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Conference Call Meetings During COVID-19
Helpful Tips for First-Time Attendees

Why a conference call meeting?

To ensure the safety of applicants, board members, staff, and the public during COVID-19, meetings are being held by conference call only. Executive Order 202.1 specifically allows conference call public meetings. Subsequent Executive Order 202.15 requires Conference Calls for all public hearings.

How do I attend the meeting?

As with all public meetings, you can attend without identifying yourself. If you are making a public comment, you will be asked to identify yourself.

Just as you would usually show up at a town meeting a few minutes before the published starting time of the meeting, you'll probably want to enter the conference call meeting a few minutes early.

Please keep your microphone muted except when addressing boards.

Attendees have two basic choices on how to attend:

Decide which method of attending is most appropriate for you. Each method will be described below.

Attending by telephone or cell phone

Anyone with access to a telephone or cell phone can attend. It does not matter what kind of telephone or cell phone you have. As long as you can call a toll-free number from that telephone or cell phone, you can use that phone. If you prefer to use the long-distance phone number, you can use that instead.

Dial (toll free) 1(866)899-4679 or (long distance) 1(571)317-3117.

When the call is completed, you will hear a voice prompt: “Please enter your access code followed by the pound or hash-sign“. Use the keypad on your telephone or cell phone to enter “870205333#”.

You will then hear the voice prompt: “To enable audio controls, enter your PIN followed by pound or hash. If you do not have a PIN, just enter pound or hash”. Just hit the “#” key on your phone.

If none of the meeting organizers have joined yet, you will be told that the meeting has not yet started: you will automatically join the meeting when the organizer joins the meeting. If the organizer has already joined, you will automatically join the meeting. The meeting moderator or the meeting clerk may ask you to identify yourself. Again, you are not required to identify yourself.

The meeting moderator (which may be the meeting chair) may mute and unmute your microphone during the meeting, to allow you to speak and to maintain an orderly meeting.

To exit the meeting, just hang up the phone.

Attending by web access

Attending by web access means you will hear speakers better and, if you speak, others will hear you better. You will also see other attendees if they have a camera and it enabled.

This method requires:

You know your device has sound capability if you can hear anything on YouTube or other web sites.

Click on GoToMeeting.com.

You will need to allow the GoToMeeting to download and install an app. If you wish to be seen by other attendees, you may need to allow the app to access your camera. If you wish to speak at the meeting, you many need to allow the app to access your microphone. On an Apple iPhone, you can accomplish this by:

At no point should you need to enter a password, sign up for a subscription, etc.

You'll be able to turn on and off the camera within the GoToMeeting app.

You'll be able to mute and unmute your microphone within the GoToMeeting app.

Copyright © James McMartin Long 2017–2024