Lets Expand Our Knowledge of Art!

INTRODUCTION
Hello! Anyone who comes to a specific monthly meetup has the option to talk about their favorite work of art or a piece of art relating to the topic chosen for that month, or, you can be an interested spectator. If you decide you would like to share your knowledge, you can activate screen sharing, showing everyone in the group pictures of art works or pictures of the author or anything related. Often folks tell us about the artist, the history of the piece, techniques utilized or the school or time period of the piece of art. We learn quite a bit from each other’s presentations. You can stay with the group if you like, but at times, we have had great conversations that have lasted until 3:00pm. If you are passionate about art, this is a great group for you!

SECURITY AND PRIVACY
We need to implement new security measures for our online meetings due to Zoom Bombing and/or rude comments. You will need to RSVP to each meeting in order to attend.
Here are our new security measures:
Buck Marks is now our "Security Manager" and he or someone else on our "Security Team" will be a cohost for each meeting and have the power to remove people or deal with any security issues so I can concentrate on introducing people to each other and the mechanics of the presentation. The presentations, and the conversations at these meetings are so good that I don't want any more interruptions.
Beth Sauer has also be very helpful in determining the best measures to put in place to ensure a secure meeting so I wanted to thank her also.
Here is what we will be doing going forward:
1) YOU WILL NEED TO RSVP TO EACH MEETING TO GET THE LINK TO THE ZOOM MEETING, WHICH WILL BE EMAILED OUT TO EACH PERSON WHO RSVPS THE MORNING OF THE MEETING. PLEASE NEVER FORWARD THE LINK TO ANYONE ELSE.
2) The Zoom link for any Zoom meeting will change with each meeting and will never be published on the Meetup site publicly.
3) Buck and I went through every security feature on Zoom with a fine tooth comb and installed every feature we could, and there are many.
4) You will not be able to join the meeting before the host any longer. You will need to be authenticated and be asked to enter a waiting room. Your email address and name needs to match the email address and name on the RSVP list.
5) Folks attempting to enter the meeting later than 15 minutes after the meeting starts will not be allowed to join. Sorry, but control of the meeting is essential and it's too hard to manage attendees while the meeting is in progress.
6) We have disabled private chat for now. You can still chat, but it will automatically go to everyone. If we find that is step is unnecessary, we may enable private chats in the future.
7) We have limited the types of files that can be shared in the chat to prevent the sharing of the wrong type of images. Again, if we find that this step causes problems, we will review this step and it may be changed.
8) It is necessary that everyone be able to show their face at least once at the beginning of the meeting so work on your video issues if you have them. If we ask several times to ask to see you and you don't respond, you will be removed from the meeting. You do need to start the meeting with your video on, and then you can turn off your video to get lunch, etc.
Sorry that we need to make the attending of the meeting a bit more cumbersome, but that is what happens when bad actors work at being disruptive. WE HAVE A GREAT GROUP AND WILL NOT ALLOW OTHERS WITH A NEGATIVE AGENDA TO HIJACK US!
Thanks so much for understanding!
Take care,
Katie

EMAIL LIST
Also, if you want, we do exchange email addresses to facilitate communication helps to organize in person trips to art museums, galleries, and art auctions.

We will be meeting virtually each month on Zoom on the second Saturday at noon with additional in person meetings every month.