Connecting a dispersed faith community using Teams

Connecting a dispersed faith community through Teams

This project aims to link 1000 geographically dispersed individuals with an established centre for learning by Microsoft Teams software. It draws together a dispersed, ageing community and connects it with a source of learning and development previously only available to individuals travelled to Birmingham for residential courses.

The target community is comprised of four charities within a national movement. The national movement awarded them a single funded staff member to assist in community cohesion and regeneration. The appointed person will take up the post in March 2021, when work can commence. The preparatory floating of the idea has been underway for three years when MS Teams was purchased by one of the charities.

This charity will pilot the networking and inclusion of its own members onto Teams and arrange their access to the centre for learning. As a separate project, staff at the learning centre are adapting learning materials from face-to-face courses for on-line use.

Rationale

This faith community has neither hierarchy nor creed. They represent an organisation of networked practitioners. The network has an established methodology for recording observations which offer guidance to Members in aspects of their lives.

Access to these records in two locations limits their use. To address this barrier, a selection of observations is published every few years under practical headings such as Finance, Marriage and Funerals. The creation, recording, selecting and distribution of this guidance is fundamental to the governance of the organisation.

Generating novel observations requires a system of encounter and recording that respects the equality of access and exposure. Technology has unexpectedly increased access and exposure in 2020. The use of Zoom has doubled the number of people attending events, however administration to connect and record events is not assisted by Zoom.

Teams was purchased to support administration and protection of personal data. Linking people to the educational centre was considered as a secondary possibility, but in the intervening three years the effect of Covid 19 has affected both the dispersed community and the learning centre. The community are prepared to use Zoom to meet for worship and discussions. The learning centre is unable to deliver its learning on site, so is rapidly switching to an online programme.

Another part of the organisation runs a private school in Lebanon. This school has implemented Teams to counter first the disruption of civil disorder, and then the effect of Covid 19 on the education of 1200 students aged between three and eighteen years. The experience at the school should have contributed to the decision and planning of this project, but pressures on the school increased with the Beirut explosion, so their help was not requested.

Networks exist within the society where interested parties meet and exchange ideas. Examples are prison chaplains, social housing volunteers and youth workers. Once Teams links many members, interest groups can organise events and courses from within the technological umbrella. This growth will depend on need and the provision of wiling volunteers.

www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OU-H818/

Please use this link for your comments on the above. Thank you.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13rPAkNZk1JsrL3PPxEsq1gNP5UWr2WkUnq5dNkDNeZk/edit?usp=sharing