Bucks Quarter Goes Hybrid–Take 2
Bucks Quarterly Meeting has historically gathered for fellowship, worship, and business on the third First Day of February, May, August, and November. Our practice is to rotate hosting responsibilities between most of the fourteen meetings in our Quarter. From May 2020 through November 2022 the COVID-19 pandemic made us to change gears and meet on Zoom only.
There were advantages to this: far distant Friends could Zoom in from Alaska, Germany, and Ireland; we never had to cancel due to weather conditions, and the hosting responsibilities were far easier than during in-person gatherings (no potluck to prepare!). We also felt that gathering virtually was good for the environment–we reduced our carbon footprint by driving less, and by not having paper documents to distribute.
But we missed the human contact. We missed catching up on the lives of Friends over coffee and lunch. We missed seeing a whole person, and not just a face in a box. We missed the unexpected conversations and connections that don’t happen in a virtual environment.
So once the major dangers of the virus passed, Bucks Quarter attempted its first hybrid Quarterly Meeting in February 2023, hoping to experience the best of virtual and the best of in-person gathering. Our host, Middletown Meeting in Langhorne, had been holding hybrid meeting for worship and business successfully for quite some time, so we were confident that we could have a successful hybrid experience as well.
Talk about best laid plans. Not to go into too much detail, but despite all our practice and planning, the experience for those attending on Zoom was somewhat less than perfect, mostly due to inconsistent sound quality. Anyone who has clerked a hybrid meeting knows the difficulty of trying to pay attention to both Friends in the room and on Zoom. It was difficult to remain grounded in Spirit when I was fielding texts from attenders on Zoom, letting me know that the sound had cut out – again and again.
The takeaway was that hybrid meeting is a wonderful, inclusive way for Friends to gather; however, if the technology tanks, those who are attending virtually feel frustrated and excluded. We were hoping to learn from our experience and do better the next time–we would not be deterred!
Bucks Quarterly Meeting met for the second time in 2023 on May 21st at Newtown Friends Meeting. Newtown is a large meeting with very sophisticated hybrid technology in place, and well-seasoned Friends to host. This time, our sound quality was better (we learned that having phones in “airplane mode” was key). But it was still a challenge to make those on Zoom feel included and welcome; the meeting’s large screen was off to the side in the worship space to make it less obtrusive, and Friends in the room could not see those on Zoom easily. And it was difficult to recognize when someone on Zoom wanted to participate.
The question remains–is hybrid meeting going to become the norm in Bucks Quarter? Our next host, Plumstead Friends Meeting, is one of our smaller meetings, and it just so happens they do not have electricity or indoor plumbing. And while the Quarter discerned that we would hold an “old-fashioned, in-person” Quarterly Meeting, there are concerns that we will be excluding Friends who may prefer to attend virtually. To that end, the Quarter is assembling a group of tech-minded folks to see if we can assemble a “Hybrid Meeting in a Box” that can be transported to any meeting that does not have the technology in place to host a hybrid Quarterly Meeting.
Stay tuned for Bucks Quarter Goes Hybrid – Part 3. In the meantime, enjoy the presentation from the May Quarterly Meeting: One Meeting’s Approach to Advocacy.