THE COVID MONTHS Team Meeting
The last face to face team meeting was on 17th March, The team of tutors and supervisors had grown so much that we can’t all fit comfortably into any of our training rooms. So we decided to try the hotel down the road. It was a mistake the room was definitely large enough but it was windowless and foisty. It wasn’t an ordinary meeting.
There was a lot of tension. Covid-19 was getting closer. People were fearful, trying to predict what might happen, worrying about their families. The minutes record us saying that we thought lockdown would be in about a week’. It came on the evening of 23rd March, our prediction was spot on!
We had our usual long agenda but none of it saw the light of day. Having limped through ‘Matters Arising’ we spent the rest of the day talking about contingency planning for what we sensed was closing in. We spent a lot of time discussing something called Zoom. A few of us had some experience of it as participants and thought it seemed pretty straightforward. Then the first shock wave hit us. A student on that night’s evening course had messaged to say she had to self- isolate because she had been in contact with someone showing symptoms of the virus. This meant that night’s class would have to be on Zoom. Our planning had been good, but we still thought we had a few days left to test things out and get to grips with hosting our classes. Events had overtaken us. Everyone looked nervous. But we are very cooperative and supportive of each other. The tutor, and a colleague who offered to help her set up, left the meeting to go and get to grips with sorting out our first Zoom class. We all shouted words of encouragement and offers of help as they left the room.
The rest of the meeting passed quickly in a whirl of action planning. The catalysing effects of knowing IT was here, docked in our world, meant we worked quickly and efficiently with different people agreeing to write various protocols. Then there was a demonstration of Zoom by Glenda, our IT Director. When the meeting eventually ended we shuffled out in small groups talking in hushed tones to each other.
I become calm in a crisis, it’s instinctive. Time slows down for me and my thinking sharpens. I remember wondering what sort of tidal wave was coming. But I felt great confidence in the team. I knew we would pull together. Sarah, our amazing Course Manager had been taking the minutes. She asked me if I was scared of the virus I replied truthfully that I wasn’t.
Three long months later we have just had our usual summer term meeting. Back in March we could never have guessed how much would have changed . All our teaching, supervision and therapy is on Zoom. We have crossed the Rubicon and mastered it. The worst that has happened was one weekend when Zoom went down and all our second year training disappeared. The tutors, Alan and Emily, started messaging asking for help on the team WhatsApp group. Despite being a hot, sunny Sunday afternoon, perfect for relaxing, the team was right there with help and suggestions. Within an hour things were back on track and the rest of the day passed without incident.
At our recent meeting there were 31 of us on Zoom, 2 full screens of faces. Sarah H, Phil, Glenda, Emily and I were each in separate rooms in our Jesmond centre with the rest of team at home in various locations throughout North Yorkshire, Teesside, Tyne & Wear and Northumberland. I had left home at 7.15 that morning. I wanted plenty of time to set up. I was worried about not being able to scan the room and see everyone. In such a big meeting its easy to miss someone who wants to say something. We agreed that we would use the ‘Reactions’ and ‘Chat’ buttons when people wanted to comment and some of the team told me when this happened. People are hard to read on video when they are not speaking, they look impassive and its impossible to tell where they are looking. We moved through the agenda well enough but that is no measure of how a meeting is going. For me the beating heart was missing. An emergency vehicle whizzed by on Jesmond Road and I looked out of the window to see what was happening. Then I realised that for most people at the meeting the reality on Jesmond Road was simply non existent and that looking away from the screen could look as if I wasn’t paying attention.
Those of us in the centre had agreed to have a socially distanced lunch outside on the forecourt. There were 5 chairs suitably spaced waiting for us to take up occupancy and reveal our individual lunch boxes. Just before lunch time something caught my eye. I looked out of the window to see an extremely dishevelled man sit on a chair light a cigarette and open a beer. I asked Sarah H to take over the meeting whilst I went out to talk to him. Standing on the lower step I shouted over explaining that he couldn’t sit on the chairs. He looked sheepish and explained that his back was hurting, standing up and collecting his bag as he spoke. He looked tired as he walked onto the street. I felt an urge to call him back, sad that in pre-covid days I would have offered him a coffee and spent some time with him. Now I just went back inside grabbed the Dettol and sprayed the chair he had so recently vacated.
Lunch was a jolly affair. We were all glad to be in each other’s company, relieved that the new easing of restrictions had allowed us this time. We joked and teased with good humour and reminisced about pre-covid days. It was nourishing and uplifting to be face to face and away from a screen.
The afternoon’s business unfolded with orderly familiarity as staff spoke to their points and garnered opinion. We dispatched our business and completed the agenda. Afterwards a few of the team e-mailed to say they thought that by the second half I had got into my stride and that overall we had done what we needed to. I was relieved to hear it and I hoped everyone felt the same way.
Debra Mackenzie[i] writes, ‘This pandemic has been like a big dog, picking up our fragile society in its teeth and shaking it.’ The big dog has massively shaken our ways of doing things at the guild and in the profession at large, but we have found new avenues, new ways of being and doing and bit by bit we are learning how to make friends with the big dog. I can’t help wondering if he wanted to be this big dog? Whether he isn’t imprisoned, too? And what part have we humans had in creating him? Perhaps if we listen to his message and learn the lessons he brings we can all be free again but in different more responsible ways.
[1] Mackenzie Debra, 2020, ‘Covid-19 The Pandemic That Never Should Have Happened And How To Stop The Next One’. London: Hatchett UK.