We are finding new ways to keep in touch with each other: by email and over the internet. This post will hopefully help some people to learn how it is possible to have a virtual face-to-face meeting, using your desktop PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone.
It is less difficult than you might have thought!

Douglas our churchwarden was familiar with something called Zoom, one of the applications that exist to make tele-meetings possible. What follows is just about Zoom.

To take part in a Zoom meeting you do not need to set up a Zoom account.
A Zoom account is only required if you need to create the meeting and send invitations to participants. Our MMP clergy at St John’s and Geenstead with St Anne and St Mary’s have already agreed to go on ‘meeting’ in this way, with Revd Sue Howlett being the ‘host’.

This is how Douglas arranged yesterday’s meeting of the Men’s group: he emailed an invitation to join link to all participants prior to the meeting. See the video below which shows what it looks like on the screen of every participant once the meeting starts.

The reason you can see the participants is that they all used a computer with a built-in webcam.
If you don’t have a webcam but your device has a microphone, you can still join a Zoom meeting and see the others and hear them. They will also  hear you but won’t be able to see you.
If you don’t know if you are equipped with either, we can help by sending you a link to a Zoom meeting we can set up for this purpose if there is demand for this (leave a comment so we know).
Meetings can have up to 100 participants. Just imagine!