If you're part of a group that has been meeting on Zoom during covid, are you thinking about resuming in-person meetings?

All of my meetings are voluntary.

Most of my groups that were zooming during covid are back to in-person, but some remain on zoom.

I started going back to in-person discussion groups about 3 months ago, and I usually wear a mask or sit very far from other people. I started going back to in-person zumba in large rooms about 6 months ago. The rooms can hold around 100, but usually have 40 to 70 now. Once in a while I do zumba in a smaller room, but rarely.

I almost always have a mask hanging around my neck at the ready. I always put on my mask in public restrooms.

I do pull back on attending when I think cases will surge. The next time I might take more precautions is near Christmas time. I figure Thanksgiving will start exposing a lot of people, and the numbers will ramp up as Christmas approaches.

I am kind of haphazard, trying to cut the risk, but relying on some luck also that when I take risks, hopefully I am not exposed to covid.

We resumed in person AA meetings in July of 2021. On occasion we would meet masked, but only when the county recommended it. We have had a few people get Covid, but not from the meetings, and we have not had any simultaneous outbreak.

We went back to the office full time earlier this year. We wear masks everywhere except when seated at our desks.

In case you can’t see the tags (I can’t right now), they say:

business meetings, support groups, meetings, Zoom, social gatherings, virtual meetings, face-to-face meetings, self-help groups, hybrid meetings

I’m particularly interested in attempts to hold hybrid meetings, with some people in a room and some participating remotely.

It’s really all over the place. All zoom, hybrid (alternating between the two), and in-person.

I gauge the three D’s. Distance, Density and Duration. And whether I actually need to attend. But need may be hyperbole. It’s mostly voluntary.

We did hybrid meetings for well over a year where I live in some groups. This past August was the last remaining hybrid meeting that I attend to finally convert back to only doing in-person, but the leader of that group is still recording the speaker to be seen by anyone who didn’t attend.

Two of my groups might never go back to in-person, and that’s good for me, because those two I discovered during covid and are out-of-state for me.

This was in place for me prior to Covid.
In a worldwide organization, people are all over the world in different locations. They will and have been hybrid since prior to Covid for me.

Business meetings have stayed remote, business-social meetings have gone to voluntary in-person.

Most of my UU committee meetings are still on Zoom. I think we find them efficient and more convenient now. I have attended a few hybrid board meetings remotely and that is not as successful.

I have gone to some classes that are in person and were fairly small gatherings.

We went to holding zoom meetings early on in the pandemic. Then in July, we started meeting again in person with those that were still not comfortable with face to face meetings calling in. Our last meeting in September had everyone there and it was decided that all meetings going forward would be in person unless something changed.

Oh, it sounds like there are two kinds of hybrid meetings: alternating between in-person and Zoom (that right, @raum)? is one, and holding an in-person meeting that includes a Zoom setup in the room for remote participants is the other.

If you are doing one or the other, please say which. @JLeslie, how were your hybrid meetings set up? @Forever_Free, how do your worldwide meetings work as hybrid?

My only understanding of hybrid is some people are in the room together and some are Zoomed in. Otherwise, it’s one kind or the other.

@janbb Yes, that’s the original way it was used during the pandemic. But I’ve noticed now that things are opening back up, organizations have been using the same word to say they will offer both. It’s legitimately confusing.

@Jeruba The hybrid meetings, the in-person part of the meeting took place in the regular room they had before covid. They set up a laptop with zoom and the rec center supplied the wire connection to project the laptop screen onto a large white screen like when you do a PowerPoint presentation for a room of people. This way everyone in the room could see the zoom screen.

In a large room the speaker in the room had a microphone so the room could hear and at the same time the people on zoom could hear. In a small room they just talked directly in front of the laptop like any zoom.

Sometimes the speaker was in the room in person as described above, and sometimes the speaker was zooming in and they were projected onto the large screen, because that’s what was showing on the laptop that was connected to the screen.

When hybrid was available I still used zoom from home.

When only in-person was available I started going to some meetings, with my mask, but I’m much pickier about the meetings I go to, I need to be very interested in the topic.

If I didn’t describe it well please feel free to ask me to further explain or clarify.

My understanding of hybrid is as @janbb describes. It’s a combination of some people in-the-room and other people on Zoom or other platform.

Otherwise a meeting is described as “in person” or “remote.” In person is as described and so is remote.

Already did. I’m on a County board here. We did Zoom meetings at first, then optional in person meetings with masks required.

A couple months ago the county rescinded the ‘optional’ part – all meetings need to open and in person; all votes need to be in person. Masks optional.

@jca2 Do you think my description is different than @janbb? I just wonder if I didn’t describe it well. I was giving more detail, because it seemed like @Jeruba wanted more detail, but my answer is the exact same as @janbb with more specifics. Some of us are attending from home via zoom and some are in a meeting place.

@JLeslie, you gave a good description, thanks. Most comments here have been helpful in various ways. @raum expands the meaning of “hybrid” in an unexpected way. I have a feeling there’s more to come.

@zenvelo, do you know of other AA meetings in your area that are hybrid in the sense of combining in-person and Zoom in the same room?

Ok, good. I thought maybe in my description jellies might not understand the people in the room and at home are all part of the same meeting simultaneously.

@Jeruba There are hybrid AA meetings in which some people attend an in person meeting via zoom. For the most part, they are not very successful, because monitoring who has their hand up on the zoom call disrupts the flow of the face to face meeting. However, certain speaker meetings where there is a primary speaker and not a lot of discussion by other participants work well.

Typo: should be “might not have understood” rather than “understand.” I mixed tenses.

My wife is in a local Toastmasters® group. They went virtual during the lockdown, but have recently resumed in-person meetings.

I teach. We have been in-person since fall 2020 with 7–12 distance learning for 6 weeks that winter. Staff meetings and conferences were on Zoom until fall of ‘21.