Group Leaders Bulletin – June 2026
Group leaders meeting
The next group leaders meeting will be on the 17th June at 3pm. This is the agenda. The Zoom link will be sent out before the meeting.
- Introduction and aims of the meeting
- End of year figures and exit survey results
- Team updates
- Encouraging contributions from members
- Breakout rooms
- GL Questions
- Questions
Who decides how the group operates?
Our groups are run in many different ways. The group leader (or leaders) decides/decide how their group operates, though they may decide to consult group members about various aspects of this. There have been reported instances of group members demanding changes in how a group should run - this is not acceptable, and group leaders should make this clear.
Padlet
IGO has a Padlet account which enables groups to have one or more Padlets to share information. Many groups find this very useful, but some have reported the opposite. We would like to make clear that using Padlet is entirely optional.
Some of our groups use Whats App. A recent BBC programme about scams said everyone should set up 2 stage verification on their Whats App group to avoid it being hacked. I thought it worth passing on how to do this.
1. Open WhatsApp
2. Go to Settings
iPhone: bottom‑right “Settings”
Android: tap the three dots (top‑right) → Settings
3. Tap Account
4. Tap Two‑step verification
5. Tap Enable
WhatsApp will ask you to create a 6‑digit PIN. It is also recommended to add an email address so you can reset the PIN if you forget it
If your group uses WhatsApp, you might also want to pass this on to group members.
Problems with a Zoom booking
If you need to contact me about a problem with a Zoom booking, can you please include the group name, time and day of the meeting and Zoom account (Acc1, etc.), which is included in the group Beacon entry. This is particularly important if this is a last-minute issue, as it will allow me to locate the booking quickly.
Meeting duration
We allow a half-hour slot between bookings on our Zoom accounts, so that meetings can overrun for a short time (no more than 15 minutes), and people can enter meetings 15 minutes before the next meeting starts. If you would like more time for your meetings, we are happy to do this. If possible, we will just extend the current Zoom slot, but if this is not possible because of a clash with another group, we will create a new booking on a different Zoom account. Just contact us on the link at the bottom.
Beacon calendar
I have decided to take it upon myself to add Beacon calendar entries for groups which do not have these, using the information in each group details section. This is because some new members have found it disconcerting to see that groups they are interested in do not appear to be meeting, as they do not have any calendar entries. Only 80 of our 170 groups currently have entries. I hope to rectify this over the next few weeks.
If you do not want me to do this for your group, please let me know by 5 pm on Friday, 5th June.
IGO Zoom June calendar
This is attached. It lists all the meetings which are booked in June on the IGO Zoom accounts. If you are unsure about your booking, please check that your meeting is included on the list and that the Meeting ID matches what you have. If not, please contact us immediately.
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Generic Zoom calendar
At the moment, slots are available at nearly all times. Thus, you can more than likely move your current IGO slot, or change from a personal account to an IGO account
Thank you
To all our group leaders, for your sterling work
From Catherine, on behalf of the IGO team
You can contact anyone on the team using this email