Note from the Associate Editorial Director: Join me for Monday Meet-Ups

by Melissa Varnavas

Pay no attention to the bathrobe hanging behind me, but feel free to inspect the titles and other items are on my bookshelf (there’s a beta fish and a stuffed snake back there). However, please note that I do not have a copy of The Thorn Birds or any variation thereof (nod to Seth Meyers).

For the past four weeks I’ve been holding “Monday Meet-Ups” via Facebook Live from my work-from-home offices over on the ACDIS Facebook page. Once COVID-19 sent most of us home, my ACDIS colleagues and I thought a little casual connection might be just the thing to help those working in the CDI field start the week off on the right foot.

Those who know me, know I’m not a lover of public speaking, making Facebook Live a personal challenge. Tap, tap. Is this thing on? Hey, welcome to Monday Meet-Ups. . . Um, hello? Welcome to Monday Meet-Ups… And it’s particularly weird being the one on screen but not able to actually chat with viewers in a free exchange kind of way. Although, I do enjoy seeing all those friendly Hi, Melissa, we can hear you! messages as I flub my way through. One time, my sound was so terrible that I had to delete the video and re-tape it, so I’m super sorry about that. As an aside, isn’t it weird that we still use the word “tape” in reference to video?

Anywho, so far, so good, as more than 700 folks have tuned in, watched, and waved. We’ve had afternoon coffee in my kitchen, a morning mug of ginger-peach tea in my living room, and some lunchtime breaks in my library/office/spare bedroom. So far, there haven’t been any sightings of my husband, although my cats keep making appearances. Going forward we’ll try to be more consistent and hold them first thing Monday mornings around 10 a.m.

During each roughly 10-minute session, I recap the news of the previous week pulling in highlights from CDI Strategies and other publications on the ACDIS website. I provide the latest statistics on what we’ve learned about the CDI community’s response to COVID-19, insight into what’s coming up from ACDIS in the coming week, and share emerging information about our virtual CDI event which takes place June 17-19.

Now, with the unfortunate news that ACDIS will be canceling our previously postponed main conference event due to ongoing concerns related COVID-19, it’s clear that we’ll need to find alternative ways of connecting with one another.

I hope you’ll join me for Monday Meet-Ups next week and feel free to drop me an email and let me know what you’d like to talk about.

Editor’s note: Varnavas is the associate editorial director of ACDIS. Contact her at mvarnavas@acdis.org.