MICHAEL: Well hello and good 
morning, or indeed good 
afternoon
, good evening or good night, 
depending on where you are 
watching.
Welcome to the UK asexuality 
conference.
I'm Michael Doré and I am a 
member of the AVEN project team.
I would like to thank you all 
for coming.
The UK asexuality conference is 
organised by AVEN in conjunction
with a large volunteer team.
We have a really long list of 
helpers
, Matt can we get that on screen
please.
In no particular order, there is
a long list of names here.  
Organising, helping with the 
accessibility.
The technical side, hosting, 
moderating, people from
all around the world, and this
isn't even counting our 
panellists, not actually on this
and while the dangers of such a 
long list is that
the accessibility the technical 
side, if I miss anybody I'm 
sorry.  People from all around 
the world.
There's more information on 
bioabout that.
If you count everyone including 
the panellists, everyone on the
list and gone into making this 
day
happen it comes to a about
70 people, it is a real 
international team  effort.
Thank you everyone, and thank 
you for planning and making the 
day what it is.  That is enough 
from me.
I will hand you straight over to
your host for today,
Yasmin Benoit, to tell you more 
about the conference.
YASMIN: Hi everybody, I hope you
are all having a great weekend
.  Thank you all for being a 
part of the UK Ace conference 
2020.
I'm Yasmin Benoit, a model, and 
aro
Manchester Uniteddic asexuality 
activist
-- aro Manchester Uniteddic 
asexuality activist.
We are originally going to take 
place in person within the UK
, more specifically in my lovely
home
town of Reading, obviously it 
wouldn't be safe to do that
because of the pandemic, we will
not let that stop us from having
this amazing occasion.
By moving on-line we can make it
safe and international.
We have panellists from all over
the world, something we have 
never been able to do before.
There are two parts to the 
country, the
panels are livestreamed on 
YouTube, you can go back and 
watch them.
We are using a really cool 
software called  Gather
to create the atmosphere of an 
in-person conference.
There are already occasions and 
some of you are already familiar
with it.
The Gather venue will be open 
throughout the day to those who 
have signed up for that.
It is a virtual conference 
venue, so everyone
can hang out and have informal 
discussions,
and they will be running until 
19.30 UK time.
A complete timetable is linked 
in the description
below this stream, I will still 
give you a quick rundown of what
is going on over there.
First I would like to tell you 
more about the YouTube Live 
streams.
All of our livestreams will have
live captioning, supplied by 
MyClearText.
To turn the captions on, please 
click
"subtitles/closed caption" icon 
beneath the YouTube video.
You can follow the live captions
on a
dedicated Streamtext web page in
the comments below.
You can submit comments and 
questions to the panellists 
using
Slido, there is a link to that 
in the description.
Slido allows you to move up 
questions you like.  Please 
submit all your questions using 
the Slido link.
You can also submit a
live comment as the stream is 
happening, as a lot of you are 
already doing.
If you have a YouTube or Google 
account.
That's primarily so you guys can
talk to each other.
Use Slido to submit anything you
specifically want me and the 
panellists to see.
If you have any issues with the 
livestream or need
to report inappropriate live 
chat comments, there is an email
in the description for this.
We have a team of helpers who 
will do their best to monitor 
this in real-time.
Let me tell you a little bit 
about what we have coming up 
today.  At 1.
30, we have the
Aces and  Disability/
Chronic Illness panel, and the
Aces Mental  Health panel in 
room
2, and the Gender Identity and 
Trans Races in room 3.  At 3.
30 we have Aces in I
just confused myself for a 
second.
We have Aces in Fiction in room 
1, 
Romantic Relations in room
2, and Aces and  He ethnicity 
I'm hosting in room 3.
Immediately after that over on 
Gather
I am going to be doing a meet 
and greet, and there is
also going to be an Aces comedy 
session,
which should be really cool, so 
make sure you join us for that 
during the break.
Which goes on until 4.
00, and then after, on Gather 
again, there's
going to be trauma and 
abuse/older Aces discussion.
When the livestreamed conference
starts back up over a YouTube at
17.
00 we are going to have a 
research panel in
room 1, Grey 
Asexuality and demi sexuality in
room 2,
and aro Aces in room three.  We 
will close things up at 6.
00, featuring myself and David 
J, we will be back on your 
screens to talk to you a little 
bit.
The party doesn't end there, 
right after that over
on Gather the occasion 
continues, there will be a 
session with a
bunch of Ace creators
, which will be cool, as well as
group
hangout spirituality and 
religion at the same time.
I will hand back to Matthew to 
tell you about the software.
MATTHEW: Thank you very much, I 
will just get the presentation 
up, give me one second.
I'm Matt and the tech lead for 
this
conference, I have set up all 
the software and
platforms you are producing 
today, I will give you a quick 
presentation to guide
you through how to use the 
software today.
Or I will do once I get this up,
there we go.
The first thing is YouTube,  
that's the first piece of 
software, as I'm sure you have 
already figured this out.
There is a stream on the 
left-hand side and a chat area
on the right-hand side, you can 
also turn live
captions on,
as Yasmin mentioned by pressing 
the CC button in the bottom 
right of the stream.
This has a blue underline when 
this is actsive.
Our second piece of software is 
called Slido, our Q&A system.
When you open Slido up, you will
see
a box with an event code and
you want to type
Ace 2020 into that box and it 
will take to you the box.
Once in you will see a list of 
questions and you will be able 
to ask your answer question.
And in the top left  corner it 
tells you which room you are in,
and you click that to change 
rooms.
The rooms correspond to the nine
sessions today.
There is a space at the top to 
ask a question and there is
also an upvote area to the right
of each question, where 
questions
you like you can upvote, it 
makes it more likely for the 
host to see them.
Our final piece of software is 
called  Gather, which I saw
over 100 of you were in earlier 
today.
Gather is a virtual meeting 
space and allows
you to walk around and meet 
others at the conference.
You will appear as an avatar in 
the middle
of the screen with a name above 
t and you appear on webcam
and microphone on the bottom 
right corner, your
avatar is randomly assigned, you
may wish to change it by  
pressing the avatar button at 
the bottom of the screen.
You can use the WASD or arrow 
keys on your keyboard to move 
around.
If it is crowded, hold
down g to walk through other 
people, it allows you to walk 
through other people if the 
corridor is blocked.
As you approach people you 
automatically connect with them 
nearby.
They will appear on the webcam 
or microphone.
You can also toggle your 
microphone and video by  
pressing
the corresponding button on your
stream in the corner.
As you walk around Gather, you 
will come across white boards.
These are in some of the 
discussion areas and the centre 
of the main room.
If you walk up to one and press 
X, you open up a
sticky note board, where you can
write ideas.
Here is an example of sticky 
notes, and all you need to do is
click in the box and
there are more boxes that will 
appear
.  Gather itself requires a 
desktop or laptop,
with the
chrome or fire fox browser 
installed, these can go freely 
downloaded and the
password was sent to your email 
after
your confirmation of attendances
to use Gather.
We can't let any spontaneous
viewers off the YouTube to 
Gather,
it has a set side of 450 people 
and we have reached capacity
.  If you need some help in 
Gather there is a help area to 
the left of where you start.
Walk to the left and find 
helpers there to guide you.
You may find it helpful to zoom 
out on
the browser to see more of the 
room.
Gather can also be quite 
demanding on your connection.
If you are experiencing
lag or disconnection, try 
reducing your interaction 
distance by
clicking the circles at the 
bottom of the stream, this 
reduces the number of people you
connect with.
Alternatively we try the wired
connection to help with lag, and
refreshing the page can also 
help.
Going back to YouTube now, 
underneath each
of the streams, there is a 
stream description that contains
all the
information and links you need 
to navigate the conference and 
access the software.
Find a link to the presentation
here, and a full map of the 
Gather space.
On the right is a full 
description of what the stream 
looks like.
Streams may start a few minutes 
after their official time to 
allow presenters time to set up.
Don't panic if a stream doesn't 
start exactly on time.
Just some comments on the live 
captions now
.  In the screen descriptions 
there is a
link to a full page of live 
captions for each session
, you may prefer to follow the 
captions on a full page rather 
than the stream itself.
There is also buttons on this 
page to adjust how the 
captions look, which may improve
readability.
So some of this conference is 
recorded
, all the YouTube streams, the 
captions and the chat comments 
are recorded.
The Slido questions will also be
exported after the event
and stored for viewing later
.  On the other hand Gather is 
not recorded in anyway, this is 
due
to software limitations and 
personal video sound feeds being
used.
As such, please do not take 
screen shots,
make recordings et cetera of 
Gather, unless you have explicit
permission of everyone involved.
And you are welcome to use an 
anonymous or
false name throughout this 
conference, please do not use an
offensive
name or one that impersonates 
someone else
.  Also consider adding pronouns
in brackets after your name so 
people know how to refer to you.
Other things now, there is a 
small chance that our
conference website will crash 
today, because of the amount of 
traffic.  It's only a free site.
So please use the stream 
descriptions as much as possible
to
access the links you need to 
navigate the conference, rather 
than the website.
And also, when on Gather, please
keep an eye on the 
time to make sure you don't miss
a session you would like to see.
We found it is easy to lose 
hours of time on Gather talking 
to people.
Keep an eye on the time and you 
won't miss what you want to see.
The Gather room will close at 
19.
30 UK time, that is when our 
lease of the server expires.
Final comments, please be kind 
and respectful to everyone.
We have a team of people
working in the background who 
will ban anyone causing trouble 
on the platforms.
If you wish to report someone, 
email
us at our conference email 
address, with their name and 
which platform they are on and 
we will investigate.
Also, please, please donate to 
keep these conferences going.
It is only through donation that
is this conference exists at 
all.
So
if you have any money you are 
happy to donate send it our way,
we are extremely donated.
This is the first time holding a
virtual conference, all of us 
are volunteers setting this up 
in our spare time.
Go easy on us, we don't really 
know how this is going to go.
We don't know what people will 
like or dislike.  We will try 
our best here to have a virtual 
conference.  Back over to Yasmin
now.
YASMIN: 
...
MATTHEW: Yasmin you are muted.
YASMIN: The first event of the 
day
is the Aces and 
Disability/Chronic Illness in 
room 1
.  The Aces and  Mental Health 
in
room 2, and the
Gender Identity and Aces Trans 
in room 3.  Tune in and be part 
of that conversation.  And I 
will see you all again in room  
3.00 at 2.
30 for my Aces and Ethnicity 
panel.
MICHAEL: Before we sign off do 
you want to
mention the link has changed to 
the Aces and Disability panel.
MATTHEW: We had a technical 
issue earlier in the day
which means the Aces and 
Disability panel link has 
changed in the last hour or so.
So if you haven't refreshed you 
may have the old link, refresh 
the page and the new link should
be there.
Because the old one 
unfortunately broke!
Guys we have another 15 minutes.
YASMIN: Oh my goodness do we?  
Well does anybody have any 
questions?
That they have about it, as we 
can see your comments popping up
right now?
Hopefully if you tuned in late 
or missed
anything or details on anything.
Thank you Sasha.
If you would like to know 
anything about any of the panels
or any of the tech stuff, while 
we are here.
We can answer any of your 
questions.
Thank you Tara.
Looks like we may have nailed it
ever.  Do we have to stay.
Oh someone said can you drop in 
and out of the Gather
discussions or do you need to be
there from the start to stay 
until the end?
MATTHEW: You can drop in and 
out.
YASMIN: You can join in when you
want to, I will be drop
anything and out when I do the 
panel and go in to do the meet 
and greet.  You can definitely 
drop in and out.
The recordings of the panels 
will be available to watch on 
YouTube,
so if you can't shoot into 
anything live you can watch it 
back.
There are some panels that I 
want to see that happen at the 
same time as mine.  I will be 
watching those back on YouTube.
Don't worry, you technically 
won't miss anything.
MATTHEW: Stream description, 
check the stream description and
you should
be able to find it for the 
mental health stream.
YASMIN: I thoughted the gist of 
it was what was the gist of it?
The overall point, lots of links
in the description that are 
helpful.
The Gather
hangouts are happening all day, 
and check the timetable, and in
the next ten or so minutes we 
will start
up the panels and you can go in 
different rooms to see the 
panels you want to see.
You can submit your questions in
Slido, which is way for you to 
upvote the questions.
The panellist also definitely 
get them so use
that rather than the comments, 
but you can talk to each other 
in the comments.  Yeah.
Can you repeat which room is the
visibility room?
MATTHEW: Check the stream 
description and it should have 
all the links.
MICHAEL: I don't think that is 
in the panel description as 
such.
MATTHEW: I'm not sure which 
session you are referring to 
there.
That's a nice comment.
YASMIN: I'm also glad we were 
able to do this  virtually.
Someone asked will the captions 
from the other website be
added to the panel recordings 
later to view along with the 
videos.
MATTHEW: Yes, we can do that.  
That will be fine.
The indoor bar area at Gather is
just another space to hang out 
at.
If we get too many people in 
Gather you can spread out more.
YASMIN: You can have a party and
order beverages, use your 
imagination.
It's so much Mike
Pokemon meets Club
Penguin, you have to use your 
imagination
.  Someone said could you please
clarify how we can select the 
room we want.
MATTHEW: Screen description, 
scroll down on YouTube, open up 
the description and find all the
links you need there.
MICHAEL: If you are talking 
about Gather, you might be
talking about the Gather room, 
can you move around, what I 
suggest
is, I find it helpful zooming 
out
, if you get control and minus, 
so you go into the main room 
first.
If you control it you can see 
where all the rooms are.
YASMIN: You will see a bunch of 
faces when you get near people
which is cool
MATTHEW: How can you participate
in the panels?
Do you mean on Slido or watching
the panels?
A watch the panels in the 
clicking of the stream 
description, it will be like 
this introduction.
Use Slido in the top corner to 
ask
questions in different rooms, in
Gather there is a map in the 
description.  That covers it.  I
hope.
YASMIN: Someone asked is the 
livestream going to be available
to watch later.
I mean the introduction 
livestream.  Yes, all of it will
be up.
You can watch this again, if you
missed the opening.
Asking will the comedy be 
available after
?
The ace comedy part is happening
on Gather and we haven't
livestreaming what happens on 
Gather, you will have to be 
physically be there for that 
one.
Everything that happens on 
Gather will not be recorded
and we strongly suggest that 
none of you
guys film what happens on Gather
unless you have the permission 
of everybody involved.
MATTHEW: Gather has different 
sessions to YouTube, YouTube has
all
the main sessions, gather has 
the  smaller discussions as a 
separate.
So basically YouTube is one 
thing, Gather is another thing, 
and there is no crossover 
between the two.
YASMIN: For example on YouTube 
it will be in the form of
actual panels, where you will be
seeing the panellists and asking
them questions, it's more formal
in that sense.
But over on Gather it will be a 
bunch of people,
all on a pretty level playing 
field talking
, hanging out, virtually
seeing each other, like I have
my Ace and ethnicity
programme and then I will be on 
gather wandering around.  You 
ask me questions and we can just
talk.
That will be the difference 
between the panels and then the 
hangouts over on Gather.
YASMIN: I have to turn off my 
screen reader
to navigate Gather.
MATTHEW: Gather itself
not very accessible for screen 
readers,
as we said before, we can't do 
anything about that because of 
Gather, but
there is a map of the Gather 
space in the stream description.
MICHAEL: So you might want to 
find one of us on Gather and we 
will give you
a tour, that might be the 
easiest way.  I will look out 
for your name.
MATTHEW: Please report them to 
the conference email address.
address.
YASMIN: We have some people 
trying to deal with any of that 
kind of stuff in real-time, 
hopefully we can get that.  If 
anything happens.
Any more questions, anything?
Someone said do you want to 
share your experiences in the
lead up or preparing for the 
conference!  Well!
We have been dropping since the 
beginning of the year and
kind of had to re-evaluate it 
when the pandemic hit.
One of the last things I did 
before lockdown was meet
up with people from AVEN and we 
went and looked at a
really nice venue and we had
been planning everything out and
then
the pandemic happened, and we 
realised that we probably 
weren't
going to be able to use the 
beautiful venue we had chosen 
and we were going to have to 
re-evaluate what we were doing. 
And this was in March.
So, there has been a lot of 
preparation going on.
MICHAEL: Reading not only is 
Yasmin
's home town and we have a great
Pride there every
year, it is also the home of My 
Umbrella
who are a really great and 
inclusive
LGBTQ+, emphasis on
the plus side, with strong Aces 
connections
, we hope to have it in Reading 
next year or a different year.  
Awesome.
Cool, I think we should all go 
wrap up.  And next session at 1.
30.
Just three minutes away and 
hopefully see you all  there.
