Group Leaders Bulletin January 2024
Support for group leaders
In the December bulletin, we advised that If you are concerned about the behaviour of anyone in IGO or anything else that happens within IGO, you should contact us for help in dealing with this. To clarify, you should email
Email Protocol for IGO Group Leaders
Emails to multiple group members must be sent via Beacon only. Beacon stores members’ data securely and enables you to send emails without breaching data protection laws. Group leaders’ personal email clients (gmail, outlook etc) should not be used to send emails to multiple group members.
Recently we have had two breaches of GDPR where members’ email addresses were shared with other group members when a single email was sent to multiple members. This is why we are re-iterating IGO’s email protocol to ensure that we are always GDPR compliant. Failure to do this could result in IGO being fined by the data protection regulator.
Groups which do not meet via zoom, but which operate via email communication need to get explicit permission from everyone in the group for their email addresses to be shared.
When group leaders are struggling with Beacon management, please contact
The following steps will be taken:
Step 1: The IGO team will offer further individual training for the group leader. This will be done over the phone or via a Zoom call with screen share.
Step 2: The IGO team will contact all group members on the group leader’s behalf, raising this problem and seeking a volunteer to take on the Beacon administration side of the group leader’s role.
Until a volunteer is found…
- Group leaders must not send multiple emails to members outside of Beacon.
- Group leaders should instead send the copy of emails they wish to send to
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , stating clearly to which group it should be sent. The emails will then be sent to group members by one of the IGO team. - The IGO team will handle the waiting list on Beacon and will regularly advise the group leader of the names (not email addresses) of members both in the group and on the waiting list.
Sometimes, a group leader may wish to have a discussion with a potential member about whether the group is appropriate for the member’s current knowledge. The team will forward an email form the group leader to the member, and they can then have a one-to-one correspondence or a phone conversation as required.
Recording Zoom meetings
It is possible to make a recording of part or all of a zoom meeting. This has both GDPR and copyright implications which should be considered carefully before making a recording, and before a recording is distributed outside the group to group members or otherwise.
If the meeting is to be recorded, every member who will appear or be heard in the recording must give their written permission. They should be told how and with whom the recording will be shared and used afterwards.
If you do not have this permission from all members, please refrain from recording or sharing a recording of your meetings.
If you have a speaker at your meeting, you could gain their written permission and only record when they are presenting. If you do so, ensure that you are on ‘Speaker View’ on zoom, so that no other members are recorded. If possible on your zoom account, spotlight the presenter for the recording.
All material shared in any recorded zoom session should be copyright free. If any copyrighted material is used during the zoom meeting, this must not be included in the recording due to the risk of it being shared more widely, thus no longer falling under the “fair dealing” rule. This could incur a fine for the speaker or for IGO.
Help with Beacon
Only 4 people responded to my survey asking about problems with using Beacon and only two of these reported difficulties. I do not, therefore, plan to run any sessions. However John Alexander is running a Beacon help session for IGO group leaders on zoom on Wed 24th Jan at 10am. If you would like to attend this, please email
Updates to Help and Information on the website
Several new articles have been added. Altogether we have
- IGO General Guidelines (updated)
- IGO Copyright and GDPR (new)
- How to Join IGO
- IGO Members' Code of Conduct (new)
- Beacon for IGO Members (updated)
- Beacon for Group Leaders
- Group Leaders Bulletins
- IGO Group Description Form
Group Leaders' meeting
We are planning to hold a group leaders' meeting on Wednesday 6 March at 3pm. You can send us questions/information in advance, but we will also try to answer any queries on the day.
Beacon and website group pages
Please check these from time to time to ensure they remain accurate. You can change Beacon details yourself. You can request changes to your webpage by using the Group Information form.
Beacon and IGO Zoom calendars
The Beacon group meeting calendar for January and the generic IGO Zoom calendar are attached.
If there are errors in the Beacon calendar, you can correct these yourself, or contact Catherine to do so.
The IGO Zoom calendar shows the times when Zoom meetings are booked on one or other of our Zoom accounts – please check this if you use on IGO Zoom account and let me know if there are any errors.
Waiting lists
Please keep an eye on Beacon to ensure that no one is waiting unnecessarily to join your group.
Groups and members
We now have 101 groups and 1479 members.
As always, a big thank you to all group leaders, new and old, for running our IGO groups – we would not exist without you
From Catherine, on behalf of the IGO team