#83

开云体育

The office are looking into buying a corporate Zoom account that we could all use.? To aid their decision making, they want to know how the various regions are handling it currently.

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i.e.

Who owns the account you use?

Is it a “regional” account?

How many other hosts use the same account?

Do you claim the cost back from Mensa?

Are you aware of other accounts used within your region/area?

Anything else you think might be relevant for the office to know.

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If people are willing to post here, I will collate the answers for the office.

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Cheers,

Ann

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#84

开云体育

I don’t currently run any online meetings – during lockdown I used my own personal Zoon account, which I don’t have any longer.

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I think Maxine was the owner of our regional one.

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Kind regards

Jo

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Show quoted text

From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Ann Rootkin (Mensa) via groups.io
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2024 9:22 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [m-virtualmeetinghosts] Zoom licences

?

The office are looking into buying a corporate Zoom account that we could all use.? To aid their decision making, they want to know how the various regions are handling it currently.

?

i.e.

Who owns the account you use?

Is it a “regional” account?

How many other hosts use the same account?

Do you claim the cost back from Mensa?

Are you aware of other accounts used within your region/area?

Anything else you think might be relevant for the office to know.

?

If people are willing to post here, I will collate the answers for the office.

?

Cheers,

Ann

?

#85

Thanks Ann.

In Croydon we 'Zoom' on every first and third Monday evening, with a usual attendance of 12-16. I no longer have a personal Zoom account, so I am grateful to Mary Reilly in Dublin and Andrew Aus in Cambridge, who are setting the meetings up for us. We have tried Google Meet and Jitsi as alternative hosting services, but have settled on Zoom as being the most suitable.

I did not take up Mensa's offer of payment for a personal Zoom subscription, as to comply with Zoom's strict Ts & Cs it would mean that I would have to host every meeting myself; I wanted us to have a more flexible arrangement to allow for holidays etc.

I believe that a corporate Zoom account is a very good approach to take (provided it is one which Zoom allow different people to use!). We have realised that online meetings have become a very valuable way of keeping in touch with members who can no longer get to physical meetings, and are therefore here to stay.

Best wishes,

John

On Friday 14 June 2024 at 09:22:17 BST, Ann Rootkin (Mensa) <mensa@...> wrote:

The office are looking into buying a corporate Zoom account that we could all use.? To aid their decision making, they want to know how the various regions are handling it currently.

?

i.e.

Who owns the account you use?

Is it a “regional” account?

How many other hosts use the same account?

Do you claim the cost back from Mensa?

Are you aware of other accounts used within your region/area?

Anything else you think might be relevant for the office to know.

?

If people are willing to post here, I will collate the answers for the office.

?

Cheers,

Ann

?

Virus-free.

#86

开云体育

Hello Ann

Mensa NL has a corporate account, so in case Mensa British Isles does not really need 10 separate users (each capable of setting up two concurrent sessions), it might be wise to see if through cooperation of the various national Mensas we could save money by combining all in one contract with Zoom.

For instance: if for the UK 5 accounts (in one total license)would be enough (where you would be capable of running 12 sessions at the same time), I think such a number is also the max NL would need. Simply we could split the bill.

NL bought the corporate license (AFAIK) mainly because of the top-limit of 300 participants at the same time (webinars have a higher level). For this you need to buy a corporate license with at least ten accounts.... Now all NL accounts are divided across various people. I would be surprise if more than three sessions are used at the same time.

The greater picture would be: to enable smaller Mensas to borrow (or get) one of those accounts so they could still have all the benefits of 100+ participants, without the 1600 pound price tag per year. Perhaps UK and NL could team up, and perhaps ask other bigger Mensas (D, S, USA?) if they would like to join, sharing the costs of the license. If more countries would join the number of accounts must be higher, but costs will be way lower compared to each Mensa doing its own.

Last week in a comms with Bj?rn I also relaunched this again with him. I have trying to convince people it could:

1) save a lot of money

2) create possibilities for smaller Mensas without the financial possibility to buy such a license (for some small ones/emerging ones even one normal license of 160 pounds could be a burden).

All we need to do is determine how much sessions with at most run at the same time (lower limit) and see how to divide accounts within the license (comfort limit). We have a pool of Zoom account holders with one central email address (zoom@...). Whenever someone wants a session he/she sends a mail to the address with time & date & subject and receives the link with a message-part to spread to the participants. Zoom sessions can be planned easily in time, and if none of my sessions is running I do not need even to manually start the session (only needed when I need a second session at the same time).

If you like I can bring you into contact with the Mensa NL administrator of our Zoom license. Another option would be to see if Mensa MIL can centrally organise this (but experience says that it is best to do such things bottom up).

with best regards

Henkhenk

On 14-06-2024 10:22, Ann Rootkin (Mensa) wrote:

Show quoted text

The office are looking into buying a corporate Zoom account that we could all use.? To aid their decision making, they want to know how the various regions are handling it currently.

?

i.e.

Who owns the account you use?

Is it a “regional” account?

How many other hosts use the same account?

Do you claim the cost back from Mensa?

Are you aware of other accounts used within your region/area?

Anything else you think might be relevant for the office to know.

?

If people are willing to post here, I will collate the answers for the office.

?

Cheers,

Ann

?

#87

开云体育

On 14-06-2024 11:31, John Butler via groups.io wrote:

I believe that a corporate Zoom account is a very good approach to take (provided it is one which Zoom allow different people to use!).

I believe it does: we have ten account holders, united under one corporate license. With this:

I can define sessions, for which I do not need to be present to start it. Only if someone really needs host-powers I need to transfer them to him/her.
We ten account holders of Mensa NL work all separately most of times, with the mutual email address for outside requests.
The planning of sessions allows you to be on holiday
It is possible to assign one of the other nine account holders to stand in for me (but I have never needed this in two years)

with best regards

Henkhenk

Mensa NL

#88

On 14-06-2024 11:31, John Butler via groups.io wrote:
We have tried Google Meet and Jitsi as alternative hosting services, but have settled on Zoom as being the most suitable.
About Jitsi:

Free to use software, but you need a server for it. There are free services but there are no performance guarantees then. So I was wondering two years ago: could we set up a dedicated server for all Mensa video-chatting. With perhaps max 2 of 3 sesssions going on at the same time if you look internationally: it would be great to find out the usefulness of this, especially since a lot of people do not want to use Facebook/Whatsapp/Zoom/Google/Webex/Teams/ and the list goes on.

Jitsi can provide security and with a well configured server for Jitsi in a quality data center (or someone with a 10Gbit/s data connection) it might be a solution. On the other hand: when paying 1850 euro for a Zoom corporate license which costs can be shared by different Mensas, it might not be worth the trouble (maintenance, monthly costs for a dedicated server in a data center).

with best regards

Henkhenk