Best Practices For Hybrid Club Meetings

Hybrid vigour (heterosis) or outbreeding enchantment refers to the improved biological function in hybrid offspring. Basically, offspring of genetically distinct parents often exhibit superior traits in plants and animals, such as increased size, growth rate, fertility, yield, or disease resistance. It is the opposite of inbreeding depression. 

This is why we all know a pure-breed dog that will need to be hospitalised for sneezing too hard. Yet, there are mutts that are seemingly invulnerable to everything but large artillery fire. In fact, mix-breed dogs live an average of 1.2 years longer than pure-breed dogs.  

 

 

My point is that when you combine different things, you can get the best parts of each and end up with a better, faster, stronger, hardier result. 

I’ve brought up heterosis today because it applies to the meetings you run for your club. You get the best of both worlds by combining your in-person and online meetings into hybrid ones. In the past, I have discussed how to run an in-person and online event with Member Jungle, but today, we will look at how you can combine them into one even better hybrid event. 

What Is A Hybrid Event?

A hybrid event can be attended in person and online, giving attendees a wider range of ways to attend your event, which will help boost event attendance. For obvious reasons, certain types of events are better suited to hybrid events than others, such as committee meetings, AGMs, courses, and lessons. I’m not saying you can’t run a hybrid car meet; it’s just going to be pretty tricky unless everyone has their own extremely expensive advanced racing sims at home. 

 

 

Also, I don't know if you can read the brand on the steering wheel, but it is a very well-respected brand of high-end racing sim hardware, inexplicably called Thrustmaster. You can't make this stuff up. 

The point is that hybrid meetings are much better suited for events without a physical component. 

So, for a committee meeting, you might have all of your committee members meet in person for the usual meeting. You also have a laptop in the room that streams the meeting via Google Meet, Zoom, or another program so that others can watch or join in. I even found a stock image of this exact thing for demonstration. 

 

 

 

You won’t need any fancy technology or expensive subscription to do this, either. All you need is a laptop or computer with a webcam and a free Google account, and you’ll be underway. 

What Are The Benefits Of Hybrid Meetings?

The main advantage of hybrid meetings is that offering both in-person and online attendance makes it much easier and more flexible for people to attend your events, helping boost event attendance levels. Online events don't require travel or parking and are more accessible for people who are nervous in crowds or have disabilities, which makes attending in-person events impractical. They can also be recorded, allowing interested members to catch up on what happened if they couldn't make the original meeting. 

Hybrid events have all these benefits while maintaining standard in-person events' more interpersonal and intimate aspects.

It will be easier for people to attend events and meetings and make it less intimidating for members to try attending new events. I've mentioned this before, but if you are trying to get more members interested in being on your committee, it's a great idea to open your committee meetings to all members, not just committee members. This way, members can get a better idea of what happens in committee meetings and become more confident about what they are getting themselves into if they do decide to join.

By making your committee meetings hybrid, you're allowing even more members to come and see what your committee meetings are like in a less intimidating way. Doing it this way, you will find that you get greater member engagement not just in your committee meetings but in decision-making and the club in general, not to mention more members interested in becoming committee members themselves.

Basically, hybrid events have all the good parts of both in person and online events, and less of the bad parts. 

Speaking of how good hybrid things are, have you ever heard of a liger? It’s an animal whose father was a lion and mother was a tiger; they regularly grow to more than twice the size of either parent and live several years longer, too. Below, you can see a liger next to a fully-grown Bengal tiger. 

 

How To Run A Hybrid Meeting With Member Jungle

Running a hybrid event with Member Jungle is pretty straightforward and nearly identical to how you run standard in-person and online events. Basically, when you’re setting up your event in your Member Jungle system, all you need to do is click on the “Location” tab. You’ll then need to set a physical location and add a meeting link. You should also mention that the event can be attended online or in person in your main event description and in any marketing you do for your event. 

 

 

Other than simply adding the event's physical location and meeting link, you only need to set up event registration so your members can register online.

You can set up your registration so members can simply register to attend. Then, they will have the option to attend either in person or online. While you probably wouldn't do this for a meeting, you could also sell tickets so that members need to pay to join the event online or in person.

If you are feeling ambitious, you can set up two different tickets for your event, one for online attendance and one for in-person attendance, and charge different rates for each. However, I imagine the need for this would be fairly limited.

Hybrid Club Event Checklist

Running a hybrid club event or meeting is an easy way to enhance your club events, increase flexibility, and boost attendance. Here are some critical steps to follow when planning and setting up your hybrid meeting to ensure its success.

• Define Goals: Clearly outline the purpose and desired outcome of the event.
   
• Choose the Right Platform: Select a user-friendly platform (Google Meet, Zoom, etc.) that seamlessly supports both in-person and virtual interaction.
   
• Promote Widely: Utilise Member Jungle to promote your event on social media, emails, website, Member Jungle app, etc.
   
• Seamless Registration: Make registration easy for in-person and virtual participants via the Member Jungle Event Module. 
   
• Test Technology: Ensure the internet, computer, camera, and microphone are good enough for people attending online to be able to see and hear proceedings. 
   
• Gather Feedback: Collect feedback from both audiences to evaluate success and identify areas for improvement.
   
• Share & Analyze: Share event recordings and materials with all attendees. Analyse data to track attendance, engagement, and other metrics.

Hybrid Meetings Do’s & Don’t’s

Finally, let’s discuss the rules for running a hybrid meeting. A hybrid meeting is different from other meetings in that it caters to two different audiences at the same time, and you need to make sure they both feel welcome and equally able to participate. For example, suppose your in-person attendees start having a conversation between themselves in the room. In that case, it can be very hard for online attendees to hear due to how sound is processed via online meeting software. To fix this, you should limit the number of side conversations between attendees in the room. 

So, let’s get into all the rules you should consider for your hybrid meetings. 

Hybrid Meeting Rules 

No side conversations: Side conversations between in-person attendees can make online attendees feel left out. 

Recap side comments: Though it’s best not to have them in the first place, if someone does make a comment in the room, you need to repeat it so that all of those online can definitely hear it. 

Raised hands to speak: When someone has something to say in person or online, they should raise their hand to make it easier for everyone to know who will be speaking.   

Name check speakers: When a new person starts speaking online or in person, make sure you announce to the group who is speaking so everyone knows. If there is only one camera on the whole in-person meeting, it can be hard for those online to tell. 

Focus the camera on speakers: If possible, when a new person starts talking, you should zoom the camera into them so it is clear who is speaking for online attendees. This won't be possible with every set-up, but make sure the speaker is front and centre on the camera where possible. 

Microphones off, cameras on: This is for online attendees only, but the standard online meeting courtesy should apply here, too. When not talking attendees should keep their cameras on and microphones off. We don’t want to be staring at a dozen blank screens or getting a dozen different sets of background noise. 

Consider the ratio of in-person to online attendees: If the majority of your attendees are going to be online, you may want to reconsider making it an online-only event, even having those members who are physically in attendance join via their laptops.

What’s Your Next Step? 

Well, that is how to run a successful hybrid event and what sort of benefits you can expect to get if you do so. 

If you want some information about AGMs and how to run a great one for your club, see How To Run A Great AGM For Your Club. 

For more about running club meetings in general, read How To Run More Effective Club Meetings.