Organising an online branch meeting
Zoom is a great way to keep in touch with your branch, whether that’s in one-to-one catch ups or bigger meetings.
You can create a Zoom account at zoom.us where you can set up meetings for free – although there is a time limit of 40 minutes should you have three or more attendees. Alternatively, you can set up an account with Zoom and pay for bigger and better options which include break-out rooms.
If you’re looking to organise with your branch online here are ten top tips to help you get the most out of your digital meetings.
Ten important tips
1. Recurring meetings
If you’re planning to hold a regularly recurring meeting, you can set this up in Zoom via Schedule a Meeting. The meeting template gives you the option to select ‘recurring meeting’ which means one invite with one URL goes to everyone’s email and calendar so you don’t need to send out a new invite or link each time.
2. Have a clear agenda
You might wish to send participants an agenda with any useful materials in advance so members can prepare and you can save reading time in the meeting. When you start your meeting, welcome people and then outline how the meeting is going to run so they know what to expect and when and how they are going to be able to contribute, whether that’s by asking questions or by submitting questions in the Q&A or chat boxes.
3. Keep to time
Online meetings can suffer from the same issues as IRL (in real life) meetings and it can actually be harder for people to maintain concentration and focus remotely. Make sure you say at the beginning how long the meeting will run for, how long you will give to agenda items, and stick to it. If it’s going to run over an hour, have a break for people to get up, get a drink and refocus. Remember, free Zoom calls end after 40 minutes.
4. The joy of the mute button
When you create your meeting set it so that participants are muted when they enter. This means you won’t get distracted by late-comers and potential external noise. When they want to speak, participants can either unmute themselves or, if you want more control, you can set it so you unmute them. They can indicate they want to speak by using the ‘raise your hand’ button.
5. Share your screen
If you want to share a report or presentation with your members, you can do this easily by sharing your screen. Just press the big green button at the bottom of the screen and pick what you want to share. Other participants can do this too and as host you can stop them from sharing if necessary. If you want a collaborative annotation session for example brainstorming for a campaign, you can share a whiteboard which acts like a flipchart for either yourself to live edit or for participants to annotate using the Annotate button.
6. Record it for re-watching
If you want to record the meeting as a video you can set this up in your settings. It’s good practice to let participants know that they are being recorded. You can then send it around to anyone who wasn’t able to make the meeting. If you don’t want a copy of it but a participant does, they can also manually start to record their screen – but again please ask people to let all meeting attendees know if this is happening!
7. Watch your background
Remember that people will see you and your background so make sure there’s nothing you don’t want colleagues and members to see. On Zoom you can choose from a range of virtual backgrounds too, from beaches to sports stadiums, so this is always an option if you really don’t want people seeing where you’re sat, although choose with care depending on the nature of the meeting. There’s also a ‘touch up your appearance’ selection in your settings, which gets rid of any blemishes if you’re feeling you need it!
8. What’s in a name?
People can edit their names so make sure that they are aware that what might be suitable for a family quiz may not work for a meeting. You can also include your title if you want to have let members know the roles of everyone in the room.
9. Be secure
Zoom encourages you to set a meeting password to ensure that only the people you want to attend can attend. This means anything confidential will be kept that way and guards against any nasty surprises! You can also lock your meeting as soon as everyone you know is attending has arrived. If you’re holding a meeting with the wider public use a Unique Meeting ID to avoid any security breaches where hackers can take control of your meeting – what’s known as ‘Zoom bombing’.
10. Last but not least and we’re back to mute
It’s good online meeting etiquette to mute when you’re not speaking so that background noise doesn’t distract other participants. It seems obvious but lots of people forget it and it can really disrupt meetings. Perhaps strangely for a format that encourages face to face interaction, you always need to remember that the golden rule for online meetings if you’re not speaking is Mute, Mute, Mute!
Formal branch business and voting
Whilst Zoom and other platforms do have tools for online voting or polls these may not be suitable for all occasions. For example, they do not necessarily allow us to check whether everyone voting is eligible or that members do not vote twice, so they should be used cautiously.
Snapshot polls might though be appropriate to use to informally gauge member’s views on a call to help inform discussions by a branch committee.
If you are planning on conducting formal branch meetings online then you should speak to your Prospect full time officer, to discuss out the best way forward. We do have our usual ways of organising online ballots, for example on pay, again this should be discussed with your full-time officer.
We will also be looking to produce further guidance and support for branches on remote democracy later in the year.
Other platforms
Although the reps’ communications survey showed the most common platform in use is Zoom, we know reps use a a range of different platforms. Many of the tips above apply regardless of the platform that you choose. Here are some links to help with other common platforms: