What’s New?

1. Ordinals – It’s a small thing but in the Meeting Manager & Board Voting app, you’ll now be able to see the ordinals for your agenda items. This makes it much easier to stay on track when items are moved, or your board jumps ahead.
2. Accept w/o Objection – This button is for fast moving items like the approval of minutes, or other quick procedural actions, that are done with a quick voice vote. Instead of having to push a vote to your board members, this button Accepts the motion and allows you to move on. Previously this was only available before a second was made. Now it’s available after as well, which allows you to capture a motion and a second.
3. Introduction Motions – Some jurisdictions have a process where the board must first motion and second an agenda item to introduce it first. To support this, we’ve added an “Introduce” quick action that allows you to quickly capture the motion and second for the introduction. Coupled with the “Accept w/o Objection” feature, you can then move to the main motions.

If you see features listed above that you’d like added to your suite-of-services, simply reach out to Support or by dropping us an email, or phone call. We’ll quickly add the new feature so that you can take advantage of it right away.

We cannot imagine the burden you all are under trying to mitigate this risk across an entire enterprise, with machines everywhere likely using portions of this within their code base.  

Hang in there – we’re happy to help however we can.

Below are several examples of how customers can and are incorporating remote meeting software into their workflows for streaming Live and creating VOD for their board meetings.

Example #1: Local & Remote Participants

Using our 3-Camera Simple System, Dan walks us through what it looks like to have remote participants included in your video and how easy it is to switch between sources. Note: All switching is done in the cloud via a web browser.

Example #2: Live – All-Remote

For their Planning Commission Work Session, the City of Spring Hill opted to go fully-remote for all meeting participants. Using Microsoft Teams, they repurposed the computer they use to display their voting results, to display the the online meeting.

Spring Hill uses our 3-Camera Studio System and simply switched to the “computer camera” to stream the online meeting live and also record it for VOD.

• Meeting: March 2020 Planning Commission Work Session
• Spring Hill, TN video page

Example #3: Live – Using A Camera

With less than 8-hours before the meeting was going to start, Moses Lake School District chose to use their CHAMP Camera to display a Zoom meeting. By focusing on a large monitor and routing the audio into their mic system, they were able to quickly go live for all their viewers to see.

• Meeting: March 2020 School Board Meeting
• Moses Lake School District video page

Example #4: VOD Only

This is precisely what the Town of Nolensville did for their Budget Committee. Although they utilize a CHAMP 1-Camera Simple System, it was easier to only offer their meeting for OnDemand and not attempt to stream it live. They used GoToMeeting for the remote meeting software.

• Meeting: March 2020 Budget Committee Special Meeting
• Nolensville, TN video page

Other Options

We will update this article as more options become available. We are currently working with a Village to provide a hardware solution for broadcast on television and we are currently testing a Chromecast device to provide an input from a Chromebook, just to name a few.

How are you handling your remote setup? Please comment below on ways that you’re facilitating public meetings.

For starters, CHAMP utilizes a distributed workforce and as such, we don’t rely on a centralized, traditional office environment. This means that we’ve been operating at 100% since the start of the pandemic and continue to do so.

Our Customer Support, Network Operations Center, Billing Support, and Sales teams are equipped, trained, and standing by to assist you in any way that we can. We actively test these capabilities as part of our standard business continuity practice.

Like many other companies we have suspended all employee travel and cancelled hosting, exhibiting, attending or otherwise participating at any events. Our team members will continue to conduct internal and external meetings via video and telephone conference.

We know that, no matter how prepared we are, the situation can change rapidly. We are vigilant and ready to adapt, committed to providing you highest quality service without disruption.

Thanks for your continuing trust and confidence and if we may be of service, please do not hesitate to ask.

The good news is that there is nothing that needs to be changed with your CHAMP Video service to accommodate this type of meeting; however; you may need to add some equipment to your setup. This article provides a general overview on what’s involved:

Note: Please consult with your municipal attorney regarding any legal aspects of remote participation and voting, since this may impact the definition of a quorum and any other concerns such as back-channel communication, identity verification, etc.

Just a suggestion

Option 1: Everyone Is Remote

This is the easiest option if you don’t intend to Live stream your meeting because all board members will be remote for the meeting. All audio and video will be handled by the remote meeting application and you can record the meeting as well. When the meeting is complete, you can download the file, convert it, and then upload it to your CHAMP account. If you have any questions about how to do this, please don’t hesitate to call us at ‭(844) 231-7671‬ x1.

If you wish to Live stream as well, then you’ll need to connect a computer to your video setup so that the audio and video generated within the remote meeting app can be seen and heard (See “Step 2“ below).

Option 2: Only Some Board Members Are Remote

In this scenario, some board members will be remote but some will be present in your meeting chambers. Those that are remote will be using remote meeting software using a tablet or computer with a camera. In council chambers, you need to integrate a computer into your Audio/Video system to provide two-way communication. 

In our examples below, we’ll assume that you’ve chosen to use tablets for your remote board members.

Step 1: Choose A Meeting App

There are a variety of software apps dedicated to hosting remote meetings — WebEx, GoToMeeting, Zoom, etc. Simply choose the one that has the features that you’re looking for. Video is obviously a key feature but muting options, the ability to have a participant “raise their hand”, etc., may be helpful too.

Step 2: Setup A Computer

Since all board members will not be remote, you will need to have a computer integrated into your audio and video system. This way, when someone speaks into their tablet microphone remotely, that audio can be heard in your meeting chambers and when someone speaks into a podium microphone in chambers, that can be heard by your remote viewers.

In addition to audio, you’ll also need to make video connections so that all board members can see each other. If your meeting space has a projector, or large TV, then you’ll need to be able to display the video from your remote meeting app. Additionally, you’ll need to connect video into your computer so that remote viewers can see what your camera(s) see.

Below is a diagram to better illustrate how audio and video flows through your remote meeting app:

Step 3: Training

Once you have your app selected and your computer connected to your video equipment, the next step is to train your board members on how the meeting will be conducted. Remember, your board members will be remote so they will need to know how to use the app you’ve chosen, what features you plan to use as well as how to use the device as well.

We recommend setting up a “test meeting” where IT personnel can be available to answer any questions prior to your first meeting.

Step 4: Hold A Meeting

On the day of your meeting, it’s best if you have someone dedicated to managing the computer where the meeting app is being run. This person can act as a moderator, mute microphones and take advantage of any other features you are using in the app.

So that’s all there is to it! Once you’ve added a computer to your video setup, you can integrate remote board members into any of your meetings.

What Is Picture-in-Picture?

Whenever a viewer scrolls down to view your agenda, the video player will scroll out-of-view. With Picture-in-Picture (PiP), your video player will automatically anchor to the top right of the page and follow along as they browse your agenda and/or minutes.

This is a fully-functional player, so you can pause it and any index points that are selected will jump the video in the PiP window as well. It even works on mobile devices!

• Fully-Functional video player
• Works in any browser — including mobile!
• Click any timeline while scrolling

PiP is one of those things that are easier to show than it is to explain, so below is a quick screencast that shows the feature in action.

In your updated player, your viewers will now see the 10-second jump tools right next to the play button. This provides them an easy way to jump back to re-listen to something they may have missed, or just ahead if they are looking for something specific.

This new feature is already live and available on your players, so there’s nothing for you to do. Simply view any of your events in your archive, or watch the quick screencast below.

Now that the ice is broken, let me jump right in to what the purpose of this blog is all about.

CHAMP is a relatively small company, made up of very passionate people that want to create great software that helps you get your job done and is a delight to use. The goal of this blog is to share our story with you. To provide you some insight into how we think, what our goals are and how our solutions can best benefit you.

We are passionate about our software, about what we do and of course, our company. We’re a little different from most everyone out there in that we don’t have outside investors that we have to answer to. We answer to you — the customer. This may not seem like much, but it makes a world of difference and we plan to highlight some of these differences as time goes on.

Additionally, we’ll be posting about updates, new features and just about anything else that strikes our fancy. I’m sure this blog, like any blog, will take on a life of it’s own but with this first post, this is how we see things going and we hope that you’ll tag along.