Group Leaders Bulletin July 2025
Group Leaders meeting
The next group leaders’ meeting will be held on the 9th July at 3pm on Zoom. The agenda is attached and the link will be sent out shortly. If there is anything you would like us to discuss which is not on the agenda, please get back to us. You can also raise matters at the meeting.
Waiting lists on Beacon
The way in which Beacon manages member and waiting lists is not straightforward, and may be confusing for both members and group leaders, so we've decided to go through it here in some detail.
On the Beacon admin site, each group has a defined maximum number, and a list of everyone who has applied through the Members Portal to apply to join the group. When the number of members who have applied to join the group is equal to or greater than the number of members, Beacon deems the group to be full, though it does not indicate this on the Beacon admin site.
When a member goes to the Members Portal and selects a group, they will get one of these messages:
which means that the group has vacancies,
or
which means that the group is full.
If the member applies to join the group, they are added to the list of members on the Beacon Admin site. It indicates that the new member is waiting to be admitted to the group, and records the date when the new member has applied.
If the group has vacancies, the group leader gets this message from Beacon
XXXX has joined the waiting list for the group YYYY Group
Places are currently available so check the list of Members for YYYY Group
If the group is full, they get this message:
XXXX has joined the waiting list for the group YYYY Group.
Note that the member who has applied to join the group does not receive any notification from Beacon.
If the group has vacancies, you should add the member as soon as possible. Until you do this, the member will be listed both on the Beacon admin site and the Members Portal as “Waiting” whether or not the group has vacancies.
We checked out our groups last Saturday and found that there were 30 groups which had people waiting even though the group was not full. I’ve listed the numbers below (but not the actual groups) showing the number of members who could be admitted and the longest standing wait for each group – one applied to join in September 2023:
So, please, can you check your group membership, and ensure that if people are waiting who don’t need to be, they are admitted to the group.
Waiting list information on group webpages
We use the information on Beacon about which groups have vacancies or not to update the group web pages. This has to be done manually, and we do it three times a week (normally). Thus, the information on the webpage may not be up-to-date. If you notice a discrepancy which lasts longer than a week, please let us know, and we will correct it.
Contact Details on Beacon
Most groups include an email contact in their Beacon groups entry. This can be seen by members using the Members Portal, so they can contact the group leader with queries about the group. It is not visible to the public. Where there is no contact given, we have added
so we can forward queries to group leaders.
If you are happy to have your contact details on Beacon, you can add this yourself in the group description section.
If you do not want to display your personal email address to group members, you can get a separate email using one of the free email providers (gmail, hotmail. Yahoo etc) and use this for your IGO correspondence. To do this, you will need to go to “Update Personal Details “ on the Members Portal and enter your new email address.
Admitting new members to groups
Group leaders cannot admit new members to their groups on Beacon. Members should do this themselves, but if there is a problem, we can do so. You can request us to do so, or ask the member to contact us.
IGO Zoom bookings
All IGO Zoom bookings have been made up to the end of the year. I will start renewing them up to the end of 2026 soon.
Calendars
Beacon calendar
The Beacon meetings calendar for July is attached. Members can view this from the Beacon Members Portal and it can be useful for them. Please note that entries here do not appear automatically – they have to be generated using the "Schedule" tab in Beacon. We have done some empty ones but not necessarily all of them so you may need to add yourself if you want them to be appear here.
IGO Zoom calendar for June meetings
There is a table at the start of the document which shows which account is used by each group and the calendars for Zoom accounts 1, 2 and 3 are listed in that order. This has been generated directly from the Zoom accounts. If your booking is not there or is wrong, please let us know and we will amend.
Generic Zoom calendar
The Generic Zoom calendar shows which slots are booked to each of our Zoom accounts.
Days are listed as First Monday, Second Tuesday etc. There are three different coloured slots for each day, showing which groups are booked into each account on that day, as:
This calendar should not concern you unless:
- You want to change the time or day of your group meetings, and need to check when there are free slots, or
- you do not currently use an IGO Zoom account and want to see when you could have a slot.
Please also note that the calendar is compiled “by hand” from the Zoom accounts, so it may not always be accurate. If you notice any errors, please let us know. The calendar can also change from day to day as new groups start up and groups change their slots
Thank you
To all our group leaders for your sterling work!
