By Greg Ellison

Test runs completed, directors will convene in video conference

(April 9, 2020) With innumerable adjustments underway globally in reaction to the covid-19 pandemic, the Ocean Pines Association Board held its April 1 meeting online to provide membership the ability to participate.

OPA President Doug Parks said ways to give membership real-time access to the board’s sessions had been researched before the board convened last week.

“The first iteration we wanted to make sure external folks could join the meeting and both see and hear what’s going on,” he said.

In a cost-conscious move, despite the wealth of web-based meeting formats available for purchase, the conclusion was reached to make use of an in-house video conferencing option, Microsoft TEAMS.

“First and foremost was, before we incur any costs to run a virtual meeting, let’s look at TEAMS because we’re already paying for it,” he said. “One of the reasons wanted to use [was because] it comes with the Microsoft licensing we have for Office 365.”

Parks said to ensure the cost-effective measure was not penny wise and pound foolish, a test run was conducted followed by a practice session.

“This past Monday, we had a dry run with all seven directors tying in,” he said.

To replicate the actual experience, Parks wore two hats during the dry run, logging in as a board member and also accessing the meeting using the provided web link.

“I simulated myself being an external participant,” he said. “Somebody that would not have been on the invite list but clicked on the web link.”

The main concern was having an interactive medium for association members to provide public comments.

“How do you interact with those folks from, number one, identifying someone that wanted to make a public comment, and … moderating it in such a way that you don’t have people talking over one another.”

In preparation for the April meeting, Parks said during an OPA Board special meeting on March 20 members were asked to email questions ahead of time to directors@oceanpines.org.

“For the meeting on the first, no one had sent in any emails with regard to public comments,” he said.

Parks said it remains unclear if the absence of responses was indicative of membership’s lack of questions or if members were unfamiliar with the online process.

“We agreed amongst ourselves that I would read those comments that came into that mailbox,” he said. “All the directors will see the comment.”

Parks said although the directors concluded that the virtual meeting last week was acceptable, further refinements are being sought to improve the interactive experience for members.

“We’re trying to think of other ways they can submit questions,” he said.

Ideally, external participants could view the proceedings and chime in during the public comment portion.

“There’s pros and cons to that, the pro being they can submit a question … actually speak and everybody can hear them,” he said.

On the down side, Parks said the TEAMS platform is not presently configured to permit precise muting abilities to eliminate background noise from other participants.

“I can do that but there’s no way to mute everybody else,” he said. “You actually have to count on the folks … to have the … virtual meeting courtesy to mute their line.”

For now, the online meeting format remains a work in progress.

“Right now it’s in its infancy [but] I’d like to refine it to the point where it’s well run,” he said. “We’re not there yet, but certainly we’re not at a point where nobody can deliver a public comment.”