I’ve held various leadership roles across multiple groups and faced a common challenge: how do we set up a hybrid club?
In this blog post, I’ll share the equipment used by each of the clubs I’ve supported, organized by club.
Toastmasters Club w/ Monitors
This Toastmasters club has a great facility. It’s located at a large corporate office. We are given the opportunity to use their largest conference room which included two large TV’s.
At each meeting, we have the following we bring with us at minimum:
- 1 Macbook Pro 16
- 1 iPad
- 2 Lavalier Microphones
For the best experience, when I can make it in-person I bring the additional tech separately as a bonus:
- 1 Computer
- 1 iPad Pro
I will describe these items in each section.
Computer
Our Configuration
The computer we use at the podium is a Macbook Pro 16. Though, it could be any laptop that has the capacity to use Zoom.
We place the laptop right on the podium so that the speaker can also look at the audience on Zoom and also everyone in-person.
If you’re looking for a laptop, check out the following for great deals:
Speakers
Our Macbook Pro 16 speakers are so loud the entire conference room can hear. This helped us decide that we did not need an external speaker.
iPad
Seeing Audience Members
We can see the speaker with no problem, but how about the audience members?
In addition to having a laptop, we bring an iPad as well. The goal using the iPad is to capture our audience. We position the iPad at the back of the conference room. It enables our Toastmasters on Zoom to see not just the current speaker, but all of the audience in the room.
This setup doesn’t necessarily require an iPad, it could be an Android device. More importantly, as long as the device can log on through Zoom and broadcast that out on the Internet, that’ll work.
Here are several sources you could get an inexpensive iPad or other tablets that will do just fine:
AI Zoom-In and Auto-Follow
When I can make it in-person, I bring my iPad Pro. An awesome feature that the iPad Zoom application can do is use AI-features, such as following the speaker and automatically Zoom in. It’s not available on all iPads, but certainly available on the newer models.
Microphone
We use 2 wireless lavalier microphones that are connected to their USB base.
Click here if you want to buy the same lavalier microphones we use.
Configurations
Under $400
The following portable configuration for under $400
| Title | Price | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Laptop | $199 | HP 15.6 inch Windows Laptop Intel Processor N200 |
| Lavalier Mics | $29.99 | PQRQP 3 in 1 Wireless Lavalier Microphones |
| Tablet | $169.99 | Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ |
The Total: $398.98 (not including tax)
There’s not much horsepower with this setup. However, this will work as long as you set up your equipment 20-30 minute in advance before your meeting.
Successful Hybrid Clubs
Clubs I have attended who have nailed this down successfully:
Contact Me
If you have any questions or suggestions to enhance this post, I’d love to hear from you.