Cohousing-L Mailing List: Meetings in person with Zoom

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Sharon Villines wrote: (on 12 Jul 2020 in
Re: Feedback requested: Accommodations for disabilities
http://lists.cohousing.org/archives/cohousing-l/msg45247.html )

>We also have more people in meetings on Zoom and they tend to stay for
>the whole meeting or tell everyone in the chat that they have to
>leave. They don't slink off and hope no one will notice. And they
>don't have to go home to feed the dog, check on their older children,
>hire child care for the younger, or watch for an important email.
>
>I find the meetings to be more efficient on Zoom. More structured and
>organized, fewer distractions (when the facilitator's computer
>works). I don't think they are good for discussions on topics with an
>uncertain resolution or conflicting feelings.

I hope that when the Covid era ends in a year or two and we can meet
in person safely that we can find good ways to combine in person
meetings with Zoom-like meetings **.  Some have reported problems
with combining the two.

But I think that with enough cooperation from the in-person attendees
that it could work.  Might be easier for people to do this if online
attendees out numbered in-person ones :)  Actually it would be good to
develop the needed cooperation now when we are using Zoom a lot --
this time is serving as a learning experience for doing things differently.

Some specifics that might be helpful:

Consistantly using a microphone
Consistantly announcing one's name when one begins to speak.
Maybe passing around (on a wheeled table?) a laptop to speakers.
Using the microphone as a "talking stick" as with the circle process.
( I like the circle process rather than the competition to get the
floor system.)

In many ways it's hard to beat in-person meetings and they have social
and nonverbal aspects that are hard to perform electronically. But
a good combination might have the best of both.  I contend that
community meeting attendance is often motivated by the opportunity
to see other people - particularl in non-cohousing contexts.
Having a separate person at in-person meeting who monitors
Zoom participants needs.

Fred WB0YQM  (ham call sign)

** There is an open source  Zoom-like system called https://meet.jit.si/
that hams (amateur radio operators) are using here.  I've attended a ham
outdoor in-person gathering this way with mixed results since there was
little adaptation.

--
Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
     Email:        fholson at cohousing.org      612-588-9532
My Link Pg: http://fholson.cohousing.org