Over the last year and a half, like millions of other people, I’ve used Zoom a lot. Like a smaller – but still substantial – number, I’ve often been the host of Zoom meetings. However, one thing I’ve hardly done at all is manage ‘breakout rooms’.

These allow you to put people in separate ‘rooms’ so they can chat about things in a smaller group before returning to a larger gathering. Tonight, the church had a meeting where one person had to sit out part of one discussion because of a vested interest. I did my best to get it lined up (one breakout room, with that one person assigned to it and no option to leave until I released them) and then, when the time came, pressed the button.

Good guess! I’m pleased to say it worked out exactly as I wanted and, even better, we managed to get the person back once we’d finished that bit of discussion. The particularly new thing was discovering that you can have breakout rooms but leave most people in the main meeting. I’m sure that’s old hat to many of the other millions of Zoom hosts but good to learn how to do it for myself.