Greater Denver Combined Meetings

By Susan Ludwig, North Denver Chapter leader

Several Denver area chapters have collaborated to hold a single monthly Zoom call during the pandemic. It has been effective in bringing members together and maintaining support for each other during this difficult time. Plus, it has a nice benefit that some people attend who could not under normal circumstances. Here is a list of successes and lessons learned:

• Chapter steering teams meet together each month. We rotate which chapter publicizes and leads the combined chapter meeting and we use a shared Google Doc to collaborate on developing the agenda.

• One person leads the meeting and a Zoom-savvy co-host handles technical issues like muting people with background noise, setting up breakout rooms, posting links to the agenda or other items, and monitoring the chat.
• Different people present different agenda items. This creates a sense of openness and models that anyone is welcome to contribute.
• Use of breakout rooms is an effective and important part of the meeting.
  • Conversation on Zoom is awkward with more than 8 or so participants, so smaller breakout groups give individuals a chance to become more engaged with more natural conversation.
  • Letting Zoom automatically decide which breakout room people go to is easiest.
  • Since our meetings include a 15-minute “chapter breakout” these must be manually assigned. This works well if we have something planned while the co-host sets them up.

• Our chapters cut across multiple Congressional districts, so we plan to explore continuing periodic cross-chapter Zoom meetings - even after we are again able to meet in person.