Cloud Quakers has been around for about a year. I have come into my own as a Quaker pop artist, but I haven't managed to secure a large following for our regular weekly meetings, Sundays at 6 Mountain time. I sometimes have tech problems, which are because of our odd metal houses out here in the mountains, that don't always transfer a powerful enough signal through the wireless modem. I apologize to anyone, particularly Shirin, who has suffered due to my tech blundering.
The problem seems to be at the front end. Not a whole lot of people come to us even the first time. We are there, pretty regularly, and zoom is pretty doable. I have had a couple people complain to me that they just couldn't do zoom, or, they got on there at the wrong time. But you get used to the time difference pretty quickly (6 mtn is 7 central, 8 east, 5 west coast), and I can't really see that as a hurdle, though it's definitely impractical for a whole swath of Europe, and people who are simply busy Sunday evenings. I can understand why some can't do it, but I can't start a more convenient meeting when even this one has trouble staying afloat.
My role model for this is a guy who got ESL and other teachers together online for years. The amazing thing about it is being friends from worlds away - having geography literally not be a barrier to friendship, or getting together, sharing information or fellowship. We would have fantastic gatherings of people who always got along well. We knew each other primarily from online interaction.
I became Quaker though in a Conservative community - Conservative Quakers means they conserve the old-style silent worship, but conservative Quakers are generally politically liberal, and socially conservative, and very much attached to community, which is generally rural. After many years with an FGC meeting I now consider myself both, FGC and Conservative, but hope to steadily and consistently invite ALL Quakers to this online meeting, just out of general principle.
It's still pretty sleepy, in terms of pure numbers. We actually have a meeting, and we're there every week, and it works out pretty well. But it's not large, not anything like what it could be. I may have to redo my publicity ideas.
