Zoom protocols and tips

You can find information that may help you in using Zoom here. These will help you to check Zoom etiquette and niceties. Please enter a Zoom meeting with your microphone muted. You will be expected to un-mute yourself, when called to speak.

To support the smooth running of YM sessions, we have developed some protocols for using zoom during Meetings for Worship, Meetings for Worship for Business and Plenary Sessions at YM 2020. Please read these carefully. 

There will be a zoom support team for each gathering. They are volunteers doing the best they can. Please trust them and hold them in the light in their service. Zoom settings may be different than you are used to, but have been thought about carefully taking into account the needs for accessibility, security, flow and worship.

Zoom protocols

All sessions

Rename: First Last (RM) Indigenous Land e.g. Emily Chapman-Searle (SANT) Kaurna. Please use the order we are suggesting here (i.e. name (RM), Indigenous land) and do make sure your name is accurately listed, as we will be using this information to call on Friends who wish to speak.

You may need t do this every time you enter a new meeting, as zoom does not always 'remember' how you last named yourself.

Scroll down this page for instructions about renaming yourself.

Mic: muted unless speaking OR asked to unmute

Camera: on, unless you need to move around, have distractions in the room OR are asked to turn your camera off

Meeting for Worship for Business

To indicate you wish to speak

On a computer:

• Open the ‘participants’ panel at the bottom of your screen and press the blue ‘raise hand’ button (scroll down for more instructions and images of the buttons).
• Your name will be given to the Clerk, indicating that you wish to speak. 
• If you no longer wish to speak (eg someone has spoken your mind), please lower your hand. Otherwise, your hand will be lowered once you have been called on to speak
• Please do not raise the hand attached to your body, as we will be watching the list of participants, rather than videos to see who wants to speak.

On a phone/tablet:

Tap the screen, look for the participants icon, tap that icon and you will be given a ‘raise hand’ option.

Chat: Chat will be set so that you can only communicate with the host. The host will be able to support you with any technical problems you are having.

Meeting for Worship

Zoom tips

How to Rename yourself

It's courteous and helpful to the rest of the Zoom meeting that your screen name be correct as it also allows others to correctly identify you. When we meet in person for Yearly Meeting, it is customary for Friends to identify themselves with their name, Regional Meeting and the Indigenous Land on which they meet. We can do this when we meet via Zoom by 'renaming' ourselves. See below, for how you can change your screen name.

If you are an individual, please add your Regional Meeting, or an abbreviation at the end of your name, and the name of the Indigneous land from which you are meeting. eg "Michael Searle, CRM, Ngunnawal & Ngambri".

If you are a small group, it's nice to find a suitable identifier, eg "North Wagga Group, CRM". Please do not gather a group of larger than three people, who might wish to contribute in a business meeting; mixed participation (individuals and groups) is very difficult to clerk.

Zoom allows you to change the name you present to everyone else in the Zoom meeting. In the Zoom meeting, you can move the mouse over your own image, and in its top-right corner will appear a little button with three dots.

Click on the three-dots button, and a little window opens, which allows you to edit your screen name.

By doing this, the Clerk will be able to identify you, and to call you, if one of your group wishes to contribute vocally to the meeting.

Speaking into the whole Zoom meeting

In any large meeting (more than 25 screens), it will be very difficult for Clerks and Zoom hosts to see a physical hand raised. Please use the Raise Hand facility. This is how to find and use it:

Zoom has a control strip at the bottom of the Zoom screen. One of its buttons is Participants. 

Click on that button. A new window opens. almost at the bottom, is a line of controls. the left one is Raise Hand.Click on it to indicate that someone in your group wishes to speak.

Remember to unmute you microphone before you speak. Mute it again after speaking.

Return to YM2020

YM2020 under reduced restrictions on gathering sizes

Some Friends may prefer to join in YM2020 as part of a small group, rather than as an individual using an individual connection device.

For Friends who find a computer overwhelming, joining in someone else's hosting of a small connected group (in their home) may enable their participation.

Joining a YM Zoom session as part of a small group calls for a few adjustments, differing from individual participation. Here are some aspects to consider:

How many people in your group?

If you are using a laptop to join the Zoom meeting, keep in mind that it's hard to fit more than four people into one camera view. Others in the Zoom meeting want to be able to see who you are. Maybe fewer with proper distancing.

More than four may mean the sound is too soft for your group members to hear the sounds of the meeting.

A fuller explanation of the issues with Zoom groups greater than two (2) people can be accessed here.