First Hamilton AM Rotary "Hybrid Meeting"

For 116 years, Rotary Clubs have been meeting across the world in regular meetings, and often weekly (some say "weakly" if their membership is falling!). Since the start of the Pandemic restrictions on in-person meetings in March of 2020, Hamilton AM club members have been meeting via Zoom and the weekly attendance by about 25 of the "faithful" has been consistent. In fact, weekly attendance has not dropped over the last 18 months.

Today, the Hamilton AM club hosted a hybrid meeting with 8 members attending at our former meeting place, William's Fresh Cafe on Discovery Drive and 16 on line via Zoom. We were able to use our current club technology of podium, laptop and projection equipment to host an informative and interactive session, chaired by club President John Dalgleish.

As always, kudos go to John Janisse our club IT specialist for the Zoom component and no less thanks go to Sergeant at Arms, Celine Legret who ably mastered the in house equipment so all could see and hear. Likely some tweaking will be needed so all can participate as desired but today's meeting was a very good first step! Today was "Club Assembly" with no guest speaker except for club Treasurer Cameron Nolan who brought a couple of issues to the membership related to club finances and annual auditing.

We were even able to use Zoom "Breakout Room" functioning to allow for some small group discussion on the issue of a future club Legacy Project.

Congrats to all for joining in the Rotary process, whether at home or in person at William's. There we enjoyed a new breakfast format - order from the Cafe menu or stick to coffee or tea only. I think everyone at William's was able to satisfy their particular needs for a little or a lot - seemingly an improvement over past breakfast buffets that always left some wanting something different than what was offered for the group.

The club Board of Directors will monitor the ongoing use of hybrid meetings and maybe at some point in the future we can all meet once again in future. Again, thanks go to Celine for coordinating the return to William's and informing all members of the pandemic related restrictions that applied to in person meetings!