VIRTUAL
MEETING SUPPORT SERVICES
CHF BC can help you with your virtual AGM, board meeting, town hall and other meetings with our consultant Hosts, Technical Support People and Election Specialists. (See Co-op Consultations for Chairing services, or our Tips for Virtual Meetings if you’re just looking for some general recommendations.)
Virtual Meetings
We offer a range of fee-based virtual meeting services.
Looking for more flexible options for holding your co-op meetings? Need support or tools to have an effective online meeting? We can help with virtual board meetings, general meetings, town halls, and more.
We also have tips and recommendations about best practices and how to prepare for various kinds of meetings.
Member Feedback
CHF BC began testing its meeting support services in May 2020 before formally launching the program in July. We have had a chance to work with various co-ops, helping with general meetings, info sessions, annual general meetings and more.
We always seek feedback about the platforms we use and how members regard the meetings as a whole. Nine in ten members recently rated the Zoom platform as either excellent or very good, and 19 in 20 gave a very favourable rating (“excellent” or “very good”) to their meeting with CHF BC participation.
“CHF did a great job with this meeting.”
“The facilitation, technical support and behind the scenes assistance were excellent.”
“We were so pleased with the way CHF BC handled our budget meeting online that we’d like to get on the calendar again for a GM in October and our AGM in December”
If you have used our service and have suggestions or comments, please write to members@chf.bc.ca.
Meeting Support Services: Roles
Apart from a robust digital platform with rich features (like Zoom or GoToMeeting), a successful virtual meeting needs people. A good virtual meeting will have someone act as chair (a co-op member, a CHF BC Consultant Chair, or someone else with the necessary skills) and one or more others who can handle the technical elements of a meeting.
The key positions are Host, Technical Support People and Election Support People. Your meeting may need one or more of these depending on the nature of your event. CHF BC has trained consultants capable of acting in each of these roles.
Role: Host
There are a lot of practical elements to a virtual meeting that have to be settled before the meeting actually takes place. A Host gathers information and ensures the right virtual meeting platform is selected to meet the needs of the co-op.
The Host will set up a practice run for presenters (and others if interested) to ensure a basic familiarity with the platform, answer questions, and ensure agreement on how voting, meeting agreements and speaker lists will work. On the day of the meeting, the Host can provide assistance with registration and technical issues (where participant numbers permit, for larger meetings this will be the domain of a Technical Support Person). During the meeting, itself, the Host supports the Chair.
Hosts usually provide opening remarks about the use of the platform so everyone understands what they need to know. Hosts are generally responsible for controlling presentations and, when necessary, transferring screen control to various presenters. They can manage when participants may be heard (with guidance from the Chair); they monitor chat boxes and can prepare speaker lists; they can note whether quorum is maintained throughout the proceedings; they can manage break-out rooms; and they can prepare and launch polls.
Small virtual meetings may only require a Host or a Technical Support Person. Larger meetings generally require both for smooth functioning, particularly during the registration and troubleshooting phase, before the scheduled start time.
Role: Technical Support Person
A lot of what makes a good meeting is invisible, but background technical support is critical.
Before a scheduled meeting starts formally, someone needs to launch the platform so people can sign on, test their connections and orient themselves on the platform. Consultants who play the role of Technical Support Person assist with tracking participants as they register for a meeting, address technical issues, monitor chats and bring forward comments to Hosts and Chairs, and can serve as backup on presentations.
Like Hosts, they participate in a pre-meeting practice run to iron out potential issues so the actual meeting runs as smoothly as possible. The full set of tasks performed by someone in this role will depend on discussions among the Chair, Host and Technical Support person.
Small virtual meetings may only require a Host or a Technical Support Person. Larger meetings generally require both for smooth functioning, particularly during the registration and troubleshooting phase, before the scheduled start time.
Role: Election Support Person
For elections and most votes requiring a secret ballot, CHF BC uses a dedicated digital election platform. No platform is perfect, but Election Runner offers a suitable mix of performance and price. (Some non-election voting matters can also be handled through meeting platform polling features alone.) Each use of a digital election platform requires a set-up and a fee.
People acting in this role will have several tasks. Before the official meeting, they set up the digital voting platform and handle the digital side of the voter list. They participate in a practice session. On the day of the vote, they are responsible for handling technical issues, modifying candidate lists so the include candidates from the floor, they launch and monitor the elections, and they can accommodate voters who can only participate in the meeting by phone (voice). An Election Support Person will pass on the results of the election to the Chair and scrutineers. If run off elections are necessary, the Election Support person can set them up on the fly.
Elections generally require someone specifically dedicated to the task of running the election. Visit electionrunner.com for more about the platform.
Meeting Support Fees/Intake
If you're interested in using CHF BC virtual Meeting Support Services, please contact Anya Phillip, Meeting and Support Coordinator at aphillip@chf.bc.ca, . For general inquiries about our services, you can also contact members@chf.bc.ca.
Meeting Support Services are offered to members on a fee-for-use basis.
Please see the fee schedule below. In most cases, it will take a short conversation with CHF BC staff to determine recommended levels of support. We have an intake form to help both everyone consider what will work best for your proposed event.
Here are a few documents you may find useful: