Guidelines for Online Meetings

The following guidelines should be followed by all who participate in online (Zoom-type) meetings.

Points to Note when Engaging with Online Meetings

• Speakers are invited because of their knowledge of and research into the subject being addressed. Polite and humble disagreement is healthy; argumentative approaches should be avoided.


• Not every speaker will have a Christian faith and so should not be presented with questions/comments from scripture which they might not understand. If the speaker’s faith position is unknown, then the host will offer an opening prayer; If the speaker is known as a Christian, then the host will make that clear and might invite another attendee to pray at the outset.


• Participants should insure that (as a minimum) their first name and the first initial of their surname are shown e.g. John S or Mary B. Anyone connecting with an enigmatic title (e.g. M’s iPad or 123123) will be placed in the waiting room with the request to correct the screen name.


• Participants are asked to keep muted during meetings unless they are asking a question; background noise can be very distracting to the speaker.


• During a QnA session participants who wish to speak are asked to use the 'raise hand' facility on their device.


• Participants (and especially those asking questions) are requested to turn on their video camera during the Q & A unless there is reason for not doing so. If a participant’s video is switched off, then the person who wants to ask a question should use the chat facility instead as it is challenging to respond to disembodied voices.


• The chat facility may be muted while a presentation is being delivered to avoid ‘on screen distractions’; if so, it will be re-enabled during any subsequent Q&A session as appropriate.