Joining Teams Call without Host

Is it possible to join (and start) a Teams call without the host present?

I am part of a group of individuals from multiple organizations/agencies that meets on Teams biweekly. One of our colleagues has always been the "host" that created the original meeting link years ago now, but they have since left that organization and are no longer available to join or access their Teams account.

Up until this week, it has always let us join the call without them starting it or joining. Now, it says "when the meeting starts, we'll let people know you’re waiting". Is it possible to bypass this, or somehow transfer the meeting link to my account?

We are also no longer able to access the chat outside of the meeting time, it says "____ were removed from the chat". This contains a lot of valuable information I would like to make sure stays available.

We have been using the same link for ages and there's about 50 of us on the invitation, so I'd really like to not have to switch it over! It is work (not personal or academic) accounts, if that matters.