In a matter of weeks, COVID-19 has changed the world of work. As universities continue to prioritise the safety of their communities and members, many in-person club and society events and gatherings have been cancelled. This leaves people looking for ways to stay connected. We’ve heard from a lot of you as you are considering virtual alternatives.

Get is here to help you stay productive and connected with your members even from your lounge room! We also think it is important now for you to be able to create new virtual experiences to engage with your members and use this time as an opportunity to be creative. 

Virtual Event Ideas

Networking

With most of the workforce online and at home, now is the time to reach out to any professionals in your industry through Linked In to connect and express any interest in their experience or even ask for a quick phone call. You can encourage your members to do so and provide them with a list of contacts. 

Panels

Group video phone calls over Zoom are a great way to run a virtual panel with industry professionals. The chat function on Zoom allows members to ask the panel live questions.

Workshops

Brainstorming sessions with your committee about your plan going forward as a club is a productive and collaborative way to stay ahead during this time. If you have already planned an event, these sessions would be great to discuss how to manage venues, suppliers etc.

Social and fun events

Not every club has a business or career focus and can run the types of events listed above - or even if they do, these can get tiresome! In a time of isolation, simply seeing other society members face-to-face might be all someone needs. Host a video call with a theme:

A 'mukbang' - a YouTube trend where everyone watches other people eat. There is literally nothing bad about this.

An online speed-friending event (most video conferences allow you to put people into breakout groups or 1-1 conversations).

A talent show! Ask for performances of singing, dancing, comedy, or other special talents (even just party tricks) for your members' enjoyment. These can be as a live video chat or you can get members to submit individual videos that you share through your club’s social media channels.

Trivia night! Run online trivia using a software like Kahoot, and livestream your President reading the questions. You can also use video conferencing to group people into teams or allow participants to see everyone else's reactions.

Virtual alternatives to in-person engagements 

To help you reach and stay engaged with your team and your members, here are some free tools and resources we recommend: 

Zoom

Zoom is a video conferencing app that makes it easy to start and join meetings to collaborate across any device. It syncs with Google Calendar, making scheduling events or calls easy. Your attendees can chat alongside any video conferencing that is happening - for example, to ask questions of panellists - and what's more, you have total control over who is in the call.

Get's Communicator Tool

Once you set up a Zoom event, you can share the link with your members to join through with the Get Communicator Tool - an instant messenger that will send them a message through email and the Get app. No more wrangling spreadsheets to upload to a mailing software!

Get stores all of your past event attendees, members and merchandise buyers as well as your current membership base, so you can invite every person that may be interested in your virtual event, in one click.

Think beyond these ideas as to what your club could achieve at this time - the possibilities are really endless and how your club bounces back from this time depends on you. During this confusing time, we encourage you to manage and support your organisation with creativity, adaptability and positivity.

If your club is interested in hosting an event over video-conference, Get is willing to support this by contributing to the subscription fees this semester for selected providers. Get in touch for more details.