The Men’s Club of Temple Israel of Natick has held four virtual happy hours since COVID began. The first two were of the unmoderated ‘off the cuff variety’. The only preparation was reserving the Zoom and sending out the link.

After the second one, I heard that some of the participants felt uncomfortable about some of the political discussions.  For the third happy hour I announced that politics was off limits and decided to have a backup topic to inject just in case.  Sure enough I had to use it.  I also found the discussion started to wane a little early.

For the fourth installment, I decide to approach it like a regular program or meeting. I created an agenda with timeframes and sent notice out ahead of time.  

Schedule:

8:00-8:10  Random Talk while stragglers ‘straggle in’

8:10-8:20  Introductions

8:20-8:40  Check-ins/Updates (go around the room)

8:40-9:00  Topic 1:  It’s beginning to look a lot like CHANUKAH!

9:00-9:20  Topic 2:  What are your post COVID plans? 

9:20-9:30  Wrap up.

I decided to include the segment where we went around and introduced ourselves because we had a new member participating.  Plus even existing members don’t always know everyone. The second segment was also an orderly walk across the zoom screen.  After that we dove into my chosen topics. Both were non-political and upbeat.  These were unmoderated and appeared to keep everyone engaged.

The danger of an orderly walk across the screen is that people are more likely to disengage when it is not their turn.  It is an important feature when you need to hear from everyone, but must be used sparingly. This event had a mix of orderly and open discussions.

I also felt that including topics was important. Not only to avoid contentious topics, but also after nine months into the pandemic I wanted to inject some upbeat variety.

I had a lot of positive feedback. Some members said it felt like an HMV.  As Rosh HMV I was surprised by this. Unlike these Happy Hour topics, my HMV topics are deeply personal and geared specifically to men.  But absent the specific topics, it was conducted a lot like an HMV.  

If you are looking to change up your virtual happy hours or haven’t had one yet, feel free to follow my template and let me know how it goes.
 

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Jay Salinger is the immediate past president of the Men’s Club at Temple Israel Natick.