A couple of weeks ago, most people had never heard of Zoom: the online videoconferencing platform was generally used for business meetings. But with most of the world under lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus, suddenly online tools like Zoom became vital to keep us connected.
Yesterday, March 26, our Centre teamed up with 3 other community organisations to help people get familiar with Zoom.
Connect Victoria Park's Village Hub serves people over 55 in Vic Park and has a range of activities to keep them healthy and living independently for longer. Now they are also new users of Zoom, and needed to bring their members up to speed.
Befriend and Activate Mental Health both dedicate themselves to social connection on a regular basis and, again, rapidly had to move online to continue linking people.
So we all got together and, with a bit of ingenuity and help from the Town of Victoria Park's Digital Hub, helped around 30 people - most of them over 55 - join a Zoom meeting.
We developed a step-by-step document for first time users, made a couple of videos available, and organised a Zoom meeting. For those who had trouble joining the meeting, we had people available to guide them through on the phone.
It was a great team effort and it worked really well - everyone learning together!
The best part is that the session became a long chat, with people greeting each other, checking how things are going and how others are coping with the need for physical isolation.
Staying home but keeping connected, supporting each other, is the best we all can do at the moment.
But it does not mean we need to isolate ourselves from others. If you would like to learn how to use Zoom to take online classes, keep in touch with friends or even make new ones, keep tuned - we will have another Zoom with Friends session.
Let's zoom soon!
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