October 02, 2012
In July, staff at the office here led two webinars/trainings on Building Member Involvement. They got good response from participants and we planned to continue offering two sessions each month, trying to reach members in as many chapters as possible. In our view this is a very high priority since the only way for VFP to grow is through our chapters’ growth.
So here it is the first days of October and you may wonder why you have not heard of more sessions being scheduled. It is a sad tale of technology trumping human intention. In evaluations of the trainings we received complaints of poor sound quality. When we listened to recordings of the sessions it was clear that we needed to find a fix.
The convention intervened and then Mike and Shelly began a couple of weeks of researching and testing various webinar services. We tested various kinds of microphones and headsets in combination with the various services. It finally seemed that we found a good service and simply did not have adequate bandwidth available in the office to provide good sound.
Any of you who have called the office in recent months know that the quality of our voice over internet phone service has deteriorated significantly, too. So began a two week process of troubleshooting with AT&T and with the internet phone provider. As my mother says, I became ‘educated beyond my intelligence’ in reconfiguring the ports on our router, upload & download speeds, AT&T’s tedious call and line testing process, bridging modems and routers.
This last process resulted in our losing all phone and internet connection and a full day of scrambling to get back to where we started! When a technician came out he found that the router we were told to buy cannot be ‘bridged completely’ and was convinced that bridging would not make a difference anyway. By the time he left the new router was back in its box, apparently useless.
Luckily, Shelly has worked at AT&T and knows that another company in the area offers internet service on a different kind of cable that provides significantly more bandwidth. So this Thursday that company will install internet service in the office. Hopefully all our devices will connect smoothly, we’ll have better phone service, can test the new webinar service and by next week can finally announce a schedule of trainings.
As is often the case, for these weeks technology has been a tease, offering the vision of bringing people together from around the country for a simultaneous interchange and learning – but leaving the vision just out of reach. At least at this point hope remains strong and we eagerly anticipate success!