers from the UN because of the Rotary connection.  Chris will get us the information.
 
John Farrow – what about a virtual greeter?
Chris – that’s a great idea – you could move guests into a breakout room first to get info about them then make the introduction.
 
Joyce Yee – a great presentation.  Can meetings be ‘hacked’?
Chris – yes they can, anything can be hacked, but Zoom has added great security features after ‘Zoom bombing’.  The host can also remove members.
 
Jim Rymerson thanked Chris for a very insightful presentation.  The information on hybrid meetings will be very useful.