Rather than having to constantly adapt to an ever-changing situation, take a decision now not to meet in person until March next year. Instead, hurl yourself full-pelt into online activity.
Positives
- You can take stock now, financially, and plan all the way to next Easter.
- Less worry about adapting all the time as things change.
- Can clearly communicate a plan now – members, audiences, your MD will know where they stand.
- You can use this period to develop the group musically.
- You can use this period to develop the group socially.
- This could increase your whole group’s digital skills, something which will be useful to the group in future, but also to the members of your group in their private lives.
- Members continue to have the social support of the group, preventing issues arising from isolation and loneliness.
- Members continue to make or engage with music, so their skills will be kept up to scratch and the music will enhance their currently perhaps difficult lives.
Negatives
- If you want members to keep paying their subscription, then you need to also plan activity which is worth their money, so this is not an ‘easy’ option: you need to provide musical value and maintain engagement over quite a long period of time, and that will require quite a lot of work! It will involve regular activity as well as projects or goals to work towards, and not everyone may be up for recording themselves or learning how to mix digital video.
- In addition, you will need to also provide the social connectivity which usually happens almost by itself when a group meets in person; you will have to plan quizzes and online drinks and birthday celebrations etc.
- Not every one of your members may find it easy to engage online: to be inclusive, you will have to find ways of keeping everyone on board, even if they can only be reached by email, letter or telephone.
- It may be a good thing to help more of your members engage with the online world, but this will require more work from someone in the group – typically one to one phone calls more than once and step by step (remote!) handholding.
- Even if you put a lot of effort into including everyone, you may lose members who just do not want to engage in this way.
- You may find your MD isn’t up for this and you may lose them.
- You will probably not have time to do any other reflective work – writing that 3 year plan, re-doing the website, getting to grips with Facebook, etc.
