Like many of you, I have been home since early March. After a week of being home, I noticed that many people missed interacting with each other, so, in an effort to connect my friends and to create boundaries while I worked from home, I decided to host social activities or what we’d call a virtual meet-up.
I’m proud to say that over the past 13 weeks, I’ve organized 48 social activities for a group of 80 friends and their friends. This included 31 lightning talks over 6 nights with subjects ranging from how to juggle to cross-stitching to pairing food with wine as well as several activities where my friends took over hosting to bring more activities into the mix!
Given that I’ve really enjoyed myself and made new connections, I thought I’d share a few things I learned and ideas I think you may be able to use for your virtual Local Guides meet-ups.
I used Google Meet for all activities as I had access to an enterprise account that would let me host up to 100 folks. Luckily, Meet is now available for everyone!
I kept the activities to friends and their friends so that we all had at least one thing in common: that friend. You all have Local Guides in common, so that’s one barrier down!
I decided that each social activity would be no more than 40 minutes of scheduled content for an hour calendar hold to allow us to not rush and to let people get to know each other.
I managed everything through Google Forms to save myself “work” because these weren’t Local Guides meet-ups and I didn’t get to use the Local Guides meet-up site.
Trivia: I started doing trivia thanks to my love of Harry Potter and each week, I focused the trivia on a movie. I found that trivia about specific shows are great but you’ll want to give people time to prepare. I’ve started doing general trivia about all kinds of topics and see a variety of people attending those.
Lightning Talks. This is one of my favorite formats because you give each person 3 minutes to speak about a topic of their choice with 2 minutes for questions. It’s very hard to get bored in 3 minutes and very easy to talk about something that same time. This was a fun way to get people to share their passions or expertise in a no pressure way.
Dinners or Happy Hours: I found that sometimes, it’s nice to share a meal or beverage with others. I started to add in coloring or crafting to the subject of each of these activities so that it was less pressure to eat or drink. I’ve gotten back into coloring thanks to these activities.
Book Club: Turns out I have a few friends who have written books, and this was a fun way to highlight them and to talk about my friend Margarita’s book that just came out, too
**Skill Sharing Sessions:**Know someone who’s an expert on something? Give them an entire hour to teach something. @KatieMcBroom was even so kind to share contouring tips with a few of us one evening and another new friend is hosting a wine tasting to teach us about wines.
If an activity has a “winner,” celebrate them. Many of you may have seen my social media posts congratulating winners but I also gave trivia winners a digital certificate.
Always have a back-up plan should something go wrong. After trying out different trivia options, I decided to use Kahoot! As I could use their template to create the trivia in Google Sheets then upload to their site. This was great when I had an upload issue one week as I could quickly re-upload the file!
Always be ready to move conversation along. Virtual activities can make it hard for people to get talking or to stop talking. Don’t be afraid to host AND moderate by adjusting the conversation as you can.
Don’t be afraid to end early and don’t take anything personally: I noticed some folks come for the activity and want to hop off as soon as it’s over. Or that a ton of people would RSVP but only a few came. You know what? It didn’t make it any less fun!
Above all: have fun! If you’re not having fun, then why do it? That’s why I always schedule activities and meet-ups that I’m personally interested in so even if no one showed up, I’d still have a good time!
I hope that you’ve found the above tips helpful and if you haven’t yet hosted a virtual meet-up, you will consider hosting one in the future with these tips. It’s so easy to pick a fun topic that will be relevant to Local Guides and with a fabulous global community, it’s even easier to make friends. So, what topic are you going to tackle for your next virtual meet-up?
@TraciC Wow! What an inspirational post. These all are helpful and great for making a virtual Meet Ups very fun for attendees. I applied some of these. Hopefully, all the tips will make our future activities more interesting.
I totally agree with your “the basics” information, especially, keeping the session for 40mins approx is the ideal time. And dragging it only makes it boring.
I have done an accessibility talk show with an accessibility champion and it was a very informative session. Learned a lot of tips and exchanged different ideas to be more productive.
Apart from that, I wish to arrange meetups on Local Food and gardening in the future.
Thank you @TraciC for sharing again great tips. Because in the start I felt some difficulties, but your useful feature Tips for hosting virtual meet-upsmade it easy to host virtual meet-ups. On this Friday me and @JaneBurunina are hosting the 8th meet-up of Accessibility meet-up series. And we are thinking to add some interesting activities after that. So your post will be very helpful for us for our future meet-ups.
I’ve also been having a lot of online activities during this time. Not only Local Guides meet-ups (and I love them), but also hangouts with my family and friends. I’m looking forward to being able to get around in my city, to hug my family and friends, but I’ll keep using virtual activities to contact friends. I was able during these days to talk to some friends that I seldom talk to, even living in the same city, as sometimes it is difficult fo figure out a schedule to a face-to-face meeting. In addition to that, I’m also talking more with my family and friends who live far away.
Answering your question, I’m signed up for a lot of meet-ups, and I’m planning to host some Kahoot! Meet-up to have some fun with my fellow Local Guides.
Great writeup @user_not_found . There are silver linings in dark clouds. Even though past several months were a troubled period for the whole world and Local Guides it gave us new opportunities. New perspectives…one such thing is the Virtual meetups…We learnt a lot and made lot of connections…
I had only host one meet up in April on Baisakhi( our new year) was very afraid was getting goosebumps, but after attending so many meet up not only of Team India but other different countries I have not counted yet but I think more 50 meet up I must attended, I don’t know where we check how many meet I have attended. Sharing screen shots. In album.
But attending virtual meet up best thing I made many new lg new friends,learnt & share , our point of view,.how different lg work , what problem we face some times many different things are discussed, one of best was Team India celebrate birthday party of two local guide playing games, Singing, learning through yoga stress management. story of handicap boy Paresh , on actually accessible ,learning photography ,many more things. .
My nephew had organised her daughter 1st birthday party which was in hotel was cancelled we celebrate with virtual meet up all cousin together, best part senior citizens my bhade Daddy ji ( my dad elder brother) 94 plus & My mom 75 plus was shocked how everyone are seeing .
Today we staying away from each other different countries but thanks to Google who brought us closer. I visit different countries without passport, visa, without spending single money.
In return from meet up get instant appreciation from friends, recognition that i am from India , acquire knowledge also. Friends forever.
When I read about the "Harry Porter Trivia", I felt guilty about calling my self a Gryffindor. It’s no problem though, I don’t mind being a 'baby Gryffindor’.
Good tips! It’s amazing that you hosted so many virtual activities, I have been seeing your announcements and screenshots afterwards and they always seemed fun too. Congrats!
What a great handful of tips @TraciC literally loved the way you shared your experience of virtual meetups. Being in lockdown for more than 90 days now there should be something to keep you state of mind sane. That’s what these virtual meetups do, connecting with the world learning about their cultures, food, music without visa and money we can travel around the world
@TraciC That’s a perfect insight of the amazing virtual meets, though I have been a part of various meet up like cooking pasta, virtual tour, trivia, song and dance they all have been great fun, you rightly said no matter if there are less people we can still have fun if we like what we are doing
Thank you for sharing some great tips and I will surely try to host a fun meet up soon
but other different countries I have not counted yet but I think more 50 meet up I must attended, I don’t know where we check how many meet I have attended. Sharing screen shots. In album.
