The main problem is that remote Zoomers have a hard time hearing the conversations going on among the physical participants.
We have tried using a smart phone (in the meeting room) as a "talking stick". This phone is logged into the Zoom meeting audio connection and is passed from one physical participant to the next in an "orderly" manner. A problem is people sometimes have a hard time being sufficiently orderly (talking over each other, two talking at the same time, etc.) and the remote Zoomers end up with a lot of missed, semi-garbled audio.
Another more expensive solution would be to buy a set of table mics and have them placed around the table/room. However, online reviews of various multi-mic-sets products are mixed... and they cost.
Any and all helpful suggestions welcome.
Thank you Ron
Unfortunately I don't have any tips for having a simultaneous Zoom and physical meeting. However, I know Miranda Phillips's chapter hosts two separate meetings: one in person for those who can attend, and another one on Zoom for those who can't make it to their physical meeting. (Miranda, please chime in if you have any tips/tricks/feedback regarding this approach!) This might be an alternative approach if you can't find a solution to making the meeting engaging to both the participants on Zoom and in the room.
Thank you for your reply and good to know that Miranda Phillips is using a double meeting approach. We wondered if this would be an alternative for us.
Watching Amy "effortlessly" do two-per-day Liaison monthly calls is a masterful model.
Would certainly welcome any tips/ pitfalls to avoid from Miranda.
Thanks also to Todd Elvins who suggested a post to the "Ask Anything" Forum
Mahalo to all, Ron
Copying Elinor Sparks , Carol Braford and Jennifer Glazer and Moni Usasz as I know they may have some stories / experience hosting Zoom meetings for rural areas to help bring people together online and help folks connect!
Love,
Elli
We've been doing hybrid meeting since we started meeting in-person again. The microphone in the live portion is a challenge.
I bought this. It's now $24 on Amazon. I put it in the middle of the table of our small group. On-line attendees say they can hear even when someone speaking is 6 to 8 feet away. It really works better than I expected.
@Ron Reilly n Austin we've found that hybrid (in-person plus Zoom) meetings are worthwhile, but it took us several meetings to overcome the technical challenges. To keep the Zoom attendees in the loop requires attention to both the video and the audio they receive. We typically have 25 to 30 people attending in person, so a single microphone doesn’t work, nor does a fixed video camera.
We run our meetings’ Zoom sessions and slide shows on a MacBook Pro which is connected to a 55-inch TV which displays the Zoom screen, including the meeting’s Google slides. Our video camera is a Sony HandyCam HDR-CX240 ($135) whose HDMI-OUT port is connected to one of the MBP’s USB-C ports through a Guermo audio/video capture card ($21). We use two CKOKC wireless microphones ($33 for the pair), plugging their receiver into another of the MBP’s USB-C ports. The video and audio signals are routed to OBS Studio, which routes them to Zoom.app. The Zoom session is displayed on the big TV, whose speaker outputs the remote attendees’ audio.
How about the physical setup? The video camera is mounted on a tripod. The microphones are little lavalier mics, which are designed for interviews in which each one is clipped to one speaker’s lapel. For discussions in our meetings, in which the microphones are frequently handed from one person to another, they are attached to short sections of wooden dowel rod using binder clips.

Making this work requires a crew of four in-person volunteers. One runs the Zoom session, screen-sharing the slide-show window. Another keeps the camera aimed at whoever is speaking. A third person watches for Zoom attendees’ raised hands and chat questions. The fourth—usually the meeting’s leader—hands the microphones to people who want to speak, and reminds others to refrain from talking until they have one of the microphones, i.e., to treat them like talking sticks.
This is just one of a great many possible setups, to show what can be done for much less than the cost of a Meeting Owl, whose price ($1049) presumably puts it out of reach of most CCL chapters.
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