New Club Year

Well, we made it through a whole year of Zoom meetings. I don’t know about you, but I say HURRAY!  We certainly proved that Soroptimists are adaptable and can overcome any challenge. So, what’s in store for us this next club year?  Are you planning in-person, virtual or hybrid meetings? There may be members who are not completely comfortable attending in-person meetings yet or realize that attending virtually fits into their work or home life better. Be sure to discuss how your club can be more inclusive for these types of members. Consider holding one virtual meeting a month so everyone can participate equally. Now that members are comfortable using Zoom, there are many options for member participation. And don’t forget about all the wonderful speakers you can invite virtually to enhance your club meetings.

Here are a few tips on how to hold hybrid meetings moving forward to give members more attendance options.

1. Check the wi-fi connection at your meeting place. If the bandwidth is slow, consider using a hotspot*  on your phone to help create a more stable connection. Do a practice run ahead of time to trouble shoot issues.
2. Invite virtual attendees to access the meeting early. Send out the virtual meeting invite to the virtual participants to join 10 or 15 minutes earlier than the in-person participants so you can help with audio/visual issues.  
3. Display the remote members/speakers. If possible, have a big screen in the front of the room with as many of the remote members showing on video as possible. All you need is a projector which many meeting places have now.  
4. Can you hear me now? Use small external plug-in speakers so virtual attendees are easily heard in the live meeting room. Keep virtual attendees engaged by ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard. 
5. Use a microphone. Virtual attendees have a hard time hearing everyone who is speaking in a large room. A wireless microphone is best so it can be easily passed to speakers during the meeting.
6. Designate an in-person participant to monitor the chat – Have an “in person” participant login as if they were attending the meeting remotely. This individual can be the eyes and ears for the virtual participants in the meeting, providing the virtual attendees a way to ensure their voices are heard.
7. Establish a back-up plan – Be sure to have another way the virtual participants can join the meeting if there are technical issues with the meeting platform. Dedicate a point person, an alternate platform or even an old-fashion dial-in number for situations when the virtual meeting platform fails.

As we start planning for another club year. I hope you will consider a new Soroptimist Forward way to reinvent and reimagine how we engage with our members.

Governor Kris

* How do portable hotspots work?
Put simply, a portable hotspot taps into 3G and/or 4G cellular networks, just like a smartphone does. Once it’s zeroed in on cellular data connection, a mobile hotspot can share that connection via Wi-Fi with nearby laptops, tablets, or anything that can connect to a Wi-Fi network.