Switching from Zoom to Altar
At the beginning of September, the Ethical Society of St. Louis will be switching its Sunday programming from Zoom to a new Online program, Altar Live. We will also be starting Platform at 10 a.m.
In order to join all our Online programming members are asked to register by clicking here. You can sign up for a free account that will enable you to join all our Sunday programs in the future – you should sign up for an account right away to make sure you don’t miss anything!
Why are we switching programs? Because Zoom was never designed to host community gatherings like ours, and is particularly poorly-suited to enable us to host in person gatherings which people also attend Online in real time. Altar Live is designed specifically for congregations who wish to integrate Online and in-person participants and enables us to do many new things which Zoom cannot do. For instance, with Altar you will be able to choose a row of the virtual auditorium to sit in and speak with friends during Platform, without interrupting the program. You will be able to chat with a virtual host who is designated the task of greeting visitors and making sure everyone feels welcome. And, you will be able to meet with groups of friends after Platform by choosing a table to sit at.
We will giving Altar a trial run September-December to see how it goes – if it doesn’t work well, we can always switch back to Zoom. Email Leader James Croft with questions.