Webinar Support

Before you begin to prepare for your call, consider the following questions:

• What is the topic / name of your virtual gathering?

• Who is the audience / who would you like to invite?

• Who will be the host(s) and call support team?

• Who will be the facilitator(s) and speaker(s)? (For a description of the host and facilitator roles, please see the ‘Preparation’ section below.) 

• When will the call happen (date and time)?

• What language(s) will the call support?

• What is the desired outcome of the call?
  
  

You will also need to consider how much support you will need from Lausanne staff:

• No support needed from the Operations or Communications Teams

• Support needed to run the call only

• Support needed to run the call and create a registration form

• Support needed to run the call, create a registration form, and send invitation(s)

(see below for more details on Lausanne staff support)

• Create a Zoom link/invitation for your call. Make sure to know the limits of the account you are using. For example, free Zoom accounts can only host a group call for 40 minutes or less, and some accounts have participant limits (ranging from 100 to 1000 persons), etc.

• Choose whether to enable the waiting room or to require a password for your call. For security reasons, Zoom will require you to do one of these two things, so you will have to choose which is best for your meeting.

• Decide if the call needs a registration form. Google Forms is an easy option to create a registration form. Registration is only needed if you will be sending out a link to the call to registered participants, or if you want to follow up with participants afterwards.

• Add your gathering to lausanne.org/gatherings.

• Get in touch with the Lausanne Communications Team (communications@lausanne.org) if you wish to explore possibilities to inform the broader Lausanne audience about the gathering, such as:

  • Social media posts before and/or after the gathering

  • An invitation email to a segment of the Lausanne database

Please note: Due to capacity, the Communications Team will not be able to support every gathering in the same way. In addition, please remember that the Communications Team can only play a supportive role in your gathering.

• Build a call support team by finding people to help you run the call, assigning them as co-hosts for the call. You will need the following roles:

  • Sound and participant technical support: keeping sound interference at a minimum by muting and unmuting participants, and helping participants with technical difficulties (1-2 people)

  • Chatroom monitor: monitoring the chat, answering questions, and adding summaries to the chat (usually done only in larger calls)

  • Administrative support: running the PowerPoints and/or showing videos, recording the call, spotlighting speakers, assigning and managing breakout rooms (2-3 people)

  • Call Facilitator: Opening and closing the call, welcoming participants, leading the discussion and transitions

• Create a schedule for the call and share it with the call support team as well as with the speakers.

  • List each speaker, the vision/goal for the call, any media that will be used, the estimated length of the presentation, as well as anything else happening during the call (like breakout rooms)

• Prepare the materials that will be shared on the screen.

  • Make sure your presentations are aligned with the Lausanne brand. Logos, style guides, and templates are available to download on the Tools page.

  • If you are planning to play videos, download them to your computer and make sure you know how to ensure smooth playback.

• If possible, schedule a rehearsal call with the call support staff and speaker(s) to do a test run of the call, making sure the PowerPoints are working and that everyone knows when he or she should talk, and for how long.

• If you are going to have simultaneous interpretation, read about language interpretation in meetings and webinars.

• • Before the call, prepare the email you want to send after the call.

  • Consider preparing a short survey about the call to send to participants.

  • Ask people to register for a follow-up meeting, if applicable.

  • Send the recording to participants if you recorded the call.

    1. After downloading the recording, cut to when the meeting begins, and cut any unnecessary segments such as breakout room times and the ending.

    2. The easiest way to publish the recording is to upload it to Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram.

    3. Remember: If you want to publish the call, you need the consent of every speaker in the call.

When a virtual gathering of any size (webinar, call, etc) is hosted and recorded by the Lausanne Movement, sometimes speaker release forms must be obtained from those recorded on the call. 

Please look through the following guidelines before your gathering to decide if you need to obtain signed release forms from your speakers. If a release is needed, download the Media/Photo Release Form, filling in the title of your gathering and the date before sending it to your speaker(s) to sign and return to you before the gathering. Once you receive the signed speaker release form(s), please send to operations@lausanne.org so that proper records can be kept. 

Obtain a speaker release form if:

• The recording of your gathering will be posted publicly on any web platform. Please remember that even ‘unlisted’ videos on YouTube are on a public platform and speaker releases should be obtained if recordings are posted with this setting.

• The recording or pieces of the recording will be used in any kind of advertisement or promotion for future gatherings. 

• The recording of your gathering may be downloaded and/or shared publicly by participants who receive copies of the recording. 

• You plan to share the recording at a future date. 

There is no need to obtain a speaker release form if:

• The recording of your gathering is only for internal Lausanne use and will not be posted publicly on any web platform.

• The recording of your gathering is only shared privately and those who receive the recording are advised in writing that the recording is not to be shared publicly. 

We recommend sending between 2 and 4 emails regarding invitation to participants, depending on if you decide to have a registration process.

With registration:

• 2-4 weeks before the call, send the first invitation.

• 1 day before the registration deadline, send a reminder to register.

• 1 day before the call, send a reminder to registered participants only, including a link to the call.

• 1 hour before the call, send another reminder to registered participants, again with the link.
  
  

Without registration:

• 2-4 weeks before the call, send the first invitation.

• 1 day before the call, send a reminder with a link to the call.

• 1 hour before the call, send another reminder with the link.
  
  

Tips for your emails:

• If you are sending the emails from your email account and not through email marketing tools like MailChimp, always send the email to yourself and add the invited people through BCC.

• Use a Lausanne email address if possible, so people can identify you as part of the Movement.

• Add a signature with your Lausanne title and use a Lausanne Movement logo. You can also request an official Lausanne logo for your issue network or gathering.

• Consult our style guide to help keep consistency across the Movement.

Include the following information in the emails:

• • Date and time (plus time zone), adding a link with additional time zones

  • Short description and the vision/goal for the call

  • Short description of the speaker(s) and facilitator(s), plus pictures if possible

  • Registration deadline (with link for registration), and/or a link to the call

Waiting room: If the waiting room is enabled, you can safely test audio, video, PowerPoint, etc. with the speaker(s), facilitator(s), and call support team prior to the call. When the call officially begins, you can screen the waiting room to allow participants into the call.

Facilitator:

• Welcome participants and give some instructions for the call, such as:

  • Keep yourselves muted to avoid sound interference during the call

  • Note if the call will be recorded (if someone has security issues, they can disable their camera and rename themselves).

  • Give a short outline of the call.

• Pray

• Introduce speaker(s)
  
  

Speakers:

• Find a quiet spot inside with good lighting and a neutral background.

• Be as prepared as you would be if you would speak on a stage.

• Make sure you will not be distracted or interrupted (such as by a phone alert).

• Keep an eye on your time.
  
  

Interpretation:

• Zoom now has an interpretation feature. If you want to use this feature, first enable it on your account. Next, when creating the meeting room, choose ‘Generate a new meeting ID’ (not ‘Use personal meeting ID’). Select the language(s) you would like to allow for interpretation and input the email of your interpreter (this can be changed during the meeting, but you will be required to choose at least one). 

• During the meeting itself, you will be able to turn on the Zoom interpretation feature and assign someone as an interpreter. The interpreter must select the language channel they are speaking (ie if they are interpreting from English to French, they would choose the French channel). Participants must choose the channel of the language they would like to hear. 

• It’s important to note that if there are multiple languages being interpreted on the call, the interpreters will not be able to hear each other even if they are in the same language channel. One way to get around this is to have the interpreter listen through headphones on one device, while speaking into a microphone on a different device.
  
  

Technical tips

• To help the focus be on the speaker, minimize both visual and audio distractions in your video background. 

• If the visual background is distracting, you can use a virtual background.

  • Please make sure that the virtual background itself is not distracting (don’t use pictures with people, with too many details, etc.).

  • Wear a different colour than your virtual background or you will not appear in the video (test it before!).

  • Sit where there is enough light, but don’t have a window behind you.

  • Don’t talk too much with your hands, because the camera will have problems processing it.

• Make sure your sound is good—if there are background noises, it may be better to use headphones.   

• Decide how to use the chat box. The chat box is useful for tech info at the beginning of the call (such as a message like, ‘Please leave your microphone muted unless you are speaking to minimize sound interference’). It can also be used to post links mentioned by speakers on the call, scriptures you want to draw people’s attention to, discussion points for breakout group conversation or prayer, etc. If for some reason you don’t want participants to be able to use the chat box, you can also disable the chat. 

• Spotlight your speakers. This makes it so the screen will not switch to anyone other than the speaker even if there is accidental sound interference from someone else on the call.

• Decide how to use the mute and unmute functions during the call.

  • Choose whether speakers should unmute themselves or if the person who spotlights people will also unmute the speaker when it is their turn.

  • Choose whether to allow participants to unmute themselves or not. If you do not plan for the participants to need to speak during the call, it may be best to set it so they are not allowed to unmute. 

• For breakout rooms, note how many people you would like in each group and if you would like them to be random or assigned. 

  • Depending on the number of participants, assigning participants to specific groups may not be feasible in the time allotted. For example, it can take about 15 minutes to assign 60 participants manually. 

  • Zoom now allows participants to choose to join a specific breakout room. For example, in an online conference, you could create 4 breakout rooms with the names of 4 workshops you wanted to offer. Once you open the breakout rooms, participants will be able to click on a breakout room icon to join their preferred room. 

• Decided if your call should be recorded. If you record a call using breakout rooms it is best to pause the recording while the breakout rooms are in progress because only the main room will be recorded, causing an awkward length of silence in your recording. 

• Learn more from Zoom’s website about managing participants on your call.