After the pandemic, AA members fed back their experiences of online meetings.
We’ve put together guidelines from their feedback to help all members to feel safe, especially online, where anonymity can be easily compromised.
- Use a waiting room to admit members and lock the meeting after it has started.
- Have cameras on with a displayed first name when entering a meeting. If cameras are off, the Secretary / Host ought to ask participants to show themselves.
- If a person is phoning in, then the Secretary or host will need to ask the caller to identify themselves.
- Make sure that no device is recording the meeting.
- Ask members to attend on their own for the sake of everyone’s anonymity. Use headphones if necessary.
- Use the collective decision making of the group to decide on the use of the Chat facility. Some meetings disable Chat, whilst some use it to enable newcomers to ask questions.
- Use the collective decision making of the group to decide if logins and passwords should be made known.
Safeguarding Polices can be found here.
