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

    • 10:45 – Meet and greet
    • 11:00 – MC Greeting and announcements
    • 11:15 – 2 songs (10 minutes)
    • 11:25 – Community Moment (10 minutes)
    • 11:40 – Main event
      • If speaker:  Speaker Introduction + Speaker (20 minutes) and Q&A (10 minutes)
      • If Ted Talk:  10-15 min talk, 15 min discussion
    • 12:10 – Last song (5 minutes)
    • 12:15 – 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 computer with an HDMI port so you can connect to the TV.
    • 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 the food trucks, Chuy’s and Shady Grove.

Checklist:  The Day of

    • Arrive by 10:45. (Doors open at 10:30.)
    • 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.
    • Turn the Thermostat on and set the temperature to around 70.

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/internet

Things to know:

    • There is internet.  It is a pretty good connection.  The WiFi password is located at the host stand in the restaurant.
    • We have a big screen TV that we use to display the slides on.  The TV has an HDMI connection and we have an HDMI cable.