Using Archived AOS Webinars for Your Orchid Society’s Meeting Prepared by Harry Gallis Triangle Orchid Society Durham, NC

Preparation Since all of us meet in varied venues, the first issue is to determine if your meeting site will support the ‘re-broadcast’ of a webinar. I am not an expert in this except that I have done it once and bragged that it worked for me! (an ‘expert’ is someone from out of town with slides!) What I think the requirements are:

Site Requirements I am assuming that all of you use digital data projectors and computers to project your speakers’ programs. This is a requirement unless you have a very small group that can gather around a computer monitor. In our case, we have a person at our site that is able to help set up computers, the projector and the mike. I was prepared to turn the sound up on the computer but it works much better if the computer can plug into the PA system at your site. Our set up technical person did that for me but I had a problem at the start and had to reboot the computer.

MOST IMPORTANT: Have a backup plan! Our society had planned to use a program from AOS or Orchid Digest for our January meeting, so we already had that program available and ready to go. Hopefully your society has a member or the site has someone who is a ‘techie’. There are too many technical issues that could derail your plans – the last thing you (and I) want is a room full of disgruntled people. So be ready with the backup so you and I don’t get fed to the sharks!

What could go wrong? Anything! Poor internet connection and constant ‘buffering’ AOS site is down The system just doesn’t work, and who knows? There is a technical issue at your site There is some sort of problem with a media player on your computer

Set up The first thing I would do is a trial run with the computer you plan to use. I used my laptop so I had tried it out at home and spoken to our program chair about some preliminary set up issues. I would recommend a trial run well before your meeting. The following few slides are screen captures from the AOS website of the steps that I went through.

Procedure 1 – Login to the AOS website using your user name and password

Procedure 2: Click on the Webinars tab

Procedure 3 – Look on the right side of the page for Recorded Webinars and select the one you want – note: it will take several days after a program is broadcast for it to be archived.

Follow the instructions after ‘click here’

Procedure 4 – Start the program

Procedure 5 – In this program, Pests and Diseases, I needed to move the ‘progress bar’ (arrow) forward a bit for the sound to start