Stowmarket Chamber – Zooms!
You may already have found that Zoom.us is a great way for your business to keep in touch during lockdown. Which is why we at the Chamber are using it to recreate our networking events online.
And we’ll start by hosting a free virtual breakfast meeting on Zoom at 9.00 am on Friday 17 April.
Sign Up to Zoom
Zoom is a video conferencing service that everyone’s now using, but which was first designed to give companies and universities remote communication. You can use Zoom to take part in or host video meetings on your computer or mobile device. The service is similar to competitors such as Google Hangout, BlueJeans and Skype.
It’s described as ‘very easy to use’ by our Treasurer, Kate Kelly – a self-confessed non-techy! You’ll be sent a link via email, and when the meeting is due to start the host will begin the session and you click the link to join. You don’t even need a password!
That said, it’s worth having your own (free) Zoom account, which gives an extra level of security: just go to https://zoom.us/signup. You may have heard tales of unwanted and unwelcome visitors crashing Zoom meetings, but we’ll be taking steps to ensure that doesn’t happen.
It’s worth testing the microphone and camera on the computer, or the mobile, you plan to use before you enter the meeting. Zoom lets you do that. It also lets you choose whether to use audio only or audio and video.
Joining the Meeting
Once in the meeting, on a computer if you move your cursor to the bottom of the screen, you’ll see a toolbar that lets you mute or unmute your microphone. We suggest that you set your mic to mute when others are talking. This will make sure we don’t pick up any miscellaneous noise around you such as a dog barking, or your child or partner demanding attention!
When we open the meeting we will set some ground rules to establish good ‘etiquette’. However, we do plan to create our usual informal networking atmosphere… even virtually.
We’d like you to confirm that you plan to attend via Eventbrite first: you’ll then be sent the link to the Zoom meeting.
We look forward to you joining us – and hopefully to seeing you – on Friday!
