by Tom Piper, AWUGU Coordinator

Our kickoff AWUGU online gathering of Apple user group leaders was held at 8:00pm CST, on April 20, 2020, via the Cisco Webex Meeting app. We had 25 participants who joined for the topic of “Online User Group Meetings”. The full hour and a half video can be viewed at: https://uguonline.my.webex.com/recordingservice/sites/uguonline.my/recording/playback/20ac887171cd406983cf3ad6407341c3 (get  password from AUGAB Bulletin or AUG-D).

This session opened with our welcome and a 3-minute parody video about a face-to-face meeting showing classic online hiccups. Sandy Foderick followed with a brief description of AWUGU history, and emphasized that goals over the years were still the same: to increase our community, learn from each other, and appreciate our efforts.

Next was my presentation about appleJAC User Group experience with streaming our meetings using Facebook Live. This was followed by three excellent presentations by George Rubin and Eckart Goette (Naples MUG), David Ginsburg (Suburban Chicago Apple Users), and Robert Zimmerman and Rick Hyman (MacinTech Users Group, ZoomForMUGs files available upon request

) about Zoom and other virtual meeting experiences. I am also grateful to all of those (like Martin Kelly in London) who asked questions and offered additional information.

Considerable positive feedback has been received about this meeting including suggestions for future meeting topics, thoughts about our meeting times/dates, and the kind of information we should provide on a new AWUGU resource page hosted by the Apple User Group Advisory Board. AUG resource information has already been shared such as a package of documentation about using Zoom for MacinTech meetings (available to any participant upon request).

We are very pleased that this first meeting was very successful. Our next tentative meeting is scheduled for 8:00pm CDT, May 18, 2020, using Zoom (as popularly requested) featuring a new topic about “How to Get New Younger Members and Retain Existing Members”. All AWUGU previous registrants will receive an invitation to this next meeting.

To become a participant, any interested AUG leader must first register with the AWUGU Coordinator by emailing their name, location, and user group name and web link to uguonline@icloud.com or macquest@mac.com. Registration must be received by May 16 in order to receive a Zoom Meeting invitation (a download of the free Zoom app in advance is also necessary).