162000 Minutes
Submitted By Right Illustrious Companion James McNeely
General Grand Council Technology Committee and Deputy Grand Master, Grand Council of Connecticut

 Clocks (Public Domain)

 

Since the start of the global pandemic, Masonry has made the move to utilizing virtual meeting environments for everything from social gatherings to stated assemblies and even triennial sessions.  As the local, state, and national governments implemented various gathering restrictions the General Grand Council determined not only to utilize Zoom for internal officer and regional meetings but to make it available for other Masonic bodies.  During these ten months, the use has continued to increase as has the variety of bodies making use of the GGC capabilities.

We have hosted not only General Grand Council, Grand Councils, and Councils but also Regional Conferences, Commanderies, Chapters, AMD Councils, Red Cross of Constantine events, and the Utah Educational Series presented by the Grand Council of Utah. In November, we hosted fifty meetings with 2320 attendees for a grand total of 162,152 user minutes.  The General Grand Council has proven that it can successfully host Masonic meetings of any size with a wide variety of meeting requirements and needs.  As part of our virtual meeting capabilities, we currently have two Zoom rooms, one with 100 user capacity and a second with a 1000 user capacity.  Some of the needs and requirements that we are able to work with groups to determine to include how to handle registration, voting, presentations, recording, and online broadcasting as well as provide a host to assist throughout the event.

If you are in need of hosting for a Masonic event please fill out our request form:
https://crypticmasons.org/resources/technology-programs/video-conferencing-use