Online meetings

[Bijou Drains]

Hi Mod 1I for one have no idea what teamspeak is or for that matter what TZM is. This is also part of the difficulty, that some members are more IT literate than others. Some members do not have the skills necessary to participate in non traditional formats and I worry that we may be excluding them in our rush to find solutions.

[jondwhite]

Some members probably lack the IT literacy to access the forum so although NERB is excluding those members, I don't think any one is being excluded by merely proposing these alternatives such as the commercial solution called Teamspeak and short of holding meetings in members homes, members ought to have some responsibility to investigate how meetings are taking place and how to access the meeting.

[Anonymous]

A couple of comrades could do what Edinburgh members sometimes do and experiment with different messaging platforms. We tried out Google Talk a couple of times. The drawback was  one, I think Tim has mentioned, getting us all available at one time. We also have a member overseas who is out of our timezone.The teamspeak link is below. I don't know if this is free.https://www.teamspeak.com/downloads

[Tristan Miller]

Matt wrote:

The teamspeak link is below. I don't know if this is free.https://www.teamspeak.com/downloads

It's free as in "available at no cost", but not free as in "respecting personal freedoms".  You can download and use the software, but you shouldn't assume that it will always remain available, or that it isn't also doing something nefarious without your knowledge.

[jondwhite]

Tristan Miller wrote:

Matt wrote:

The teamspeak link is below. I don't know if this is free.https://www.teamspeak.com/downloads

It's free as in "available at no cost", but not free as in "respecting personal freedoms".  You can download and use the software, but you shouldn't assume that it will always remain available, or that it isn't also doing something nefarious without your knowledge.

Is there a free user-friendly equivalent of TeamSpeak?

[moderator1]

Matt wrote:

A couple of comrades could do what Edinburgh members sometimes do and experiment with different messaging platforms. We tried out Google Talk a couple of times. The drawback was  one, I think Tim has mentioned, getting us all available at one time. We also have a member overseas who is out of our timezone.The teamspeak link is below. I don't know if this is free.https://www.teamspeak.com/downloads

Thanks for that Matt and yes Teamspeak (TSM) is free to the public only cooperations pay a fee.  To elaborate on the features available on TSM, they include: Voice and chat; chair can bar an individual user; chat can take place directly to all users or between individual users; chair can create a queue; whilst an individual user has the floor the chair can bar all other users from disrupting; chair can open up all conversation to the floor; flagging on disruptive behaviour in the chat; agenda can be posted weeks before meeting and added as required; visitors can attend and listen to the contributions but require permission to speak from the chair; visitors can use the chat feature; chair can place a user in the sin bin; separate discussions can take place in a side room; a recording can be made of all conversations – voice and chat – and stored on google drive so that further conversations can take place if deemed necessary.All that is required is headphones and mic (cost approx £12.00 from Asda).What more do anybody want to hold an online meeting?  Why the party is not using TSM more often beats me.

[moderator1]

Tristan Miller wrote:

Matt wrote:

The teamspeak link is below. I don't know if this is free.https://www.teamspeak.com/downloads

It's free as in "available at no cost", but not free as in "respecting personal freedoms".  You can download and use the software, but you shouldn't assume that it will always remain available, or that it isn't also doing something nefarious without your knowledge.

Which can be applied to all our meetings, and includes this forum, if the state thought it necessary.  

[moderator1]

jondwhite wrote:

Tristan Miller wrote:

Matt wrote:

The teamspeak link is below. I don't know if this is free.https://www.teamspeak.com/downloads

It's free as in "available at no cost", but not free as in "respecting personal freedoms".  You can download and use the software, but you shouldn't assume that it will always remain available, or that it isn't also doing something nefarious without your knowledge.

Is there a free user-friendly equivalent of TeamSpeak?

Doubt it, but like I've explained in a previous post you can't get much more user-friendly than Teamspeak.

[Bijou Drains]

moderator1 wrote:

Matt wrote:

A couple of comrades could do what Edinburgh members sometimes do and experiment with different messaging platforms. We tried out Google Talk a couple of times. The drawback was  one, I think Tim has mentioned, getting us all available at one time. We also have a member overseas who is out of our timezone.The teamspeak link is below. I don't know if this is free.https://www.teamspeak.com/downloads

Thanks for that Matt and yes Teamspeak (TSM) is free to the public only cooperations pay a fee.  To elaborate on the features available on TSM, they include: Voice and chat; chair can bar an individual user; chat can take place directly to all users or between individual users; chair can create a queue; whilst an individual user has the floor the chair can bar all other users from disrupting; chair can open up all conversation to the floor; flagging on disruptive behaviour in the chat; agenda can be posted weeks before meeting and added as required; visitors can attend and listen to the contributions but require permission to speak from the chair; visitors can use the chat feature; chair can place a user in the sin bin; separate discussions can take place in a side room; a recording can be made of all conversations – voice and chat – and stored on google drive so that further conversations can take place if deemed necessary.All that is required is headphones and mic (cost approx £12.00 from Asda).What more do anybody want to hold an online meeting?  Why the party is not using TSM more often beats me.

 thanks for the description.It may be my personal take, but I struggle to think of a more hideous and alienating way to spend an evening than being miked up to a system like that. I know it's probably the way forward but meeting up in a boozer for a bit of craic seems so much more human to me. 

[moderator1]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

thanks for the description.It may be my personal take, but I struggle to think of a more hideous and alienating way to spend an evening than being miked up to a system like that. I know it's probably the way forward but meeting up in a boozer for a bit of craic seems so much more human to me. 

Tim with the position NERB are in you can't have it both ways.  The branch have always struggled to organise a face-to-face meeting and even when you've held meetings on here although I've not participated I've attended and noticed they lack a joined up approach in getting through the business.In fact the last meeting for me was the most "hideous and alienating" of any party meeting I've attended.  We can do better by accepting NERB can do both by meeting on Teamspeak monthly or bi-monthly and also have a face-to-face say once or twice a year.  A meeting on Teamspeak when handled correctly will not take an "evening" to complete.  Indeed a couple of hours at the most to get through the agenda.The truth of the matter is this forum is not suitable for holding online meetings and that the experiment has failed. Thus NERB need to look for suitable alternatives and to me Teamspeak fits the bill.  You can only give it try and find out for yourselves whether or not it suits your needs.

[Bijou Drains]

moderator1 wrote:

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

thanks for the description.It may be my personal take, but I struggle to think of a more hideous and alienating way to spend an evening than being miked up to a system like that. I know it's probably the way forward but meeting up in a boozer for a bit of craic seems so much more human to me. 

Tim with the position NERB are in you can't have it both ways.  The branch have always struggled to organise a face-to-face meeting

sadly Brian this is the story of my life, I do want things both ways, i aslo want to have cake and eat it and I also fervently believe that life SHOULD be all beer and skittles.Just to be accurate the branch hasn't always struggled to organise meetings, there was a time when the branch was very active and had very well attended meetings, I am of the opinion that we could get back to that situation.YFSTim

[Bijou Drains]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

moderator1 wrote:

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

thanks for the description.It may be my personal take, but I struggle to think of a more hideous and alienating way to spend an evening than being miked up to a system like that. I know it's probably the way forward but meeting up in a boozer for a bit of craic seems so much more human to me. 

Tim with the position NERB are in you can't have it both ways.  The branch have always struggled to organise a face-to-face meeting

sadly Brian this is the story of my life, I do want things both ways, i also want to have cake and eat it and I also fervently believe that life SHOULD be all beer and skittles.Just to be accurate the branch hasn't always struggled to organise meetings, there was a time when the branch was very active and had very well attended meetings, I am of the opinion that we could get back to that situation.YFSTim

[Anonymous]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:"thanks for the description.It may be my personal take, but I struggle to think of a more hideous and alienating way to spend an evening than being miked up to a system like that. I know it's probably the way forward but meeting up in a boozer for a bit of craic seems so much more human to me."This is so for me also, as I am extrenely deaf, so one reason we experimented with the Google hangout was so we could use a webcam and I could have a lipreading guess at some of the mumbled ones. The boozer idea is also a drawback for some of us because of all the background noise.I am sure some will like this (boozer) and others not, as they can't join in and drive home, or some other reasons, logistics or health ones.

[Anonymous]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

sadly Brian this is the story of my life, I do want things both ways, i also want to have cake and eat it and I also fervently believe that life SHOULD be all beer and skittles.Just to be accurate the branch hasn't always struggled to organise meetings, there was a time when the branch was very active and had very well attended meetings, I am of the opinion that we could get back to that situation.YFSTim

Sorry if I appear to be hogging this a bit, (you could have your cake and eat it also) but the other thing I wanted to do was have the face to face meeting, but allow access for our overseas comrade via a live link using the wireless network of the premises we meet in. The only reason this idea fell, was the timezone problem. We were meeting at 7-30 PM and this was 2 .00 AM where he was. but for somone local who can't physically attend, this might provide a solution, but the chair or secretary would need to have a tablet or some such device, to enable this sort of communication.  You would need ot experiment beforehand of course for a hassle -free experience but,stuff happens anyway with gremlins.Just  a suggestion. I will definitely beat it now.

[Bijou Drains]

MattBeing deaf myself I do understand some of the drawbacks of the pub, I suppose I just like boozers, pretty keen on booze as well!!!

[Author]

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