GLOBE Program North America Regional Meeting October 19-22 2020 (Screenshot of Zoom Meeting)
The GLOBE Implementation Office (GIO) held the North American Regional Meeting (NARM) 100% virtually this year from 19 – 22 October 2020. The NARM Planning Team included diversity, equity and inclusion considerations in the planning of this event. Several aspects of this included offering live Closed Captioning for most sessions and pre-captioned recordings of Lightning Talks and Sponsor welcomes; soliciting a diverse team of speakers; providing guidelines to speakers to help them consider presentation needs for a diverse audience; creating a Zoom How-To Guide; and asking participants in their registration if there were specific things they may need to participate in the virtual meeting. Participant feedback about the DEI efforts at NARM was favorable. To the question, “What was a positive takeaway from the meeting for you this year?” a participant responded, “diversity and inclusion ideas.” Additionally, participants want to continue conversations about DEI and hope to share more ideas at future water coolers (virtual meeting times for U.S. Partners to share ideas and resources). Finally, all participants in the NARM DEI Session rated it as “valuable,” which was the highest possible rating for a session. The GLOBE meeting planners are attending trainings, having conversations, doing research, and learning ways to make future meetings even more welcoming to everyone!
Thank you to Katie Chapman for her contribution to this post!
