AYRS Zoom meeting

Last weekend we held a first trial Zoom meeting for AYRS members in the south west of the UK.  For this locally based meeting we had no prepared agenda, we just introduced ourselves and chatted about our boating interests  This went well, so our next meeting is open to all and this time we will try having a more formal agenda –

So:

At 16:00 (London time) next Saturday AYRS member Kim Fisher will present the ‘Rescue Float’ project that he is carrying out in collaboration with AYRS member Chris Watson.  

Briefly, this is a project to develop a craft for use by beach lifeguards. Some beach lifeguards today are using surf boards, others have RIBs or jet skis. The Rescue Float is intended to fit somewhere between these options – it is more suitable for carrying a casualty and possibly administering first aid than is a surf board but it is cheaper and easier to launch than a powered craft. The AYRS had a fine looking stand at the recent RYA dinghy exhibition and the ‘Rescue Float’ was the centre piece for the stand and attracted plenty of interest.

Questions can follow Kim’s presentation and we may also have some discussion about the way forward for any future Zoom meetings.

The link to join this meeting is below, under Website.  If you need the meeting reference number it is the ten digit number in that link.

For those not familiar with Zoom:

Zoom is a video conferencing system that has been recommended to us by an AYRS member who works at the University of Plymouth – he has been using it regularly during the pandemic to give lectures to groups of up to about 70 students.

If you already have Zoom software installed on your computer or other internet device then your email client should direct you to Zoom when you click the link for the meeting, allowing you to join the meeting which you should do a little before the published start time. If you try to join too early you may be asked to wait, and you may be able to chat to others who are waiting for the meeting to start.  If you click the link but you don’t have the Zoom software installed then I think you will be prompted to download and install the software before you can join the meeting. Hence it is probably best to already have the software installed before you try to join Zoom meetings.

You can get the (free) software at www.zoom.us/download. The software you need for a Windows or Apple computer is the top button in the list, it is labelled ‘Zoom Client for Meetings’. If you want to use Zoom on a smartphone there are Zoom apps available for Apple and Android. Zoom can be used with almost any device capable of accessing the internet but it probably does work best on a computer since a larger screen will give you a view of everyone present.

If you are listening to a presentation in a Zoom meeting it is probably best to ‘mute’ yourself so that any background noise in your surroundings is not conveyed to the meeting. However, you need to remember to ‘unmute’ yourself if it becomes your turn to speak!