Hello everyone, and thank you for taking the time to read this post, as it is essential to do so before our group conscience in June.
Women Empowering Women Support Groups are made possible by the hard work of our volunteers in our community AND the monetary support provided by each group's 7th Tradition donations.
We have worked very hard behind the scenes to determine the most effective way to keep our online zoom meetings safe. The most effective method is to create a waiting room for each session, and that means the leader for that meeting must start the meeting and let everyone in. This would not be a dilemma, but only four people on our Zoom Account have licenses to lead the meeting, giving them full access to the meeting controls. The licenses are expensive, increasing our monthly cost to host on the zoom platform. Each additional license equates to $200 per year, which is significant for a self-supporting group.
Trust me, I have looked at how each person who has a zoom account that can carry a meeting max 2 hours could have their login for that specific meeting, yet the problem continues to be that the public meetings login info must be online coda.org / adultchildren.org AND on codewew.org. This means every meeting would have to be updated online at each location BEFOREHAND, simply put, the time constraints alone make that option a no-go.
We will be looking at other options and safe platforms to enable us to have multiple meeting leaders and be more cost-effective. We will have the waiting rooms shut off until we find another option. That way, anyone scheduled to lead can do so, and that person will be the leader with their slideshow presentation ready to go and will no longer have to wait for one of the licensed leaders to start the meetings.
I am happy to hear from you and any feedback or suggestions you might have. Please understand that we are a PUBLIC meeting, and the highest level of security functions do not apply to our group due to the type of meeting we host.
Many thanks to you all for consistently stepping up and leading the meetings; you are all changing lives, which is incredible.
In-Service,
Kimberly Sprintz, Director & Founder
Women Empowering Women Support Groups
CoDA | ACA
Hi Annette, Thanks for the feedback. I agree it is easily solved with someone to login but that requires a separate commitment by the four licensed leaders. Without a licensed person assigned to the meeting, everyone is scrambling to find someone and this time I happened to be by my phone to assist. Several of us are out of town and may not have access. You do make a great point of the ease in which a meeting is run with a licensed leader login in and making a person host. With a bit of planning and a confirmed commitment by the licensed holders, that maybe the solution we need. Thanks for bringing it forward, we appreciate you dedication to…
From my experience, when a No license person is leading (like me), I found if a licensed leader is there and assigns me as co host, I have access to the critical bits to keep the meeting safe. I can mute and unmute, even block attendees, put them in waiting rooms, etc. So as long as one of the four licenses leaders were willing to at least sign in and assign co host duties to the meeting leader a few minutes before the meeting starts , we can keep the safeguards in place. We should not need to license anyone else.