At the risk of repeating myself, I am always amazed by the dynamic and unpredictable nature of our Wednesday online meetings.
As always this week, we began with the basic format of an hour-long Skype group chat, modelled around an agenda circulated a few days before the meeting.
However, the UK team were very keen to introduce Elaine Hickey to their Nigerian counterparts. (Elaine is helping Dadamac UK by inputting her project management skills).
I have to admit I haven't actually had a chance to meet Elaine who is currently working in Ireland. Fortunately for us, she had a holiday due to that country's St Patrick's Day celebrations and was able to give us some of her free time. (Coincidentally Elaine informed us that St Patrick is also the patron saint of Nigeria - so her inclusion at the meeting seemed even more apt!)
Cicely, a VSO at Fantsuam chaired this week's meeting and asked if she could also invite her colleague Teleri, who had not previously experienced an online Dadamac Team meeting and who wished to format a proposal.
As the discussion evolved it became clear that the best thing was if Teleri was to contact Marcus Simmons ( Dadamac's technical transfer Guru)
Initially Teleri was going to just exchange emails but in true Dadamac style, demonstrating our flexible and practical approach...
- Pam sent Marcus,who is based in Oxford,a text message .
- Marcus responded immediately by calling back on the landline.
- Marcus was put on speaker phone. This enabled him to be introduced to Elaine (who was on Skype microphone) . I (working alongside Pam in London) could also hear him in order to facilitate a meeting between the two.
The outcome of this was that a Skype conference was set up for this morning.
All this went on while simultaneously the meeting continued through the agenda!
So, to recap, we had Kelechi , John I, Demas and Ashea - Fantsuam Foundation Staff.
We had Elaine in Ireland. Marcus in Oxford UK. Pam and Nikki in London. Cicely and Teleri VSO's in Nigeria.
We used email, Mobile phone sms, landline and speaker phone, Skype chat and Skype call.
All in all I feel that this was a practical demonstration of technology being used to good effect for successful communication.