Many of our churches are needing to consider holding large meetings such as their vestry/AGM online using Zoom. We’re compiling some advice, recommendations and how-tos when scheduling and hosting your Zoom meeting that we hope might help.
(Some of the settings and features below require the host to have a paid Pro account on Zoom.
You can find lots of other help information on the Zoom help website.)
Topics:
- Orientation Meetings
- Meeting Setup Settings
- In-meeting Security
- Co-hosts
- Detailed Agenda
- Breaks
- Muting All
- Renaming
- Moving Videos on Your Grid
- Chat
- Raise Hand
- Voting with Polls
- Non-voting Members
- Livestreaming
- Screen Sharing files, slides and videos
- Prerecording Presentations
- Registration
Orientation Meetings
An orientation meeting beforehand might be something to consider ahead of a significant meeting such as a vestry or AGM, where attendance and voting will be important. You can schedule a Zoom meeting a few days before your actual meeting and allow your people the chance to get familiar with logging in, raising their hand for discussion, and voting on motions (More info below on those elements).
An orientation meeting also gives the host and co-hosts extra opportunity to practice and get more comfortable with some features before the actual meeting.
Meeting Setup
When scheduling your meeting here are some settings recommendations:
Passcode – I’d recommend always using a passcode on your meeting. Zoom now allows you to edit it and create your own custom passcode. So you don’t need to use random numbers anymore. You can change it to something more memorable like the name of your church, meeting or something similar. It doesn’t have to be fancy.
Waiting Room – especially for a large meeting I wouldn’t normally use a waiting room. It adds one more thing for the host to keep track of and in most of our types of meetings isn’t necessary. But it’s up to you.
Video – I’d recommend selecting Host and Participants video to be on when they enter the meeting.
Audio Options – If you want people to be able to phone in to the meeting you can select “Telephone and computer audio”. Otherwise select “Computer Audio”.
In Meeting Security
The host of the meeting has quick access to many security features in the Security button along the bottom of the screen. A checkmark next to the feature means it is currently permitted. Among other things you can:
- Chat – Toggle the Chat feature on and off
- Share Screen – Toggle attendees ability to share their screen on and off. You may want to disable their ability to do so until they need to share something, to avoid accidental sharing. Co-hosts will be able to share even if this feature is toggled off.
- Unmute Themselves – Toggle attendees ability to unmute themselves. This means you can stop people from unmuting themselves until you click a button on their video asking them to unmute. If you’re having problems with folks unmuting themselves at unhelpful times, this can be useful.
Co-hosts
If you have other people in your meeting who can help you with some technical aspects like screen sharing, muting people, launching polls, etc. you can make them “Co-hosts”. This gives them many of the features you have as a host.
To make someone a co-host click Participants at the bottom while in the meeting, move your cursor over the name of the person you want to make a co-host, select “More” next to their name and select “Make Co-host”.
*Be aware that co-hosts cannot vote in polls. So, they will not be able to vote on motions using Zoom polls.
Detailed Agenda
Supplying your hosting team and presenters with a detailed agenda can really help your Zoom meetings run smoother. If everyone knows what’s coming up next and who needs to be involved you can avoid those awkward times of confusion and waiting to get some unmuted or prepared. It will also be invaluable to you as host and any co-hosts you have if you need to have files ready to share on the screen.
I’d recommend having your agenda include each section of the meeting with the names of each person required to speak during that section. Rough time allotments for each section can also be helpful for everyone.
Breaks
When setting your agenda if you meeting is going to be longer than an hour do consider scheduling a break time. Generally I’d recommend a break every 45 minutes or so in a Zoom meeting if it’s going to be longer than an hour. This gives people opportunity to use the bathroom, get a drink and stretch.
It can also be helpful for your hosting team and chair of the meeting to be able to go to a break if you need to think about or consult on an issue or concern.
Do remember to mute your microphones during breaks!
Muting All
If many people have been talking or greeting one another and you need to now focus on one speaker you can use the Mute All button to mute everyone at the same time. This button can be found by clicking Participants and clicking “Mute All” at the bottom of the Participants panel. Be aware that you can’t unmute people, they will need to unmute themselves.
Renaming
Hosts and co-hosts can rename people in the meeting. Often people join and don’t enter in their full name. You can rename people but hovering over their video, clicking the options in the top right and selecting Rename. Or by doing the same in the Participants panel by hovering over their name.
Moving Videos on Your Grid
You can reorganize how you are seeing all the video thumbnails while in Gallery View. Simply click on them, drag and drop them where you want them. This can be useful for a bunch of reasons. Among other things it can be useful if you have a small group of people who will be speaking or presenting in the meeting. You can drag and drop those few people to the top of your grid to make seeing, muting and asking them to unmute easier for you.
*Be aware this only alters how you are seeing the videos. It doesn’t change the view or order for anyone else.
Chat
Chat can be helpful in some meetings and a distraction in others. While in the meeting you can easily turn it on and off from the Security button at the bottom of the window.
Raise Hand
Especially in a larger meeting the “Raise Hand” button is invaluable. When people have a question or comment encourage them to use that button at the bottom. It sends a notification to the host and co-hosts. It will also sort them to the top of the names in the Participants panel and show a hand symbol next to their name. After they speak you can hover over their name or video and select “Lower Hand” (a good job for co-hosts).
In some cases it may be helpful to encourage people to only use the Raise Hand button during specified times of discussion. This can avoid steady disruptions during presentations, etc.
(Thankfully in recent updates to the Zoom interface the Raise Hand button has been made much more readily available and obvious!)
Voting with Polls
The simplest way to do voting in Zoom meetings is by using their Poll feature.
Important notes before we start:
- For polls to be effective each person who joins the meeting should join individually from their own device. If a couple or group were all to join the meeting from a single device they would only be able to cast one vote.
- Hosts and co-hosts cannot vote on polls.
- All attendees of the meeting can vote in the poll. So if you have non-voting members in the meeting you’ll need to consider that they do have the ability to vote. More on this below.
Here’s how to start using polls in your meetings:
Enabling Polls
In most Zoom accounts Polls are not enabled by default. You may need to enable the feature by
- going to your account on http://www.zoom.us
- select “Settings” from the menu on the left
- Scroll down and enable the “Meeting Poll” feature. (In the “In Meeting (Basic)” section)
Creating Polls
To use a poll in a meeting you need to create them after scheduling the meeting. To do this
- go to your account on http://www.zoom.us
- go to the Meetings tab from the menu on the left
- Click on the title of the meeting
- At the bottom you can add polls by clicking the “Add” button
- Enter a title for your poll. If you know the motion it will be used for you can use the motion’s title.
- Type your question or the content of the motion the poll will be used for. If you’re creating just a generic poll for voting you can enter in something like “How do you vote on this motion?”
- In most cases, for voting on motions you’ll want to keep “Single Choice” selected.
- Type in your vote options. For most situations you might use three options: “In favour”, “Opposed”, “Abstain”.
- Once you’re finished click “Save” at the bottom to save your poll.
You can add up to 25 polls per meeting.
Launching Polls
When you’re in the Zoom meeting the host should see an option at the bottom marked “Polling”.
When you click it your first poll will appear in a window. The poll title acts as a dropdown menu where you can access any other poll you’ve created for that meeting.
To launch a poll click “Launch Poll” at the bottom.
When a poll is launched everyone will be able to vote except for the host and co-hosts.
You will see a tally of how many people have voted.
Once you’re done with the voting you can click “End Poll”.
You will then see the results. If you want everyone to see them you can click “Share Results”. To stop sharing the results click “Stop Sharing”.
If you need to relaunch the same poll you can do that by clicking the button “Re-launch”.
Non-voting Members
So, if everyone in a meeting can potentially vote on a motion (except for hosts and co-hosts), how do we handle observers? Can we include them at all in a meeting? Obviously if your meeting is going to be fairly small you could consider allowing a few observers into the Zoom meeting. Then you would need to just ensure that when there’s a vote the number of votes doesn’t exceed the number of voting members in the meeting.
However, if your meeting is larger that may simply not be a feasible option. In this case, like we did in Synod 2020, you could consider offering a livestream on Facebook or YouTube where observers could watch the meeting without being able to vote on motions.
If streaming the meeting live seems a little daunting you could also consider simply recording the meeting and then posting it to YouTube or Facebook afterwards.
Live-streaming
Livestreaming through Zoom is relatively simple. All you need is a YouTube channel or Facebook page. The host must be the one who activates the livestream. Here’s the basic step by step for live-streaming:
- After the host enters your meeting click the “More” button along the bottom
- You will be able to select Facebook or YouTube
- When you select one it will open a window in your internet browser where you can choose an account or page and enable the livestream
- Once you’ve enabled the livestream you should start to see it play in your browser window. (I’d recommend closing the window at this point, so you’re not doubling your bandwidth usage and so you don’t hear the meeting echoing in your audio. The meeting will continue to stream.)
- When you return to Zoom you should see a notice near the top confirming that you are live-streaming. Remember this means anyone watching can hear and see everything in the meeting.
- By default the livestream will see the meeting in Speaker View mode, so it will see whoever’s speaking filling the screen.
Screen Sharing
You can share lots of different types of content during a Zoom meeting including Powerpoint presentations, documents and videos. Many of you will have some experience already in using this feature. There are a few tips we can suggest in this process.
Share Individual Windows
Rather than sharing you complete desktop consider sharing just the window or program you want to share. When you click “Share Screen” you will see a grid of the windows and programs you have open. Select the specific one you want to share. This will help ensure you share just what you wanted to share. It also means that you can do other things on your computer if necessary while sharing a certain file or video in the meeting.
Have Your Files Ready
Your screen sharing can be much smoother if you have the files you want to share open and fully ready to go before it’s time to share them in the meeting. So, if you want to share documents or videos have them open and ready. If you want to share content from a Powerpoint presentation have the presentation open and even already launched in full screen. That way when you share your screen people are immediately seeing what you want them to see.
(On most computers Powerpoint presentations can be controlled while screen sharing. You may need to click on the presentation after launching the screen sharing, so your computer knows you want to control Powerpoint now, rather than Zoom.)
Share Sound
If what you’re sharing has sound that you want everyone in the meeting hear clearly, such as a video or presentation with music, make sure you check the checkbox at the bottom of the Share Screen window marked “Share sound” before clicking the “Share” button. (If you forget you can still share your computer sound by going to the “More …” button while screen sharing)
Optimize For Video
If you are sharing a video clip make sure you check the checkbox at the bottom of the Share Screen window marked “Optimize for video clip” before clicking the “Share” button. This will make your video share much smoother. (If you forget you can still optimize for video by going to the “More …” button while screen sharing)
Also be aware that the resolution of the window your video is playing in will be the resolution of the video being shared with others.
Pause Sharing
If you ever want to pause what you’re sharing, keeping it on people’s screen, while finding or preparing another file or page to share you can do that by clicking “Pause Share” at the top of the screen while screen sharing. To resume click “Resume Share”.
Prerecord Presentations
If you are having a large number of presentations, given by a diverse group of people, you might want to consider prerecording some of those presentations. This can help avoid some of the snags common in Zoom meetings such as the presenter has internet issues, they can’t find the unmute button, their dog starts wildly barking midway through, or they’re in the bathroom when their time comes! 🙂
Instead you can have these presenters video their presentation ahead of time with their phone or webcam* and send the videos to the host or co-hosts before the meeting. Then when it’s time for the presentation the host or co-host can share the video. This also means that your hosting team can know ahead of time exactly how long the presentation will take which can help for structuring your meeting.
(*If you have presenters who don’t know how to video themselves but do know how to join a Zoom meeting you could meet them in a Zoom meeting and record their presentation by recording the meeting.)
If there’s a need for the presenter to respond to questions or comments, they should be in the meeting and be able to do that part live. But then you’ve at least circumvented some common snags that can come with their presentation.
Registration
You can require registration beforehand for people to join your meeting. This can be helpful to get an idea of who is attending. The other small advantage can be that it ensures when they enter the meeting their full name will display properly, rather than getting five named iPad or Family Computer.
To require registration
- either schedule the meeting or edit your meeting from your account at http://www.zoom.us
- Select the checkbox “Required” next to Registration
- Save your meeting.
You should then see a “Registration Link” which has been generated. This is where you can send people to register for your meeting.
To edit the registration details
- go to back to your list of Meetings and click on the title of the meeting
- Scroll to the bottom and next to “Registration Options” click “Edit”.
- A window should popup letting you edit a bunch of options including the questions each registrant must answer when registering.
- Click Save All to save your changes.
After people register and are approved they should receive a confirmation email which will include their unique link for entering the meeting. Make sure they know to click that link from their confirmation email so that they enter the meeting with their name.