Town Crier Articles

While meeting together may not be possible for some time, we’d like to encourage our New Town neighbors to continue the business of the NTRA through technology. Now is the time to experiment with virtual meetings whether it’s for book club discussions or landscape planning.

 

If you are holding an NTRA Committee meeting, provide the meeting time and date, and the NTRA website team will post your meeting on the site calendar. That calendar item serves as public notice of your meeting and interested community members are aware. Provide a contact number for more info or the link to the virtual meeting itself for members of the community to join.

 

Here’s how Committee chairs can continue to organize electronic meetings using software apps like Zoom Meeting or Skype.

 

 

Free to join. You set up a meeting time and the software provides a link for you to share with all your members.

 

Members just click on the link and share their video via computer screen or phone. (You may also download the app itself.) The free meeting time is limited to 40 minutes, but if you need more time, just set up sequential meetings and take a stretch break in between!

 

You can share a screen with items for discussion or just see each other to promote conversation. The software allows people to “raise their hand” to speak and helps moderators to keep the flow on track, one speaker at a time.   

 

 

Maybe you already use Skype for personal chats, well you can use it for group calls as well. Just set up your group phone list. To add video, all your participants will also have to have downloaded Skype, but you can call any phone number through the internet without video.

 

Don’t let months go by without advancing the important business of our Association!  You can also use these apps for virtual happy hours or family chats – just to keep in touch with some smiling faces.

 

In any case, be sure we have the most up-to-date info on the NTRA website. Send your calendar items, minutes or other community information to Mary Cheston, Communications Committee Chair at atmcheston@aol.com

 

Beyond just conducting our various business communication virtually, many once-social citizens are taking their personal meet-ups to the virtual world. Coworkers and friends all over the world are "meeting" for five o' clock cocktails on ZOOM to talk toned-down shop in a relaxed atmosphere and trade battle stories of home schooling their kids through the remainder of the 19/20 school year. Some residents are taking yoga classes, playing cards, or learning new crafts via web-based conferencing as well. Some of our own New Town residents have even taken their regularly scheduled book club online (pic below). 

 

In this month's letter from RAB Chair Chuck Stetler, he states that "we will realize how very little we need, how much we actually have, and the true value of human connection." An eloquent statement at a time in history when we can maintain togetherness while sacrificing physical contact during a global outbreak. Our cherished friendships and relationships survive in sprite of social distancing, stay at home orders, or even quarantines. We have the opportunity through almost any connected device to see our families, whether separated by towns or entire timezones, to share love and laughs. 

 

Women Who Read Book Club Zoom Meeting - "It was the highlight of my day" reported Sue Mulnix.