As we have grown accustomed to this new, more relaxed pace of life, we have also found ourselves wanting for our usual social interactions that bring much needed colour and comfort into our lives.

These past few weeks have seen us a team learn to work together in ways we had never imaged, not least of which was navigating the minefield of ways to connect with others through the miracle that is video conferencing

While this, to say the least, is a little out of our area of core knowledge, we wanted to share what we have learnt and hopefully make it a little less daunting to get online and keep socialising!

There are so many ways to get online, these are just a couple of our favourites. We hope you find this useful!

Zoom

• Ability to have unlimited people join a call and see them all at the same time - although anymore than 10 people it gets a bit chaotic! 
• Its free to use (for calls under 40mins)

Downsides

• You need to download the Zoom app in order to participate
• It will cut your call off after 40mins (but you can log straight back in using the same details so its pretty easy to get around)

How to use it:

• We like this YouTube tutorial which gives you an overview of how to set up or join a zoom call

WhatsApp

• It is easy to connect with people directly from your phonebook
• Its free and lots of people in our community already have it set up

Downsides:

• Only available on your mobile phone, meaning the screen can seem very small
• Depending on what version you have, you can have between 4 and 12 people 

How to use it:

• First you need to download the app (either from iTunes or PlayStore)
• These links give you easy to follow step by step instructions, as well as simple videos
• Download for Android here or for iPhone here

Google Meet

• You can add unlimited participants and it is free to use
• You don’t need to download anything!
• We use this a lot for our team meetings

Downsides:

• You have to have a Google account to use this (usually an email like name@gmail.com)
• If you have a lot of participants, sometimes the automatic voice recognition can mute people and it can seem confusing 

How to use it: 

• Since there is no software to download, its one of the easiest options for those not too keen on technology. 
• Have a look at these videos on How to join a call and how to set up a call

We hope that you, like us, will feel empowered to embrace the power of this technology to keep on stitching with friends!