Group Leaders Bulletin March 2026
Group Leaders’ meeting
This will be held on Wednesday 4th March at 3pm
- Introduction and aims of meeting
- Team Updates
- Using Sound in Zoom meetings
- GL Questions
- Questions
- Breakout rooms
The Zoom link will be sent out on Monday.
Beacon calendar
The Members Portal has a tab which enables members to view the group calendar. Groups only appear in the calendar when the group leader, or someone else, has entered the calendar data using the Beacon Schedule tab. Only 58 of our 165 groups currently have calendar entries for March –calendar is attached to this email.
Two new members contacted us recently asking for their money back, because the groups they were interested in joining did not have any meetings in 2026. We were able to assure them that the groups in question were actually planning to have meetings but had not added these to the calendar
It would be helpful to members if group leaders would add their meetings to the calendar I am willing to do this if requested, but if you do so, please make sure you provide me with the correct information about dates and times of meetings.
Test Zoom meeting
We have decided that it could be useful to group leaders to set up a regular Zoom meeting which group leaders can access, to test out how our Zoom meetings work and experiments with various functions such as screen sharing, sound sharing, claiming host control etc. – rather like visiting a lecture room in advance of a lecture to see how it works.
This is booked every Saturday from 11:00 am – 1:00 pm. The link is:
Topic: Zoom - test and learn
Time: Feb 28, 2026 11:00 London, Every week on Saturday, until Dec 31, 2026
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81244514456?pwd=PJx1u4GVTsWxWGKYDO8PwAJhdRcbUb.1
Meeting ID: 812 4451 4456
Passcode: w9Db6D
You can join this on any Saturday and check out such things as screen sharing, using the host code, etc. You should not share the link with other people generally, but you may invite one or two people to join so they can help you if you want.
You may find other group leaders also in the “room”, and if so, will be able to help one another. If you have made yourself host, and someone wants to join, you should admit them.
Please let us know if there are any problems with this.
Members joining and leaving groups
Members should join and leave groups themselves using the Members Portal. Group leaders cannot add members to their groups – this is because of a data protection issue. They can remove members from their group but ideally,members should be asked to do this themselves – it reduces group leaders’ workload, and eliminates the danger of removing the wrong person.
Maximum number of members and Beacon
When a member applies to join a group using Beacon, they get a message saying either that they can apply to join the group or that the group is full and they can apply to join the waiting list. Beacon normally deems the group to be full when the number of people who have applied to join the group is equal to or greater than the maximum number set by the group leader. However, there is a curious design feature in Beacon that when the maximum number set by the group leader is 0, Beacon deems the group to have no upper limit to the number of members allowed and therefore always has vacancies.
Locking a Zoom meeting
This can be very easily done by accident if you are using the host tools. The button is right next to the button to enable a waiting room, so very easy to activate unintentionally. If you are aware that this has happened (members are emailing to say they can’t get into the group), then click ‘More’ — ‘Host tools’ and click to unlock the meeting
Language group leaders meeting
One of our language group leaders suggested that we organize a meeting of language group leaders so they could share ideas and practices that help them to run their groups. I will contact them soon to arrange the meeting.
IGO Zoom March calendar
This is attached. It lists all the meetings which are booked in March on 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.
Generic Zoom calendar
At the moment, slots are available at all times, except for the 3rd Wednesday 11-1. Thus, you can move your current IGO slot, or change from your own account to an IGO account to any slot apart from that one.
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