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Remote Meetings

Video conferencing and remote participation for local authorities

Remote meetings

Connect Remote was launched in May 2020 in response to the move to remote meetings during the COVID-19 lockdown. Our clients started using existing video tools (e.g. Zoom, Teams or Webex) but these tools were not tailored for local government and lacked key functionality.

Connect Remote was designed in partnership with our clients. It is easy to use whether you are a clerk, a councillor or a member of the public that needs to contribute to the meeting.

Learn more about Connect Remote

Remote meetings requirements

Voting

A cornerstone of the decision making process, voting is a core feature of any remote participation solution. Members with voting rights should be able to cast their vote easily and democratic officers should be able to see and tally individual results.

Speaker management

Council meetings are run in a very structured manner. Participants should be able to contribute in an orderly fashion. The meeting operator needs to be able to see and manage a speaker queue, and have the ability to switch microphones off.

Security and public participation

Video conferencing software should have a high level of security, but it also needs to be easy for a member of the public to join for the first time on any device.

Stockport Connect Remote Webcast

Livestream to the public

The public need to be able to watch the proceedings of a meeting to understand the democratic process, even if they’re not participating in the meeting. Our webcasting platform Connect is compatible with any video conferencing software.

Ongoing support

Unlike Zoom or Teams, our Service Desk are on hand to offer live, expert support during office hours, and our out-of-hours support team can provide first-line troubleshooting too. Our clients also feed into our product development process through our regular user groups and customer consultations.

Barnsley council logo

“I’ve sold the speed at which you guys turn things around as one of the real positives of why we should go with this as an option for virtual live streaming. Imagine asking Microsoft to introduce a new feature! It’d be 2 years before we got an acknowledgement!”

Barnsley MBC

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Want to learn more? Talk to us!

Speak to a member of our team on +44(0) 1273 821282 or send us a message