Our club has had some major probs arranging meetings
     following the Katrina disaster in New Orleans. Is
     there a way to "meet" online to transact some of our
     club's business without public access? Our club has
     eighteen members, far too many for conference calling.
     I'd appreciate any suggestions. Thanks.

Hi Erica,

I was in an online club once. We used www.network54.com and Yahoo Groups
for their real time message boards. Both were free. However, typing really
SLOWS the process. We would spend 2 hours and barely get anything
accomplished. Further, the "tone" one conveys in print is far different in
person. That led to some misunderstandings, as well. We preferred
Network54 because the entire chat session could be copied as a transcript.
Yahoo's could not.

Eighteen is not too much for a conference call, depending on what you use.
I believe Skype was just bought out by EBay or Yahoo, and they have a
call-in system that can hold literally hundreds of callers. I would suggest
that you Google "free conference calls." There are plenty of sites to
choose from. The key here will be doing most of your club stuff on your
message board, and before the meetings, and setting a tight agenda for the
things you cannot handle through the board. Then, you'll have to set some
rules about how people communicate.

Let us know what you decide to do. We will all be interested.

Lynn Ostrem, President
garbagecop@foxinternet.net
Crow River Investment Club
www.bivio.com/crowriver

Erica Kott wrote:

> Our club has had some major probs arranging meetings
> following the Katrina disaster in New Orleans. Is
> there a way to "meet" online to transact some of our
> club's business without public access? Our club has
> eighteen members, far too many for conference calling.
> I'd appreciate any suggestions. Thanks.
>
>
>
>
Erica....

We're on on-line club with partners spread throughout the country and
Europe. We effectively use internet relay chat (mIRC is a software
program you can use) and e-mail to communicate. The downside it that
it's a text based sustem and everything is typed. We experimented with
Skype (voice based system) but it's limited in the number of people that
can participate.

John Munn
Cross Country Investment Club

Hi John!

> We experimented with Skype (voice based system) but it's limited in the
> number of people that can participate.

I was under the impression that Skype could handle more people. That came
from a conversation on the Chapter Chat at NAIC. Have you looked at any
other systems lately? I'm with another organization that regularly provides
training calls. I'm trying to find out who they use, so I can report back
here.

Lynn

Lynn Ostrem wrote:

> Hi John!
>
>> We experimented with Skype (voice based system) but it's limited in
>> the number of people that can participate.
>
>
> I was under the impression that Skype could handle more people. That
> came from a conversation on the Chapter Chat at NAIC. Have you looked
> at any other systems lately? I'm with another organization that
> regularly provides training calls. I'm trying to find out who they
> use, so I can report back here.
>
> Lynn
>
>
I think we tried the free version and I recall we were limited to about
5 people. It was a while ago, so I'm not the best source... I encourage
anyone interested to look at Skype to see if it may meet their needs. I
am not certain, but I believe there's a Skype version that can handle
more people. I personally haven't looked at other systems. I'll ask
in my club if anyone has any leads for you.

John