One of the lessons learned from the pandemic is the necessity of continuing the work of the church in new ways. Zoom (and other video conferencing software) provided a means of staying in touch where all conferencing members used their own computers and tablets. As the pandemic began to lift, some groups found their members assembling at church, while others preferred to remain at home. This resulted in a “hybrid” type of meeting not well served by Zoom. Those members at home invariably felt less a part of the discussion, as they were unable to follow visually the meeting’s progress. The Sunday morning Explorers group is an example of the problem.
It has become apparent that even if the pandemic lifts completely, a new form of meeting will undoubtedly endure. The church, along with many other organizations) has recognized that such meetings, in addition to improving participation, offer a new way of dramatically expanding outreach to new members. The demand for hybrid meetings can only increase. While technology is available to address this problem, to date it has been very expensive and impractical for our use. There is now, however, a method which we believe has great potential to meet many needs.
Recently, we became aware of a device called the Meeting Owl, which combines a 360 degree panoramic camera, speaker, and microphone into a truly remarkable compact instrument. We obtained an Owl on a trial basis, and after three weeks of testing, members of the group (both at the church and at home) have been uniformly enthusiastic. After a few minutes of use, the device became transparent, and all participants seemed to be in the same room! The device has been successfully used by other churches, and we are aware of one large Methodist church in the Southeast that owns 20 of the devices! Contact with them yielded nothing but positive comments. We were so impressed, a request for purchase was submitted to the Foundation.
We are happy to announce they have agreed to purchase the device for the church. The purpose of this communication is to alert the congregation of its availability for use by other groups. The device has so far been used in the Library, where there is a large monitor to support it. It could certainly moved to other sites, if necessary.
Those wishing to see a brief video describing some of its functions may go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4HBCLyL0-8 . An even better way is to sit in on an Explorers meeting (Sunday morning, 8:30 AM). To do so, simply obtain a link from Don Lincoln dlincoln@san.rr.com and tune in to see if this method might be applicable to your group. For technical information, contact George Leopold (gleopol1@san.rr.com), Don Lincoln (see above), or Beau Brandon (Beaubran@gmail.com).