Running Smoothly

STEP 3  On-Line Meetings

Chick jammies on? Check. Glass of wine? Check. "Mary Poppins" in the VCR and husband tending to wild kids?? Check, check. Okay, then, I’m ready for my meeting! I just need to grab the agenda, log-on to the internet, go to the Chicks Laying Nest Eggs Website, enter the Chick’s private chat room and away we go. I’m sorry, a little fast for you? Let me slow it down and explain the ease, efficiency and eggcelence of having an online meeting the Chickie way.

When the Chicks began, we were 10 women scattered across North America dying to be in an investment club… together! Out of necessity, we were determined to find a way to make it work. I like to think of ourselves as pioneers of the online meeting. I know we weren’t the first to blaze the trail, but, for us, these were definitely new waters we were charting. In keeping with our credo, keep it simple, we all agreed to subscribe to America Online and use their chat rooms. Thank you AOL, it’s been great! (So great that AOL stock was one of the Chicks’ first purchases!) I’m sure there are other chat rooms to investigate, but ya know what we pioneering Chick’s have done? We’ve designed our own Chick Chat Room!

When you first register your club for your own Message Board on the Chicks’ site, you can register for a Chick Chat Room as well. At this time, you will be asked to list all members of the club that you would like to permit access to the chat room. At any point, if you’d like to have a guest "attend" (I’d love to sit in!) or add a member, you may edit this list. We want your meetings to be private. You know how a girl loves her privacy!

Another helpful feature is that all members can enter themselves into the chat room instead of having to wait to be invited. Before, the Head Hen would always have to stop what she was doing and go invite in every member as they signed on. As you can imagine, there are always a few latecomers (I won’t name names!), not to mention the occasional Chick getting "bumped off" needing an invitation to re-enter. These disruptions really spoil the flow.

If you’re familiar with Instant Messaging, this next feature will appeal to you right away. Don’t ya hate it when someone is writing to you so fast, you don’t have time to read and respond before their words disappear out of the window? Or worse, your volume is turned down and you didn’t know you were even getting a message? You try to scroll to catch up, but they keep on gabbing? Imagine how quick the text moves with 10 Chicks chirping! Well, the Chicks have included a "Pause Incoming Text" button to allow you to play catch-up! Or maybe you just wanted to re-read a section real quick prior to the vote (I get a little wishy washy sometimes). Whatever. Now, you can do it with ease!

Lastly, the most significant change is really designed for the Chicken Scratcher (i.e. Secretary). Instead of having to copy and paste an entire meeting into an e-mail, our chat rooms will do a complete log of the meeting and print it out at the click of a button. What a time-saver. We all know Chicks are tight on time!

Yesterday, Chick Megan discussed the importance of having an agenda. Armed with this official guide to your meeting’s content and flow, one would probably expect complete organization… right? Well, let me warn you, the excitement of 10 Chicks in a chat room together for the first time can seem a tad chaotic. You may want to allow for this and wait a few minutes before calling the meeting to order. Don’t worry, your meetings will be streamlined in no time. Tomorrow, Chick Karin is going to discuss Chick’s Rules, similar to Robert’s Rules, but tweaked (like everything else) to fit our own personal style and needs. Basically, they’ll allow you to keep order in the coop… I mean group!

So, now you’re ready for your first online meeting. Your laptop is charged, you’ve lit a fire in the fireplace and what’s that you say? No Chick jammies? Hop on over to the General Store and get yourself a pair! As for the wine – sorry, no liquor license!