Home Forums General Discussion Is there interest in regular Hub Skypes? Your input please!

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  • #1402

    Hi All

    One of the things that came out of the evaluation of the pilot is that we recognised the website is just one part of the Hub and people want/need other ways to work together.

    Long ago when I was at  CEN I used to have a couple of regular ‘advisor’ meetings. One was between me and an EDA rep (or two) and Sustainable Living. This was to reflect an MoU that was in place and it was focussed on sharing info and sometimes resources and training. You could possibly say it was the first seed of the Hub…

    I also used to run a monthly skype call between advisors in the CEN network – this was a hang over from the HEAC days when the groups worked very closely together. This was more focussed on delivery.

    I think there would be benefit in re-invigorating these discussions among this wider group and I want to know if others are interested.

    My questions are:

    Do advisors (i.e. the people on the ground working in homes) want to connect more regularly with one another to share what’s happening? If so, let me know what you think the value would be, what you’d want to talk about and with whom.

    Also, do people think there is value in regular meetings between groups at a slightly more strategic level. I.e. building on the old CEN, EDA, Sustainable Living connections.

    My sense is that there is, but I need to know your thoughts.

    Thanks

    Sally

     

    #1430
    Jo Wills
    Participant

    Hey Sally
    I think with the HPA training courses about to take place, this provides a perfect opportunity to look at reinstating a regular skype call for certified advisors. Maintaining the certification will require ongoing learning so it seems like a natural fit to establish something like this.
    Jo

    #1434
    Phil Squire
    Participant

    The advisor skypes were good value – specifically because they had shared objectives and belonged to a network. I’m wondering what the glue would be now or why someone would be interested in joining a Skype. Perhaps it’s a requirement for ongoing HPA certification and could be focused around technical topics etc.

    #1436
    Jo Wills
    Participant

    I was thinking along the same lines as that Phil, and if that was to be the case, the Skype calls were only available to CEN member/partner HPA certified people? Or is that being too exclusive? We do want to ensure there is an acknowledgement of CEN member certification being more highly valued than a ‘Joe Bloggs certification’

    #1437

    Hi guys

    I guess I’m coming at it from a slightly different angle. I also think there are several different reasons for getting together on Skype, and that would determine who participated and when.

    In my mind all the people on the Hub already do have shared objectives. That’s why we’re all here! We might work for different organizations and have different mandates and different levels of interest but essentially we all want to increase access to high quality, independent, personalised advice to help people improve the performance of their homes and their well being. And we know we need the combined knowledge/experience of the group (at least) to achieve our end goals. Take a look at the Hub’s Purpose and how we are defining a Practitioner. This stuff is really important!

    I guess what I was hoping for was another mechanism to supplement the website and continue to build a community of practice through the Hub. In future there might be still further ways… workshops, webinars, who knows…

    So, for instance where people are posting technical questions in the forum, the Skype would just be another way to have those conversations if people are interested. No one has to show up, its just another forum for sharing info and building connection. And the website could help maintain the conversation in between. It can also be the place where documents/events are shared. I see the two supporting each other not being distinct or competing.

    Also, we’ve learned that the site is OK for non-urgent questions/answers and for storing documents but its not great for working out how we can collaborate. We achieved loads at the workshops we’ve held and in the face to face meetings we’ve had around training, but that kind of energy and connection doesn’t seem to work online (yet…). So I see some kind of semi-regular skype between people who are interested in collaborating through the Hub as another way to supplement the site. In my mind this is the purpose of the Hub.

    For me, as someone who is currently only connected to most of you guys regularly through this site. The connection isn’t great! Its really hard to know what’s going on for people, what’s important and how/whether the Hub can actually support that.

    Sally

     

     

     

     

     

    #1452
    Adam Reid
    Participant

    I thought the advisor skypes were really valuable too and it was good to keep a handle on what other advisors around the country were up to.  I do think there are a few issues to think about though though

    1) The larger the group the more difficult it can be to arrange a time which works for everybody. How many parties can  can skype handle at a time?

    2) Needs to have a clear agenda  and somebody appointed to facilitate and keep things  focused. I think we did this reasonably well with the advisor skypes  but still had issues with discussions running overtime.

    3) Needs to be regular so that people can keep it in their diary but not too frequent. Monthly or bi-monthly is probably fine.

    4) Who is included to begin with? I am thinking along the same line as Jo- it is probably best to keep the group small initially- not so much to be exclusive as to keep things manageable because once you get over a certain number involved it becomes difficult for everybody to participate. We could publish minutes on the hub site and if other members are interested they could opt in? I think we will find that we soon reach a max number of participants beyond which we might need to split into smaller groups.

    Adam

    #1453
    Paul Hansen
    Participant

    I like Adams train of thought .

    Wonder whether some thought is given to topics of high occurance on the hub becoming subject matter for the next skype meeting.

     

    #1454

    Thanks for your comments guys. This is useful – and along the lines of what the steering group (Jo, Vicki, Heidi and I) were thinking too.

    We will be running a skype/call sometime in November.

    Now that the training is being rolled out/piloted (I am actually in ChCh today where the first training session is being held…Well done to everyone who got this off the ground!) we’ve been thinking about the next “hub” resource we will develop. We’ve decided it will be a decision making resource to guide advice on ventilation.

    For that reason the focus of the first call will be key challenges and insights around managing internal moisture and ventilation in a home.

    I’ll send out some more details about this soon.

     

     

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