Can you think of a way I can make meetings smoother with Zoom?

With the Church recently allowing us to join their Enterprise account, and their recommendation for using Breakout Rooms in Zoom, here's my plan for the next year:

- Sacrament Meeting via Zoom
-- Single recurring meeting every Sunday
-- No breakout rooms required
-- Video and audio sharing disabled for users

- Sunday School via Zoom
-- Single recurring meeting every 1st and 3rd Sunday
-- Preset Breakout Rooms for "Adult Sunday School" and "Youth Sunday School"
-- Video and audio sharing enabled for users

- Quorum Meetings via Zoom
-- Single recurring meeting every 2nd and 4th Sunday
-- Preset Breakout Rooms for "Young Men", "Young Women", "Elders", and "Relief Society"
-- Video and audio sharing enabled for users

Notes:
- We only get one licensed user, so we can't pre-select Alternate Hosts (but can manually select Co-Hosts during meetings)
- Sunday School and Quorum Meetings need video and audio sharing for users for class participation (and it allows the teachers to share without having to manually be set as Co-Hosts
- Preset Breakout Rooms mean I don't have to manually re-create them at the beginning of each meeting
- I can't really pre-assign Breakout Rooms as we never really know which account users will join with
- At the beginning of Sunday School and Quorum Meetings, a Host (likely me) will need to manually set "Let participants choose room" and click "Open all rooms" (I haven't found a way to do this automatically via meeting scheduler)

The last point is really the only thing I can think of preventing this from being fully hands-off.
Does anyone have any input on this format, or ideas on how to make it even smoother?

elmerohueso wrote:Preset Breakout Rooms for "Young Men", "Young Women", "Elders", and "Relief Society"
-- Video and audio sharing enabled for users

As tempting as it is to re-create our normal 2nd hour meetings, I'd be sensitive to the demands that places on the members as far as devices, internet bandwidth, and living space needed to do them all at once.

As tempting as it is to re-create our normal 2nd hour meetings, I'd be sensitive to the demands that places on the members as far as devices, internet bandwidth, and living space needed to do them all at once.

As well as the fact that there's no Primary to take care of the younger kids, which in effect likely means many parents will have to choose which of them attends class that day, and which controls the chaos of kid kingdom. Or a single-parent with similar concerns.

It's understandable that any other solution then imposes a "longer church day" on families, so each unit likely will have a different preference.

I just sent the following message to ward members:

We will be switching from Google Meet to Zoom meetings next week. Feedback from ward council members suggests that youth meetings for second hour classes will continue to use the same online meetings that they are using now, so there will be no change for them.

Sacrament Meeting and all adult second hour meetings will share the same Zoom meeting link: (URL removed)

When Sacrament Meeting ends, I will invite all the brethren to join the Elders Quorum breakout room, while all the sisters will remain in the main meeting room. That way, the brethren will not need to exit the meeting to join a separate Elders Quorum meeting. I will grant RS and EQ leaders and teachers "co-host" privileges so they may manage their respective groups.

On Sunday School weeks, there will be no need for a breakout room, since all adults will simply remain in the main meeting used for Sacrament Meeting, as we do now.

I have used the Ward Events calendar to send out invitations to everyone who has subscribed. You should receive an email titled "Ward Events calendar event notification" which contains all the information you need to join the Zoom meeting. If not, then you should login to the church website and check your calendar subscriptions. Let me know if you need help.

I felt it was easier (and more secure) to use the church calendar to send out emails, rather than try to copy and paste every email address of ward members into the Zoom or Google scheduling tools.

Please download and install the Zoom Client app for the best user experience. You can either create a free Zoom account for yourself, or sign in using your Google or Facebook account.

BrianEdwards wrote: As well as the fact that there's no Primary to take care of the younger kids, which in effect likely means many parents will have to choose which of them attends class that day, and which controls the chaos of kid kingdom. Or a single-parent with similar concerns.

It's understandable that any other solution then imposes a "longer church day" on families, so each unit likely will have a different preference.

I totally spaced thinking about that. I can't think of a great way to better accommodate single-parent households with young children from our end, other than suggesting they don't need to feel obligated to be fully active in classes (their obligation should be to their family) but to try to have the class as "background noise" when they can. For dual-parent households, splitting men/women, youth/adults into separate hours would help, but as you said, make the day longer.

What other solutions can you think of for better accommodating families with young children?

elmerohueso wrote:What other solutions can you think of for better accommodating families with young children?

From a supervision standpoint, I'd think a "longer day" is the only option. Primary events would have to be at a different time than the adult meetings. The only other option is to have a parent and child in the same room dealing with their respective meetings at the same time. I don't see that as allowing the parent to participate in their meeting.

It was before my time, but I understand that in the church's history, some of these meetings weren't even held on a Sunday.

The thing that has enabled simultaneous meetings is multi-room meetinghouses with trusted leaders to supervise the children. But virtual is a different situation.

russellhltn wrote:It was before my time, but I understand that in the church's history, some of these meetings weren't even held on a Sunday.

I went to Primary on Thursday afternoons. Seat belts were not yet required, so Mom could get 15 or 16 of us in the station wagon on the way to the building where our ward met.

And this is even before my time. The monthly Church fast used to be on Thursday, and fast and testimony meeting was held that evening. As I understand it, the Saints in England petitioned the First Presidency for permission to fast on another day of the week because it was so difficult for them to labor in the factories without eating. The Thursday fast became Fast Sunday as we know it today.

elmerohueso wrote:With the Church recently allowing us to join their Enterprise account, and their recommendation for using Breakout Rooms in Zoom, here's my plan for the next year:

- Sacrament Meeting via Zoom
-- Single recurring meeting every Sunday
-- No breakout rooms required
-- Video and audio sharing disabled for users

- Sunday School via Zoom
-- Single recurring meeting every 1st and 3rd Sunday
-- Preset Breakout Rooms for "Adult Sunday School" and "Youth Sunday School"
-- Video and audio sharing enabled for users

- Quorum Meetings via Zoom
-- Single recurring meeting every 2nd and 4th Sunday
-- Preset Breakout Rooms for "Young Men", "Young Women", "Elders", and "Relief Society"
-- Video and audio sharing enabled for users

Notes:
- We only get one licensed user, so we can't pre-select Alternate Hosts (but can manually select Co-Hosts during meetings)
- Sunday School and Quorum Meetings need video and audio sharing for users for class participation (and it allows the teachers to share without having to manually be set as Co-Hosts
- Preset Breakout Rooms mean I don't have to manually re-create them at the beginning of each meeting
- I can't really pre-assign Breakout Rooms as we never really know which account users will join with
- At the beginning of Sunday School and Quorum Meetings, a Host (likely me) will need to manually set "Let participants choose room" and click "Open all rooms" (I haven't found a way to do this automatically via meeting scheduler)

The last point is really the only thing I can think of preventing this from being fully hands-off.
Does anyone have any input on this format, or ideas on how to make it even smoother?

For Sacrament I am planning on going with a webinar so there is no interruption from the viewers/listeners. Looking to have one person, maybe myself or a member of the branch presidency, to act as the host, and then have a tablet or laptop on the podium as a panelist, this way a speaker does not have to worry about adding or ejecting someone, nor muting for the administration of the sacrament, etc.

Because we can have two concurrent meetings we will be hosting primary as one session, with Aaronic Priesthood and YW in the second session, with breakout rooms for both of them. Being a small branch we do not need to use the breakout feature for primary, yet as we grow in size I could see setting up breakout rooms for the Sunbeams, CTR 4, etc. We are trying to stay within 50 minutes, as was mentioned when the First Presidency announce going from a three hour block to a two hour block. This gives a small break to parents to give the youngest ones snacks or lay them down for a nap before the adult sessions starts. As mentioned above the Sunday School classes can all be done in one meeting, while we will have separate EQ and RS classes using both concurrent sessions - no need for a breakout room in this case. We are in the process of switching over to the church account, yet right now the different group presidencies are using their own free Zoom accounts for the second hour.

For the Sunday service I am looking at sending out invitations that just log you straight into the webinar, no need for a waiting room, or for the host to admit you. You might wonder why I would still have a host and panelist combo, and that is just to make it easier on all involve, and share the log-in info with one less person - the one providing the device. I am thinking of doing the same for the other meetings, yet if the invitation gets posted to the internet, say Facebook for example, then unless there is host/co-host logged in, there would be no way to moderate the session if an outsider chose to wreak havoc and disrupt the session. Because of this I am still thinking of the invitations without a waiting room, yet send the session leaders (or just the group president) the proper credentials to log in as a host, and then I would change the password on a weekly basis. If the group presidents have the log-in info for the local account they would be able to schedule not just the (bi-)weekly meetings they could also schedule special sessions, say a presidency meeting or a fifth Tuesday meeting.

We have older members in our branch that do not have a computer nor smart phone, so they will have to use a dial-in number. Then we have households that only have one computer, and so they have to choose between EQ and RS. Next we have large households, with primary, Aaronic Priesthood, and YW - this is where it gets really tricky, and I don't even want to try to figure it out, I will leave that to the families. Our branch is in a farming community, and so some people, such as myself, are lucky to even have internet service at levels below what is considered to be high speed standards. Because of all of the different circumstances I am glad to see we are able to use a corporate account - the dial-in option will be a big help to a lot of people in our rural branch.