Thank you for considering being a co-host on one of our Wednesday night webinars.
They are at 8:00pm (AEST) and you can find the current dates, vacancies and themes here.
We alternate between sessions for IPs (Intended Parents), Surrogates, themes and guests, although anyone is welcome to attend any webinar.
On the night
Please join me 15 minutes before start time (7:15 for me/Anna in Adelaide). This will allow us 15 minutes to talk through the session before I start the webinar and attendees join.
During the first half of the webinar
I will introduce us both in the beginning and then get straight into my information part of the night. I share my screen so attendees can see my PowerPoint presentation while I read through a script. It’s a 30 min crash course into surrogacy! During this part of the presentation, attendees can see my face and your face in a small box. You are welcome to mute yourself during this time, or stay unmuted. I like to try and get through this information part as quickly as possible so we have lots of time for questions.
Questions
People have the chance to pose questions anonymously and they have been taking to this function enthusiastically. During my presentation, feel free to keep your eye on the questions so when we get to answering them later, you have already got some ideas to feed back.
We will sort of do a ?? dance ?? in how we answer the questions as I don’t want to be too rigid. What I find works well is me asking you a question (by reading out what people have typed) and while you answer it, I’m planning the next one to ask.
Questions about SASS
Attendees often ask specific questions about SASS. In which case, leave those ones for me to answer. I also try to answer any of the general surrogacy type of questions about state specific laws, variations etc.
Chat
There is a chat section on the night and people can post their comments to:
Panelists (you and me)
or
Panelists and attendees (everyone)
I prefer people to ask their questions in the Q&A time, however the chat section is handy if we have experienced IPs/surrogates as attendees. The experienced village members often add in their own answers for questions which can be really helpful. Essentially value adding for the audience.
Attendees
Being a webinar (unlike a Zoom meeting), the attendees cannot see who else is present, nor how many are present. If you see names you recognise, please don’t mention them because they might want to be there anonymously. Once they use the chat function publicly, and post a comment to ‘Panelists and Attendees’, then they have made their presence public and it’s ok to use their names.
Your journey
I like to ask 1-2 specific questions about your journey, or find a way to weave that into the question time. Either I have had the pleasure of watching your your journey over the years, or we can get to know each other over the coming weeks, and we can work out a summary of the key learnings and insights that you might be able to share. If there are specific topics to avoid or to definitely discuss, please let me know.
Photos
Thank you in advance for sending through some photos of your team. At a minimum could I ask for 3 – one of the team during pregnancy, one around the time of birth, and one at a catch up post birth. But I’m happy to take up to 10! Feel free to flick them through on your phone / messenger if that’s easier. Those photos I will share in my social media promotions and in the presentation too. It connects the audience to you and gives them a brief visual summary of parts of your journey. Thank you in advance for sharing these precious memories. If you engaged with a maternity / birth photographer that you’d like me to credit, please mention their name so I can credit them.
Length of time
I aim to contain the webinar within 60 minutes, but inevitably they tend to be closer to 75 minutes.
Names of team members
My default is to not use names unless you have indicated otherwise. I will refer to people as surrogate, IPs, daughter/son etc.
Recording
In our SASS Portal, I store the recording of the Q&A part of the webinar, which includes the sharing of your story. The Portal is an intranet which went live for members in April 2022. It is a place that SASS members only have access to with resources for a surrogacy journey grouped into relevant stages. I will share the private link with you a few days after the webinar which you might like to share privately on a one-on-one basis if you wanted, however I would ask that it is not shared more widely. I hope this is something you’re comfortable with when you chose to be a co-host.
End of the webinar
When I select End, it ends the webinar for all of us, which means I don’t get a chance to cheer and thank you when the attendees have left. I will send you a message after to say thanks and to ask how you think it went. So let me take this opportunity to say thank you for sharing your time with me and the surrogacy community. Other co-hosts (and myself every time) come away buzzing. It is such a wonderful feeling to know we have helped to guide newcomers, to answer questions, and to bring hope.
Zoom Link
Zoom automatically sends you a reminder email on the night, one hour before the webinar, so the link to join will be in there. Once I have your confirmation that you would like to be a co-host, I will action that within Zoom and it also sends you an email to confirm and the webinar link will be there too.
Have I convinced you to be a co-host? Yippee! ?
Action items
- Send me an email to express / confirm your interest in being a co-host anna@surrogacyaustralia.org
- Attach at least 3 photos of your surrogacy team across the journey. Make sure you have permission from everyone to share those photos.
- Include a short paragraph summary of your journey – names of team members, city/state, when was the birth, did you know each other before surrogacy etc.
I’m really looking forward to hearing from you and the opportunity to share your story with the surrogacy community.