Experience.FellowshipOne.com

I am the Grace Church staff director of Small Groups.  This fall, I am going to begin a new small group which I hoped would meet together for 6 sessions, adjourning before Thanksgiving.  The description follows…

Internet Outreach Action Group

When: Thursdays bi weekly beginning September 14 7:00 am

Where: Starbucks (Address in my area)
Other info: Tech savvy and/or writers welcome.  truthmedia.com, webevangelism.com, cybermissions.org, ied.gospelcom.net

Have you been thinking about how the Internet could be used to “Go into all the world…”?  With over 1000 million people already online, the potential for outreach is staggering. This is a day of opportunity! Join this internet study group as we discover the ideas that are already being effectively used to seek and save the lost.  Make new friends and be inspired to bring your faith to life by using what has become an effective connector to the whole world.

Contact: Marion Lorence at (my contact info)

As it turns out, the 3 people who have shown an interest in this group live long distances from one another so will not be able to physically meet together before work on Thursday mornings.  I am thinking that we may be able to meet on-line.

Questions?  Would this forum be a good location to set up those meetings?  Should I make my own SG web site for my meetings?  I am looking at goteamspeak.com options as well…  Or would just e-mail connections on a distribution list work best for this group. 

Any feedback and experience from others on this idea would be greatly appreciated.

For an audience of one,
Marion Lorence

Marion,

      Howdy!  This forum would probably not be the best solution for what you're needing for your small group.  What you'll probably want to use is an on-line type of meeting solution.  A couple of options are www.webex.com and www.gotomeeting.com.  Both of these allow individuals to meet on-line to discuss a common interest.  They would allow that common meeting time of Thursdays at 7:00am.  If you were using e-mail or a forum solution, you wouldn't be able to meet at a specific time.

      I hope this helps!

Blessings,

    Mark Lindsley

    Delivery Manager, Fellowship Technologies

Marion, have you considered the idea of something like NetMeeting?  I think that it will be free for conference calls if you're hosting it.  You could also consider using any of the IM tools that support Voice Chat if you're not planning to do a lot of sharing desktops/apps.  I don't know what you're planning to cover, but I'd definitely love to hear how this turns out.  This is definitely a topic of interest to me and I'm just not sure how to really get started in this area.

-Pete Schott 

Marion,

 Pete makes an excellent suggestion with Netmeeting.  Netmeeting is a product that is part of the operating system in a Microsoft based OS.  Whether the person is on Windows 98, XP, 2000, 2003, etc...  The software is there for free.  Netmeeting offers an ability for you yourself to share your desktop, create a white board, chat, and more.  You can hook up your cameras and include video and audio. 

 One technical point I wanted to throw in to aid you if you move in that direction is that in today's day and age, many may have firewalls and/or routers setup in their homes.  This can make it difficult because computers require port usage to enable this technology.  The whole purpose of firewalls and routers is to manage ports.  So, here's an excellent article that discusses this topic put out by Microsoft:  http://www.microsoft.com/windows/NetMeeting/Corp/reskit/Chapter4/default.asp

Hope this helps!