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    Judson Vaughn
    Keymaster

    All,

    Mike (and Lindy) and I visited the Floris Methodist Church complex on Thursday to check out their facility as an “in person” meeting location for the PNSN.

    Mike and Lindy are members of this church and are familiar with the facility. It is a phenomenal physical plant and the church welcomes our participation.

    We looked at Room 208 and 224 (Wesley Room) as potential sites for in-person/hybrid meetings. Both rooms have WiFi access, a large video monitor and audio capability. Seating for both is set for classroom, but this can easily be changed to theater-style.

    Room 208, a smaller 20-capacity room, seems right for our proposed hybrid meetings. Room 224 would easily accommodate 50 people.

    The idea is that a head table would be set at the front of the room, where a Host computer would be placed to run the meeting. From that computer a video signal would connect to the Zoom link and to the AV capability in the room.

    People in the room would be able to see and hear Zoom participants on the large overhead screen (with the help of the Polycom unit).

    People on the Zoom call would be able to see the people seated at the head table, including the presenter. With an auxiliary Zoom connection, Zoom participants would be able to see and hear in-person participants (with the help of the Polycom unit).

    WHY THE SMALLER ROOM?
    The two rooms are identical in terms of AV/WiFi/Zoom capability. We anticipate a small number of attendees who prefer in-person attendance and are willing to drive to there. So the smaller room is sized for our anticipated usage.

    The larger room is always available to us upon request.

    <strong>WHAT EQUIPMENT WOULD WE NEED TO BRING IN?</strong>
    The room is equipped with basic AV/WiFi/Zoom capability, but the configuration is generally set-up for a teaching situation (one to many) or self-supporting small group (local discussion).

    We can add several components that will optimize the basic configuration into an excellent hybrid capability.

    WHAT ARE THE BASIC CONFIGURATIONS?
    There are about four different hybrid scenarios.

    A. Simple set-up with no guest presenter. This is basically the configuration we use now for our meetings, except it adds a Polycom audio conferencing unit for enhanced sound (both mic and speaker) in the room for in-person attendees. The connected remote Zoom participants would be able tohear in-person attendees clearly. People in the room can see remote participants via the large video monitor in the room and hear them through loud speakers in the front.

    All incoming audio from the head table to the Zoom audience would go through a Polycom unit in the middle of the room. This unit will provide both local mic pickup for the Zoom audience and amplification for the local audience.

    B. Guest speaker in the room. This is scenario A with a Presenter sitting at the head table with her own laptop. This assumes that the presenter is comfortable advancing her own slides. In this scenario, the guest speaker’s computer would be connected to Zoom but the presenter’s mic would be turned off. The presenter’s audio would be captured via the front room mics (through the audio mixer).

    C. Guest speaker connected remotely. Same as scenario A, except that the guest speaker/Presenter is a remote Zoom connection. For those in the room, the Zoom video and audio is projected on the large monitor at the front of the room.

    D. Hybrid meeting with remote Host. This is the Pittsburgh configuration. The Host is connected from a remote location but the Presenter and Moderator are located at the in-person location. This is an enhanced scenario A, so that the in-person and Zoom attendees can hear questions and answers clearly even though the Host computer is in another location.

    I’ve included diagrams of these four scenarios so we can discuss.

    Jud

    A helpful diagram is here.

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