The question of taking your IPC online with a chat, messaging,
or web meeting application might come up at some point. While online activities
might save time and effort, they’re not always the best solution for every
activity. Bear in mind, most established clubs are based on social interaction.
You go to personally meet people who you want to associate with. The club pre-screens
people to make it easier for you to associate. Our fictional Atlantic
Philatelist Club will make sure that all members have a certain amount of
knowledge about stamps and postal history, while my HP Lovecraft literary and
gaming club will insure that members are knowledgeable about Lovecraft’s works.
This leads to the question, when is it appropriate for activities to be hosted
online, like a chat, messaging, or web meeting application?
I’ve always looked at online activities as a filler of
sorts, especially when your IPC is growing and developing more programming.
Workshops and educational presentations come to mind, maybe as a follow-up to a
live presentation. You can be very creative with what you put online, but I
would caution that this shouldn’t eclipse your in-person activities. In-person
activities are your IPC’s main purpose, which is to allow people to connect
personally. This is very apparent with professional and social IPCs, where
personal contact is the primary purpose. Other types of IPCs would benefit on various
levels by keeping the membership engaged between in-person events. Also,
committee meetings can be made easier by scheduling them online, or at least
using them to fill-in in case members cannot meet in-person.
Whatever you decide, consider carefully how you’re going to
integrate online activities in your IPC, or why you’re not considering them at
all. Above all, using online connections should be looked on as a tool that
benefits your IPC, but not as a crutch. Whether you deploy that tool is
strictly up to you. My next post will cover what application to use, if you go
this route.
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