Best Practices for configuring Trustee/HOA meeting

[wlbZoom]

Is there a way to get some webinar-like results using the most economical meeting plan?

We are an HOA association and we are contemplating using Zoom Meetings for our Trustee meetings in a way that the residents can observe and remain muted.

Ideally, I would like two invitation links… one that forces muting for the residents and one for the Trustees that does not.   However, it looks like a meeting can be setup in a way that everyone or noone get the extra permission-to-unmute question popup upon entering the meeting.  Am I interpreting that correctly?     

 I would like that the Trustee host doesn't have to specifically unmute the other trustees.    I would also like that the audience members joining the meetings do not distract from the meeting. 

Oh, and the Trustees will sometimes be in a conference room.  We can dedicate one laptop to the "room".   

p.s. newbie… have only used Zoom as an attendee.

[Ray_Harwood]

Hi, @wlbZoom –

I see your post from 2/22/22 has gone unanswered – this is the first time I’ve noticed it, and happy I found you!

I’m president of my homeowners association here in Arizona. For many HOAs, getting anyone to attend is hard enough that “crowd control” isn’t a big issue. We do have between zero and 10 non-board members in attendance, and never have had an issue, with 5 board members, a community manager, and occasionally a vendor or committee member also in attendance. 

Not all HOAs are so orderly at their meetings – and as you are certainly aware, some can get downright out of hand. Back to your question: a Zoom Webinar license is $79/month, but can’t be purchased separately – you must have a Zoom Pro license for Meetings at about $15/monthly. If you have a large association, and might be able to use the  Webinar feature for other events like training, committee meetings, etc., it might be with your while.

I’m also a member of National Association of Parliamentarians, and from that perspective and from my Zoom event production and facilitation experience, I actually recommend that a large association not self-host their own meetings. Having an independent facilitator manage the attendees, participant/panelists, and screen sharing helps your board treat everyone fairly. Many states (including my Arizona) have statutes that require homeowners be permitted to speak at certain times. A third party controlling this access lends transparency to your proceedings. I’ve done this on a limited basis for around $100/hour – I  know people that do this a lot who charge a lot more, consequently most HOAs decide just to do it themselves – until they have an issue, when they often decide they need a parliamentarian, an attorney, and a Zoom professional facilitator on board. 😎

There are ways to control who can unmute and speak in a regular meeting – it’s slightly more complicated than i can go into here, but if it interests you, I can help you a bit. 

Please respond if you are still interested.