mc

Introduction

This page outlines what you need to know to be an MC/Sunday host.  There is a lot to consider, but once you do it once, it's not difficult.  If you have any questions, feel free to talk to any of the board members or former MCs.

Coordinating with other MCs

The schedule is coordinated among the monthly planners in this google spreadsheet.  Monthly planners should have write access to the spreadsheet.  Instructions on how to use the spreadsheet are located here.

Planning a Sunday Gathering

If you are a monthly planner, the musicians have already been scheduled, so no need to worry about who is playing.  In addition, the sending out of the Meetup and Facebook invites is also handled by someone else.  See the appendix to know who to send the speaker information too.

Below is a typical Sunday Gathering schedule.  Feel free to change it up.  It is below only as a guide.

A typical Sunday gathering

    • 11:10 - MC Greeting and music Introduction followed by 2 songs (10 minutes)
    • 11:25 - Community Moment (10 minutes)
    • 11:35 - MC Announcements (5 minutes)
    • 11:45 - Meet & Greet (10-15 minutes depending on if we have a community moment)
    • 12:00 - Main event
      • If speaker:  Speaker Introduction + Speaker (20 minutes) and Q&A (10 minutes)
      • If Ted Talk:  10-15 min talk, 15 min discussion
    • 12:30 - Last song (5 minutes)
    • 12:35 - Clean up & Head out to lunch
IF YOU ARE HAVING A SPEAKER...
    • You are considered their host.
    • Be sure to send the speaker a link to speaker introduction page.
    • On the speaker introduction page, there is a link to our speaker guidelines.  Be aware that they may have questions on them.
    • Make sure you have answered any questions that they have.
IF YOU ARE DOING A TED TALK...
    • Keep in mind the length of the video.
    • Typically, 10 mins is good for the video.  People love the discussion groups, so 15 min for discussion seems to work well.
    • Ultimately, it's up to you as far as how long you want to do it.  The above are just guidelines.
IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING ELSE...
    • Go for it.  🙂

Hosting a Sunday Gathering

Checklist:  A week before

    • Finalize the speaker/Ted Talk/format
    • Send out the meetup invite and send a facebook reminder to the group (See Appendix)
    • Have any videos or presentations on a USB thumb drive to provide the sound person. (See Appendix)
    • Determine if there are any special announcements and if there is a community moment
    • Determine where people are going after for lunch.
    • Some options are Central Market, Pizza Press, NeWorlDeli, Halal Guys, Halal Bros, Miltos, Snarfs, Trudy's, Korean Komfort

Checklist:  The Day of

    • Arrive by 10:45. (Doors open at 10:30.)
    • Talk with the Audio/Video person about what you need.
    • Talk with the musicians to understand how to introduce them. (Spreadsheet of who is playing is located here.)
    • Make sure the chairs are set up.
    • If the temperature is not right, set it to 76. (Thermostat located behind the bar.)
    • The lights can sometimes be overly harsh when showing a video, so be sure to either dim them or turn them off when showing a video.

Appendix:  Additional Information

Sending out the meeting invite

The primary way new people find us is through meetup.com/Austin-Humanist.  So, we customize the meetup invite.  The facebook invite, however, is more a reminder to current members, so we just forward the repeating invite to the private group.

For the invite, make sure column D (Title) and E (2 or 3 sentence description) are filled out in the Sunday Gathering Tracker spreadsheet and notify Candice Withrow to get it announced.

Working with the audio/video system

Things to know:

    • The internet is ok for downloading items; however, causes youtube videos to hang sometimes, so you want to bring the video on a USB drive if you plan to show one:
      • You can find TED Talks on youtube
      • You can download a youtube video using this website (Just select mp4 format)
        • https://www.onlinevideoconverter.com/video-converter
    • The Spider House computer does have PowerPoint on it to show slides.  You can't edit them, but you can show them.
    • There is not a connection for a computer up front, only in the back.