We, The Baby-Zoomers by Trevor Thorn

Illustration of a Zoom ‘gallery view’ from Zoom website.

Suddenly, we are walking along paths we never anticipated or even knew existed. Whoever had heard of ‘Zoom’ until 6 weeks ago? Yet now I can make a pun on the name, confident that most of my readers will understand the allusion. But, just in case you haven’t been drawn into a Zoom video conference/ gathering/ service/ time of worship, Zoom is an internet service that allows anyone with a computer to invite up to 100 internet-connected others to meet 'face to face’ 'on screen’ if that makes sense. The screens can be a computer, a tablet or a mobile phone. It is an amazing feat of technology to those of us who are infants to interconnectivity (and the vocabulary that goes with it)

Zoom, unsurprisingly, is not the only ‘new kid’ on this particular block. ‘What’s App’ is another service which may be better suited to smaller groups and ‘Skype’ has been in use for several years.

I hear some of you asking, ‘So what has this got to do with the craft of writing creatively?’

Well, I’ll start with one experience, way beyond our former horizons. A church near us has run monthly Taize services for many years. Some long time ago (in internet terms) they started to communicate with their ‘regulars' by Email to advise them of forthcoming meetings. When any of those moved on, they were kept on the list if they wished to be, so if they were back in the area at the right time, they could join the group as a visitor.

We, my wife and I, have attended these meditative evening services from time to time, so were invited to join the first ’Taize by Zoom’ session. There were about 20 of us, a few more than we happen to have experienced before in the flesh, but what was quite extraordinary to a Zoom novice like me, was that we were joined by a couple in South Africa, a couple in The USA and one individual from Germany. This almost seemed unbelievable and it struck me very forcefully, that had we not been locked down, this new internationality would never have happened. Whoever would have said, ‘Let’s not meet next month but join for worship on screen’? I certainly wouldn’t if I had been the organiser. So, here was a dynamic that would have been unlikely to have emerged if life had progressed 'as normal'.

Of course, the event was not perfect: everyone was learning. The organiser had to familiarise herself with the ‘host’ screen  whilst others of us struggled to find the ‘gallery’ view (see view above) or to open the microphone on our own ‘device’ so we did not appear like a goldfish to other participants. But everyone was, as one might hope, very tolerant and at times several people trying to help someone else struggling to join became just a little cacophonous! Step forward any (slightly) experienced hosts who can steer an excited group into a sense of order.

So, once more, what has this got to do with the craft of writing creatively?

From this early experience, experience with our group of three village churches worshipping by Zoom and with a small group of Iona community members, living locally to us, doing the same, I could imagine that there might be some very good opportunities for virtual meetings of all sorts of sub-groups of the ACW membership drawing together to consider their common issues. Maybe the bloggers, maybe the poets, maybe the crime writers, maybe the novices hosted by one of our published authors. It seems to me there are many potentially fruitful possibilities. All it will take is the screens and the time, unless one envisages spending more than 40 minutes together (which is the cut-off for a free Zoom event but further time can be purchased).

If this commends itself to you, let’s gather our thoughts in the reply section and see what happens. I think we could build some encouraging opportunities which could also be fun. What do you other baby-zoomers think?

PS. If you use the expression in the last line, you will need to beat your autocorrect into submission!