posted
Does anyone know of any telephone support groups for Lyme, chronic illness, or people who are homebound and sick?
I am not able to even be on the phone consistently, or I would start one myself! But I would love to know if any of these already exist and how to access them.
Posts: 929 | From Massachusetts | Registered: Oct 2007
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posted
I was just speaking with someone the other day that suggested this type of thing to me. He was talking about the computer program "skype".
You can use skype just like a phone only there is no charge and if you have a web cam you can even be seen by who you are talking to. He was telling me that a bunch of us could be in a conference call at once with no long distance charges and you can even plug a headset into your pc.
I will continue to look into this. I will let you know if I can put something together.
Posts: 413 | From nj | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Just for the record, if someone else wanted to set this up (I'm just too sick as I said -- sorry!) and enough people were interested, it's fairly easy to do.
Just pick a night and time and post it on here, then use a free conference call number (people pay for a long-distance phone call to call the number) such as this one: 605-475-6100
There are other free numbers too -- I just know this one from a friend who has used it for conference calls.
Then choose a mutual password that everyone types in after dialing the number (i.e. a number or a word) -- something easy to remember for the brain-fogged.
Then people call the number, type in the password, and they are put in a conference call.
Because it can be a little confusing to have a bunch of people in a virtual phone "room," though, it helps to have a facilitator.
Then of course it's good to have rules, such as crosstalk or no crosstalk, a certain number of minutes for how long each person can speak, etc.
Posts: 929 | From Massachusetts | Registered: Oct 2007
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charlie
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 25
posted
I've been trying to interest people in skype for a couple of years...I communicate with one board member that way all the time.
It's free, you don't have to be available unless skype is turned on and you don't expose your identity and phone # to everybody on the planet...a handle is all they see if you want.
When I try to get people to do this they seem to prefer typing for whatever reason...although I'm a chat room regular I hate typing and would much rather talk. especially in a 10 member shoutfest.
I'm atypical I guess....
Charlie
Posts: 2804 | From Texas | Registered: Oct 2000
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