Starr King UU Church shares their Zoom Greeter Instructions for you to adapt and use in your own congregation.

Introduction

Thank you!

We are so blessed to have you filling this role. You have several key functions:

1. Welcoming remote participants warmly and building community amongst them.
2. Defending against zoom bombers and other online disruptions.
3. Assisting in worship (especially the zoom chalice, joys and sorrows).

These are all so important. Thank you for doing this! You make our Zoom Inclusion Ministry possible. 

The purpose of this document is to make it easier for you to do these things well. It’s fine to think of what’s here as suggestions. Having a nice looking chalice, reading the joys and sorrows from the chat, and being prepared for zoom bombers are all essential. But how exactly you greet people and interact with them is up to you, and being your own warm authentic self is the most important thing.

Preparation

Perhaps 2-3 times a year:

• Study Tech Response to Zoom Bombing (and practice!) so you’re prepared if we get zoom-bombed.
• Glance at the Welcoming vs. Othering (pdf) bookmark adapted from the Multicultural Welcome Handbook (pdf), and “Coffee Hour Caution (pdf)” from the UUA’s Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministries.
• Consider taking the Widening the Welcome: Greeter Training on the UU Institute.

Instructions

At the Start

• Join the Zoom session from a computer one half hour before the service, unless you’ve been asked to come earlier for a rehearsal.
• Create a nice looking chalice setup, preferably with a real candle, and use a mobile device to give the chalice its own Zoom connection. Connect it without audio if you can. If you can’t, after connecting tap the “…” menu and select Disconnect audio. Name this connection “Zoom Chalice” or “Chalice” so your own name doesn’t appear twice on the Participant list.
• Rename yourself in Zoom to identify yourself as the Greeter and add your pronouns if you’re comfortable doing so.
• Make sure you’re designated a Zoom co-host.
• Create a “back channel” for the service by texting the media tech and sound booth person together (or using some other agreed-upon method). Use this to communicate about problems during the service.
• Check that the host has UNchecked everything in the host tools under “Allow all participants to” except;
  • Chat
  • Rename
  • Unmute
  • Start Video. (“Start video” means they can enable their camera on zoom.)
• Especially ensure that “Share screen” is UNchecked. This is an important safety defense against Zoom Bombing (which is often violent and/or pornographic) or other unwanted visual intrusions.
• Remind yourself where the Host Tools are, with Suspend Participant Activities at the bottom.
• Open the Worship folder / Order of Service subfolder, then open today’s tech Order of Service (OOS) so you can follow along during the service.
• Glance at the Online Greeter Log, below, to see if any visitors showed up in the last few weeks.

Before, During, and After Worship

• Monitor Zoom videos for appropriateness. Keep your zoom screen on gallery or multi-speaker so you can keep an eye on all the participant windows. If you see something inappropriate, mouse over their window, click the “…” and select “Remove.” [If it’s innocent, like someone not realizing Zoom can still see them and starting to change their clothes, you can select “Stop video” instead and let them know privately later what happened.]
• Be prepared to stop the audio quickly if a remote participant says something inappropriate or produces unwanted sounds.
  • If it’s just ambient noise, mouse over their window and click Mute.
  • For anything else, mouse over their window, click “…”, and select Remove.
  • If it’s not obvious who it is, click Host Tools → Suspect Participant Activities
• Monitor the chat, especially for requests for help and for inappropriate messages. If something inappropriate appears, please take a screenshot or photo quickly if you can, and then delete the message. (You should have that power as cohost.) Then remove the offender from the meeting.
• Admit remote participants from the waiting room unless you have been warned about certain names in advance, or they have obviously bad names like Maga Donald. (It happens.)

If There is a Rehearsal Before Worship

• Don’t start admitting callers until around 15 minutes before worship begins.
• If the rehearsal is not over yet:
  • Disable unmuting in the Host Tools
  • Admit callers but put a message in the chat saying:

Welcome everyone! We’re still rehearsing and everyone will stay muted till it’s over. Talk to you all then! 

• When the worship leader indicates the rehearsal is finished, and if there’s still time to visit before 10:30, enable unmuting in the Host Tools, welcome everyone verbally, and let them know they can unmute and talk.

Before Worship, as Zoomies Arrive

• Greet everyone warmly. Introduce yourself to visitors and ask their name.
• If anyone’s zoom window doesn’t show their name, ask if they’d be willing to change it – or let you change it. If the window just has a common first name like Karen or Bob, ask if they would add at least the first letter of their last name. (We have lots of Karens and Bobs. :) If they don’t want to, don’t push it. \
• If there are visitors, chat with them a little and bring other participants into the conversation. Paste these links into the chat if it seems helpful:
  • An online version of your visitor card/guestbook
  • About Unitarian Universalism: Our Shared Values
  • About our church: (link to your church’s brochure)

Right at the Start of Worship, During the Opening Music

• Let callers know to use the group chat box for any issues. This is so that the media tech isn’t directly responsible for any one issue a caller might have as they’ll be busy running Zoom for the service.

Please use the chat box if you have any issues with Zoom. Send your message to “Everyone” instead of directly messaging myself or the tech team and we will try to address them.

During Worship

• Follow along in the OOS but read ahead a little, so you can be prepared to paste messages in the chat at the specified times.
• Keep all remote participants muted except during joys and sorrows – except for obvious cases like if the worship leader is remote.
• Light the chalice at the appropriate time in the service and extinguish it as close as you can to when it’s done in the physical sanctuary. The media tech will spotlight your chalice zoom connection at these times. After the service you can turn off your zoom chalice device.
• During joys and sorrows, when invited by the worship leader, read any joys or sorrows from the chat and then ask if anyone would like to unmute to say their joy or sorrow.

After Worship

• Encourage conversation and connection!
• If visitors stick around, say things like the following:
  • Thank you for coming! We’re so glad you joined us today.
  • That was a wonderful service. [If you genuinely felt so.]
  • Please feel free to unmute and join the coffee hour conversation. There is a screen set up for anyone in the church to drop by and say hi.
  • Put in the chat:
    • And now I’m sharing our UU values pamphlet {link}
    • and our church brochure {link}
    • If you’d like to get on our mailing list, here’s a form for that {link}
  • See if you can make a connection between visitors and one or more members.
  • If a couple of members are monopolizing the conversation, and you know how to do breakout groups, you can invite them into a breakout group. (Optional 😀)
  • If you can, stay until everyone is ready to leave. If you cannot stay until everyone leaves, ask a member you know to take over as host.
  • Say something like:

Once again, thanks everyone for joining. I’ll be signing off now, but if you had any trouble over zoom to report or you’d be interested in being a zoom greeter, email {email address}. Thanks everyone!

• Before you leave, please make an entry in the Online Greeter Log below. If there isn’t a blank line, click in the last cell of the last line and hit TAB.
• If you end up being the host, you can shut down the meeting when everyone has left.

Sample Online Greeter Log