Using Zoom for Live Online Events

Are you a Member of the Society? When you are booking an event, use your full first name (no middle names), last name and the email you have registered with us. The site will remember you so that you pay the discounted price. You do not need not enter a password or your membership number. Non-Members are welcome to attend at the full price.

Two confirmation emails Our Events Team will email you a confirmation of your booking, as we do for all events. One day before the talk, they will send you a second email, giving you a link and a password so that you can join us on Zoom.

New to Zoom? The Zoom app is free for users. Before the day of the talk, we recommend that you download the app. You can do this from the Zoom website or, if you are using an iPad or iPhone, from Apple’s App Store. You can just register on the Zoom website to join talks using your browser, but we don’t recommend it. You won’t have to download anything. But we find that, sometimes, people using their browsers on our talks are more likely to have problems hearing or seeing the talk.

Interaction during our live Events You will have the opportunity to ask questions when attending the live event. Participants are normally muted during events and Q&A, but feel free to use the chat facility if you have a question for the speaker or events team.

Your system doesn’t have a microphone or a camera? No problem. Zoom allows you to watch the presentation and listen to the speaker. If you don’t have a microphone, you won’t be able to speak to anyone. But, Zoom has Chat and you can just type your questions and greetings and good byes into that – most people do. If you don’t have a camera, no one else will be able to see what you look like. That’s a shame, but it doesn’t stop you from enjoying the talk.

Check the name of your Zoom account Please take a moment to check the display name that shows when you open your Zoom app. It may be very different from your name, including the name you use for your Society account. For example, maybe your family uses Zoom to stay in touch and your Zoom account is called 'Hogan Family'. If you have booked on to our talk as 'Paul Brown', we won't know who you are and there will be a delay in allowing you into the talk. If your Zoom name is really different, please let us know before the talk. You can add your Zoom name in the appropriate field when you are making a booking. Or you can email us before the talk to let us know.

Do you have the latest version of Zoom? If you have an older version of Zoom, you will prompted to update when you try to enter the talk. The update doesn’t take very long but you might want to check you are up to date before the day of the talk.

Security We use a Zoom password for each event as well as a waiting room. An attendance list will be used to admit you into the event from the waiting room. The day before the event, we send each person who has booked an invitation by email, with a link and a password. This helps to keep our events secure. Sometimes our invitation emails find their way into spam folders so remember to check, just in case.

Interaction during our live events You will have the opportunity to ask questions when attending a live event. We always mute all participants and ask them to turn off their videos before the presentation starts. However, you can feel free to use the chat function to ask the speaker questions, communicate with the Events team, or respond to other messages.

Recording events Many of our speakers agree to let us record their presentations at an event. Both the Society and Zoom apply careful security measures to make sure that only the speaker is recorded. During the presentation, we mute all participants and their videos are turned off. We start recording after the speaker has shared their screen and has been spotlit. A message on your Zoom screen tells you that recording has started. You can select ‘Continue’, knowing that you cannot be seen or heard. We stop the recording before the Q&A session begins. Your questions are not part of the recording.

Watching the recording of a live event You must book your place on an event, in the usual way, before the event. Do make sure you choose an event that clearly states it will be recorded. After the event has taken place, the Events Team will send everyone that booked a new link and a password to enable you to view the recording. We usually make these recorded events available for two weeks after the live date.

On-Demand Events Some of our live events are recorded and available long term through our on-demand section. Upon payment, a link to the recording will be sent to you.

Important copyright notice Each speaker retains full copyright of their talk and their materials at all times. When you join any of our events on Zoom or when you view any recorded event, you automatically agree not to distribute the link or the materials to others in any way, on any media. .