FAQ

Where will the Conference be held?

The event will be online on Zoom and gather.town due to the pandemic.
The time zone on the schedule is CEST (CET on Sunday) – it is the same time zone like Berlin in Germany. People from many time zones will join and people may enter and leave for any time to have their lunch breaks or go from zoom to gather.town and back.

We will use the accessibility features of these platforms. There will be live transcription in all sessions except the workshops since Zoom doesn’t offer this feature in breakout room. This is also true for gather.town.

On gather.town there will be offered the artsy expressions, like paintings, sketches, films etc. On the other hand, there is the possibility for meditating in a beautiful virtual surrounding or for private chats, meeting with old or new friends.
And third there is a possibility for open mic on gather.town: That means, that in the evenings there is the possibilty to go on stage and perform a song, rap, poem, or sharing info about a workshop etc.

What does “queer” mean?

There are several definitions of this word. We suggest the one of Michael Warner: The Trouble With Normal (1999) quoted in Meg-John Barker, Julia Scheele in Queer A Graphic History (2016): “We queer things when we resist ‘regimes of the normal’, the ‘normative’ ideals of aspiring to be normal in identity, behaviour, appearance, relationships etc.”

Do I have to identify as LGBTQIA+ to attend IQBC?

No. Everyone is invited who is interested in this conference. We believe that many topics are interesting for allies and the entire Buddhist Community.

Will there be Recordings of the Sessions and will there be Proceedings?

Some sessions will be recorded. We will spotlight the speakers so that participants are not visible. Q&A is not recorded. The talks will be recorded and published on iqbc.org and on our youtube channel.

Mindful and compassionate Communication in this Conference

Online discussions in times of social media are becoming politically and ideologically charged, and these political battles can be very personal and very emotional. This can easily become a toxic outrage culture, a form of public awareness that aims to hold individuals and groups accountable by calling attention to behavior that is perceived to be problematic. We believe that this can be used to divide communities – including the queer community. Instead, we should see this conference as an exercise in mindful and compassionate communication and would like to encourage everyone to re-read what the Buddha taught about right speech.

Mindfulness can be practiced also on Zoom: take a deep breath, check your intention, raise your hand virtually, wait until it is your turn to speak, unmute yourself before you are speaking, then mute yourself afterwards, lower your hand virtually to give other people a possibility to speak, too.

We believe that this conference will be a place for peacemaking in the community. But in case you feel harrassed or insulted by someone in the Zoom meeting please ask the Zoom Hosts or Co-Hosts for help.

How can I attend a Workshop?

We will use Zoom-breakout sessions for Workshops. You are free to choose the breakout room by clicking “Breakout Rooms”. If you don’t see the Breakout Rooms button at the bottom right of the window, maximize your screen, or find Breakout Rooms under More (…). Then you will see the names of rooms and participants who have already joined them. You can join a room by hovering over the blue number link and clicking “Join.” This video shows how to do this in minute 2:50. When you want to leave the breakout room you can click “Leave”, then “Leave Breakout Room”, to return to the main session window.  Workshop sessions are not recorded and any recording is prohibited.

Breakout rooms will be created 15 to 20 minutes before the beginning. At this time, the hosts of the workshop will use it for preparation. So please wait to enter the breakout room until 5 minutes before the beginning of the session.

Can we use the Zoom Chat?

Yes. At the beginning of each Q&A / workshop the moderator will announce whether questions can be written in the public chat or should be sent to the moderator. Please don’t use the public chat for bilateral communication since others’ questions and comments could get lost.

We hope that this conference is a chance to get in touch with old friends but also to make new ones. So if you want to chat with someone we recommend to use the private message feature: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/203650445-In-Meeting-Chat

What else do I have to know about Zoom?

We chose this platform since many people are familiar with it and many videos on the internet explain how to use the platform. During the conference, it will be very difficult to explain Zoom functions since the user interface differs according to the device and the language of the user language. We recommend getting familiar with Zoom features like entering breakout rooms. If you want to read the live transcription please press the “Live Transcript” button in the zoom control bar. It may be possible that you will have to use the “Live Transcript” button again after a workshop. Last but not least we recommend to update the Zoom client to its latest version like it is described here.

In Zoom, you can virtually raise your hand to signal that you have a question or comment. In some workshops and Q&A this feature may be used. After you made your question or comment you should lower it by clicking “Lower Hand”.

Especially for workshops we recommend getting familar with gallery view or active speaker view. You can switch between these as many times as you like during a meeting. Switch to gallery view to see everyone in the meeting at the same time or active speaker to see only the person speaking.

Is there anything else we should know?

Please introduce yourself with your pronoun: you can adding them to your name in Zoom. We encourage that participants use their webcams but they might also switch them off since webcams consume lots of bandwidth of your internet access point which can lead to technical problems.

How do we come from zoom to gather.town and back?

Short before the conference you will get two links by email: the zoom link and the gather.town link.
The conference will begin on zoom, but you will have the possibility to go tho gather.town, whenever you like to.
When you are on zoom and you want to go to the site on gather.town, we provide for you, it´s the best connection to do it with Mozilla Firefox due to technology.
Before leaving the zoom window first close your video and your audio – only leave the window, open a new window with the gather.town link and you will get an avatar there.
You also will be asked to give gather.town access to camera and audio. Give access and open video and audio now. Then you will have the possibility to go with your avatar through the exhibitions, watching films or having private chats face to face.
When you want to go back to zoom, you close your camera and audio on gather.town, and then only go to your zoom window. The whole conference you can let both windows open, so that you change from one to the other site.
If there are any difficulties, be patient, don´t be desperate, that´s life, and technology. If nothing works, you always can use the links you will have then.