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Ashby Village Zooms Ahead with Talented Support Team
by Roger Abraham

The Coronavirus hit Ashby Village as it did almost everybody and everything, but it could have been so much worse if not for the introduction of Zoom to the organization’s toolbox. According to Maryl Gearhart, lead on the AV Tech Team “When sheltering began, the Village staff shifted immediately to online programs and chose Zoom for the online platform. When the Village holds events now, we don’t set up chairs or microphones and projectors anymore– we schedule a Zoom event!”

Zoom, it seems, has truly taken the world by storm. Although there are many web conferencing tools, Zoom has done just as its name implies – zoomed to the forefront, quickly becoming not only a verb as well as a noun, but also becoming the category brand name like Kleenex or Coke. And for good reason…Zoom is free for the many users who can live with the basic version. Secondly, it is also reasonably intuitive, reliable, and quick to get started with.

Despite the ease of use, according to Maryl, “The staff urgently needed help to train Village members, and the volunteer Zoom Team came to the rescue. We are so grateful to Bill Graham, Celie Placzek, Craig Griffith, and Hilary Naylor.” This dedicated group of four, facilitated by Hilary, help members install Zoom on their various devices and use it to connect to all kinds of events.

To understand how deeply the organization has adopted Zoom, just take a look at the weekly newsletter, “This Week at AV”. One Zoom event after another – hosted by AV itself, its members, and outside entities, Zoom is used for everything from concerts and lectures, to workshops and workouts, to neighborhood confabs and simple, one-on-one get togethers.

But it isn’t always easy. According to Bill, “Many of the members lack the technical experience and have little desire to become proficient with technology.” Hilary adds, “Some members’ computers are too old to run Zoom. And some members had security and privacy concerns.” Will Zoom unveil your deepest secrets to the world?

Craig, after a career in the highly technical world of “embedded software”, has helped many an AV member to install and use Zoom. He appreciates the way Zoom, the company, flexibly responds to users’ needs, plus the fact that it is not owned by the Apples and Microsofts of the world.

Overall, the Zoom team has held workshops and coached members one-on-one with pretty amazing success. According to Celie, “Primary benefits of Zoom are being able to stay connected.” In fact, isolation and loneliness, always serious threats for seniors, were 
exacerbated by the pandemic; the ability to go online and meet with peers, volunteers, staff, and to connect with the wider world through the Zoom platform was a critical breakthrough. 


Zoom is conducive to learning as well. Celie told me she ran a five-day, iPhone photography class for six members- wow, how great is that! Bill related a joint session with the UC Retirement Center in which about 70 participants learned about the benefits and how-to’s of streaming TV over the internet as opposed to old-school cable TVs subscriptions. That’s practical information that can potentially save you real dollars! With Zoom’s recording functionality, the team can even capture videos of the sessions and post them on YouTube for viewing at any time.


It turns out that AV is pretty lucky to have this high-performance group. Hilary’s background is in Educational Psychology and computer science and she has worked at UCSF and volunteered with Amnesty International. 
Bill joined AV after a career in photography and digital imaging, with lots of experience with technology. Craig worked on the software embedded inside machines and devices that perform all kinds of tasks. And Celie retired from the career with perhaps the most down-and-dirty experience – landscape design. They really like working with each other and derive a lot of satisfaction from their volunteerism.


So, what’s next? The number one priority for the team right now is helping the hearing-impaired to participate fully in Zoom activities. This means using Closed Caption functionality to add subtitles wherever feasible, and editing existing subtitles on AV sessions that are recorded for posting to the AV YouTube channel. (Yes, that’s right. AV has its very own channel! To find it, Click Here and click Subscribe to add it to your channels.)


I was curious as to whether the team felt that Zoom might zoom away as quickly as it arrived once the pandemic fades. Everybody agreed that Zoom, or perhaps a competitor, will continue to be an important tool for Ashby Village. These systems, previously used primarily for business and education, are being enhanced with features that target the many types of less formal uses commonly seen today, such as book clubs, extended family meetings, and even AV “tasks” such as technology assistance and reading aloud. Yes, Zoom will likely hang around because, as Hilary so succinctly stated, “It’s easier than going to Ashby Village and trying to park!”


Zoom Team (alter egos) hard at work...



THANK YOU Volunteers!!!



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