Zooming Along to a Chapter Meeting

May 2020 – Just thought I'd give a brief commentary on our most recent Chapter 1285 meeting in our winter retreat in Venice, Florida. We're all learning to Zoom. It's not something that any of us had done before, although a few had Skyped.

The meeting was held as a Zoom meeting, and I have to say, it worked very well. We actually see more of each other than we might if we physically attended, sometimes more than intended! We are, after all, looking into each other's homes.

One slightly distracting factor is the ability to use a photo as a backdrop. It's nice to be able to have a photo of your aircraft or of the beach as the background. The only problem with an otherwise superb feature is that it seems to confuse the background with the person in the foreground, sometimes causing their hairstyle to be overlaid with the beach or part of the aircraft in the background. My antsy grandkids Zoomed me the other day, and one of them kept disappearing because he was bouncing around so much.

Apparently Chapter 65 in Hamilton, Ontario, is doing the same. Here is a screenshot I found on their Facebook page.

Chapter 65 members in a Zoom chapter meeting.

Perhaps someday all chapter meetings will be held this way. After all, we save gas on going to the meeting. We can get up in the middle to use the bathroom or go for a beer without appearing rude. Maybe my favorite aspect is that we actually get to see each other much more clearly — well, apart from the ghostly hairstyles, that is.