2-Day National Committee Meetings
Client Company and Main Contact:
Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada
May 11-12, 2021
Every spring, the AWCBC hosts an All Committees Meeting. The eight committees come together for several days in a single location to finalize and formally report on their activities to each other and through their Executive Sponsors, to the AWCBC Board. An important component of this meeting is the opportunity for socializing and connecting with each other after a year apart.
In 2020, AWCBC had to cancel this event due to the pandemic. However, in 2021 the Association was pleased to resume the event virtually.
The AWCBC wanted to make sure that this event would be as engaging as the in-person meetings in the past, including a social hour and having the ability for committee members to mingle during the meetings to have inter-committee discussions The meeting was described as a “beloved” event, so we had some big shoes to fill in order to make sure that the meeting was as engaging and fun as their in-person meetings.
Another challenge we ran into was some participants’ lack of familiarity with using virtually technology. Given the limited knowledge of Zoom and online platforms, we had to work with the client and the attendees to ensure that they understood the technology that was being used and could use it effectively during the meeting.
We used Zoom as the main platform for the meeting, and set up simultaneous breakout rooms for members to move between as desired. One of the rooms had English-French interpretation.
Social Hours
In order to keep the social aspect of the meeting, we set up a “social hour” at the end of the first day of meetings. This social hour consisted of three hosted social rooms that included a cooking class held by the co-owners of Vert Casse Croute, a yoga class led by Lisa Brodie, and a virtual “pub” hosted by facilitator, entertainer, and author Tony Esteves, as well as some unstructured rooms for participants to gather and chat amongst themselves. We also created an opening video, played music through break times, and implemented stretching exercises after the breaks as small ways to keep the meeting more fun, interesting, and engaging for the participants.
Open House Sessions
To ensure a positive experience for all, we made ourselves available at two open house sessions to help participants and presenters familiarize themselves with the platform, and provided a virtual meeting guide to prepare those who did not feel the need to, or could not attend the open hour sessions. We also hosted an orientation meeting for committee chairs to prepare for their virtual committee meetings.
Overall, the virtual format of the All Committees’ Meeting was a success. The results of a post-event survey showed that 98.5% of participants were satisfied with the virtual meeting, and 100% of the participants who replied to the survey found that they were able to navigate the virtual platform with ease. The social hour was also a massive success, with 85.7% of participants saying that they enjoyed the social events (with 11.1% respondents having not attended and therefore abstaining from giving feedback).
10 rooms for 8 committees & 2 subcommittees
180 participants
7 social hour rooms