How Are You Connecting with Leaders and Coaches?

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How are you connecting with your leaders and coaches for encouragement and training?  Still calling a monthly meeting?  You may want to think about shifting some of those meetings to conference call or better yet…a video conference call!

One of the challenges almost anywhere you live now is that attending a one hour meeting is often a two hour time commitment.  Regardless of the size of your congregation, it’s not unusual to draw from a 15 to 30 minute drive-time radius.  Add in getting ready to go, walking out to the car, parking, and walking into the meeting facility…you’ve got an additional time commitment of some amount.  And that makes a good case for offering at least some of your meetings via telephone or computer.

I’ve been using conference calls for several years to train and encourage coaches and community leaders.  There are a number of free services (I use FreeConferenceCall.com) that allow you to call into a phone number and conduct a conference call.  Most of them have a version that is free.  The phone number is usually a long distance number and so there is a little expense…but most of your leaders have either cell plans or long distance plans that allow a certain number of minutes.  I often conduct these calls in the evening when volunteers are available and long distance minutes are cheap.

I’ve recently been experimenting with Tokbox.com.  Tokbox makes it possible to do a free video conference call.  The upsides are that it makes it possible to see the folks on your call and for them to see you.  In addition, it’s possible to share a training video right on the call.  Whether everyone has a webcam or not, they’ll still be able to see you (or the trainer/leader).

The downsides to Tokbox are that it requires a little technological familiarity.  There are times when you’ll need to coach participants in how to mute their microphone or help them debug their video connection.  In addition, it’s very beneficial that everyone have a headset.  Each caller magnifies the feedback potential when there are too many “un-headsetted participants.”

All in all, I’ve found that people really appreciate the opportunity to attend the meeting without leaving their home or office.  It definitely makes it easier for many of my leaders and coaches to participate.  On top of that, they can join the meeting whether they’re in town or not!

Want to test it out?  Go to Tokbox.com and sign up.  It’s free.  Then, give me a call at http://www.tokbox.com/markhowell

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