September’s User Talk is all about forums…no, not the Forum Romanum (Roman Forum), but RunMyVillage’s Discussion Forums feature. RMV includes a discussion forums module, allowing members to participate in online discussions. Original messages and their replies are organized into threads that are listed within a forum. Forums in turn are grouped into categories, allowing a village to organize forums for different purposes.
Most villages will have a rudimentary understanding of forums because the Village-to-Village Network uses the forums module to host the RMV User Group and the Administrator’s Forums where villages can ask questions and get assistance on a variety of topics.
The September User Talk will be another “Why We Do Things the Way We Do” session where Villages (and RMV staff) discuss, listen, and learn.
This is not a training session, so if you are not familiar with the RMV forums features but are planning to attend, we encourage you to view the videos/webinars that CE/RMV has recorded on the subject.
In this session, we will explore:
- Various ways Villages can use the Forum features (e.g., listserv, discussions, buy/sell/trade, recommendations, access to Village documents, and even for pages in the Village newsletter)
- Best practices in setting up Forums and setting up member subscriptions to the Forums
- Tricks and techniques to make it easy for members to use the forums and customize the settings to support their individual needs
- Answer your questions…if you’ve been a subscriber to our VtV RMV Forum, you know the questions are out there.
As with our previous “Why We Do Things the Way We Do” sessions, rather than a scripted presentation, this will be a discussion among the attendees (both from Villages and from CE/RMV). So, please come prepared to share your experiences, successes, questions, and ideas along with your challenges and how you have resolved them. As always happens in these “Why We Do Things…” sessions, we expect that the attendees will learn new ideas that they can apply to their Village’s efforts.
Please invite anyone from your Village who you think might be interested. You can register on the calendar on the Village to Village Network website.
If you have not yet signed up for our VtV RMV User Group Forum, please do so through (1) signing up through your Profile on the VtV site or (2) sending us an email.
These monthly talks are designed to help Villages use RunMyVillage more effectively. Each month has a different topic. The intended audience always includes the technology community within your Village; in addition, others in the Village may be invited based on the planned topic. Each of the User Talks has time for Villages to ask RunMyVillage-related questions to RMV and to other Villages. Examples of what we plan for these talks: RMV new release updates and discussions, results of surveys of desired enhancements to RMV, discussion of best practices and common issues particularly where Villages use RMV is different ways, and orientations for new Villages. If you have ideas for topics, email us at RMVusers@vtvnetwork.org. Videos for all previous User Talk webinars are on the VtV website.