Stockport Write Out Loud, which usually meets at Stockport art gallery, has held its first meeting online. The group, which normally meets once a month, is switching to bi-monthly meetings via the video conferencing website Zoom during the coronavirus lockdown.

Stockport’s organiser, John Keane, said: “We had to use a subscription account, since the free account only permits 40-minute meetings. While Zoom itself worked extremely well, there were some problems with the participants' peripheral devices.

“However, all these problems were eventually overcome and we had our usual two-hour meeting without a hitch. All participants muted their own link when someone was reading, in order to eliminate disruptive background noise. We had nine participants, about five less than our usual group size. Older people were conspicuous by their absence but this is true of other online writing groups I belong to.”

John said he would “strongly recommend Discord [another video chat site] or Zoom as good temporary solutions to the present crisis. An online meeting obviously isn't as good as the real thing but everyone enjoyed themselves and it was great to see familiar faces reading their poems.”