Written by Roma Ilnyckyj; copy edited by Maggie Clark

As the executive of Editors BC, we know that we have members all across BC, as well as in Yukon, and we know that this geographic range means that a lot of our members don’t get the same access to Editors BC benefits as those who live in or near Vancouver. To address this gap, we have some initiatives in the works. For a start, we’re making our monthly meetings accessible to all our members through live streaming.

We’ve been testing this initiative since the fall of 2018, so you might have seen some emails or social media posts about it. While we’re excited to share the potential of live streaming with you, we are also still working out some glitches with the technology. We’re also figuring out what will work best for the venue we’re in and the type of presentations we host.

Our ultimate goal is to live-stream every meeting (as long as the speaker agrees to it) and to post the video later on our members-only website for people to watch. We envision that people who are watching the live stream will participate on social media and in the live stream’s chat window, asking questions and commenting on the presentation.

If you’d like to help out with this initiative, we are looking for a few volunteers. We would like a couple of Vancouver-based volunteers to help run the live stream. (It would involve setting up the technology at the beginning of the meeting and taking it down at the end.) We would also like a volunteer (who can be based anywhere) to help us with some research into live stream technology and platforms. If you’re interested in either of these volunteer opportunities, please get in touch with Roma Ilnyckyj at bcpastchair@editors.ca.

There’ll be a chance to volunteer soon as our next meeting on April 17 will be live-streamed. You can find the link for it on the April meeting announcement. If you are able to watch it live, please say hello in the chat feature and let us know where you are. Hope to see you there!

Roma Ilnyckyj is a content editor at CPA Canada and a lover of language, mystery novels, and coffee.