I have a friend who had a "parking lot picnic" with her daughter and grandsons. They brought their own food and met in a parking lot, but maintained 6 foot distance. I don't know how something like that would work with a larger group.

We are doing coffee breaks over zoom, they are optional and work talk is forbidden.

DH’s office has a social chair. Yesterday he was talking with him and keeping up social activities was discussed, normally they are happy hour, volunteering, group walk/runs. Now they are doing things like post a picture of you in your home office, your pet, your coffee mug.

While zoom is not great with a ton of people I think it’s better than nothing.

We are doing a weekly lunch over Skype. Not that people necessarily eat, but the whole team is getting together and no work talk.

Good feedback. Thanks. It sounds like we should give online meetings a chance. Our school is using Zoom, so everyone should be familiar with it. I think I will create a schedule and then whomever is signed up for a particular Friday is in charge of setting up the Zoom mtg and sending out a recipe and optional pictures. We are a pretty creative and competitive bunch, so I'm sure some will make it more, but those that don't have energy to do more should easily be able to do the minimum.

Thanks!

I’m doing a “parking lot coffee” with a few friends tomorrow. I guess that’s one advantage to all these empty school parking lots.

Sue, have you gotten any flak over the parking lot coffees? My local FB community page is full of rants about this.

Really? Well, I haven’t done it yet. Why are people upset about it?

They feel it is not in the nature of social distancing. But a bunch of the posts talk about little kids running around while the moms drink coffee. So it isn’t the same thing. Some even said to call the police. More reasonable minds prevailed and said not to bother the police.

I saw a group in a parking lot, poking up from the sunroofs. I thought it was brilliant. The cars keep you pretty far apart. Just don’t let the kids run around. My FB pages, even one of the law enforcement pages, use the “not in the spirit of social distancing”. I disagree. It is in the spirit of physical distancing! Is it any different than people hanging out on their balconies to sing, or the neighborhood evening “wave”, or standing in the street while talking to someone on the sidewalk?

Daisy, how many people are you talking about? Last week my choir met via Zoom at our usual practice hour, virtually clinking our glasses of wine. Although there are 20+ of us in the choir, I don't think there were any more than 12 on Zoom at any one time. We chatted and caught up with one another. You can't all talk at once, so some very simple guidelines can help manage the chat traffic. The person hosting can always mute everyone if something important needs to be said to the entire group.

According to threads on our neighborhood Next Door, If your district/county/state have a stay at home order the parking lot meetups are not considered essential.

bpath, I think the only problem with group social distancing in parking lots, etc. is it's usually public space and it sends a message to others, some of whom aren't thinking it through, that it's okay to hang out there.

True, it’s public. and a crowd could grow. I suppose people could take it behind a building, or to some obscure area, and then no good can come of that.

Yeah, it's the slippery slope effect. In my area, city crew work hours had to be expended removing basketball goal nets from public parks, because people apparently felt social distancing rules didn't apply on the court. They've also had to shut down park and trail access points because people are taking to the outdoors en masse and coming into very close contact. I think gathering in parking lots, even at a distance, is perhaps not the most communally minded thing to do right now.

I very much enjoyed the Zoom get togethers that we've had for this forum, and while certainly not the same as a physical gathering, it's still a pretty darn good way to keep in touch and provide a bit of human interaction.

You know there is a picture on the internet for everything:

Social Distancing is not the same as Stay at Home. Most/many? places have segued from SD to SAH for other than essential workers or grocery/pharmacydoctor visits. It's tough. It sucks. It has to be done.

The sense I get is that, unless you are out doing essential errands or exercising, you should not be out. IMHO it's another example of making rules simple.

There is nothing in the spirit/intent of the rules that should prohibit parking lot get togethers. If you make rules unnecessarily strict or arbitrary, people ignore them. YMMV

For those who haven't already seen this video, the message is clear: Stay the #$%& at home! It's NSFW, but who's at work outside the home these days. Blast away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGOZ9eN_rpA

The music is very catchy, but surely it could be done without the crude language. Hopefully it helps some people to understand the seriousness of the situation, but I have never grasped the need for such vocabulary.

One does not expect crude language in the context of a jaunty old man playing a tune; the shock of it is meant the be funny and also to make the message more memorable.

And to Mtn's earlier point, he made the rules simple.

Grapefruit, I understand that some language is considered out of bounds for some, and I would heartily encourage those not to listen to the video. I assumed mentioning it was NSFW would be the tipoff.

For me, it's a very useful word, one I need to be careful not to overuse. I think I'm failing in that regard. :) This is a serious matter and sometimes you need to pull out the stops to get one's attention. I think putting oneself and others in jeopardy of a serious health risk is far, far cruder than a cuss word.

Sorry you watched it and were offended.

Come and sit by me, Bunny. I'm a failure at not routinely employing the good old F bomb myself.

Oh dear. If we're going to compare F usage I'm just going to give myself a time out right now. I've been a veddy veddy bad girl.

I too thought the video was well done. People aren't getting the message. The shock value is what makes it so good, IMHO.

Instead of trying to find ways to bend the rules, just follow them and STAY home!! If there isn't a stay at home order in your community yet, it will come. It will come after more people get sick and die because they didn't STAY home. It's not that hard. Shop for food and medicine when you need to, go to work if you're essential, otherwise STAY home!

I'm not a facebook person and GW is pretty much the only social media that I take part in, so I appreciate hearing about all these ideas and arguments for and against.

Bunny, that video was spit out my coffee funny. Do appreciate the warning tho.

Welp, I guess he told you. The f bomb has been flying around a lot lately.

Hmm, how to keep the gang in touch. Maybe some kind of add on game? Like one person starts with “It was a dark and stormy night“, and then the next one picks up the thread. Sometimes you end up with a hilarious story.

I sent the video to my family group text, but my cookbook group might find it offensive. Crude, yes. Attention getter, yes! Geezer singing it, even better.

We are under a stay at home order. Yet, friends invited us over for cocktails saying we would stay on the patio and 6 feet from each other. I love these people. They are both intelligent beyond measure. They are generally rule followers. What are they thinking?!? I declined, pleading DH’s health issues.

We had a Zoom b’day party for DBIL last night. It was great! Maybe we ought to do a family story thread. DN is an aspiring comedy writer, DD is fairly creative, DSIL has a wicked sense of humor.... This could be interesting! Thanks for the idea, @dedtired!

Feeling defeated this morning and think I will just ditch the idea. I was told that I must include our entire organization rather than just our dept. Our dept. includes about 15 people, but the entire organization is probably over 100. My brain has too many other things going on to figure out making it work for that many people. Thanks anyways.