Streamline Blog

In today's Going Paperless webinar, we discussed a variety of tools that can enable special districts to collaborate and work remotely. We covered cloud-based systems for communication, meetings, project management, and more.

One of our favorite customers (ok, you’re all our faves, of course) reached out with an amazing guerrilla marketing story: Fire chief Ben Stange of Polk County Fire #1 decided to purchase a few hundred yard signs for his community that read, “Stay Home. Save Lives.” He knew this was a chance for his department to stay visible and connect with the community during a time when people were feeling really isolated. But how to distribute them during Oregon’s stay at home order?

We’ve been working to help so many public agencies figure out how to hold remote public meetings using Zoom that we decided to host a webinar and write our own guides. The first one was on Zoom Webinar, this series is focusing on using Zoom Meeting without the Webinar add-on. Between watching our webinar and downloading the guide, you'll have this in no time!

We’ve been working exclusively with special districts across the country for over five years now. One of the reasons we chose to serve special districts is because it’s a highly collaborative, peer-driven space. We also believe very strongly that as the most local form of government, special districts represent the true expression of a healthy democracy.

We’ve been working to help so many public agencies figure out how to hold remote public meetings using Zoom Webinar that we decided we’d write our own guide! Note that we aren’t affiliated with Zoom in any way - not even as a reseller or referral partner. Just trying to help! We are focusing on the Zoom Webinar product (even though it’s a bit more expensive than just using Zoom Meetings) because it gives you much more control over public participation.

We've fielded some questions around how to handle the pledge of allegiance, if you are used to starting your meetings by reciting it but are now required to meet remotely. Having multiple people on speaker trying to recite the same thing aloud from different locations can be a bit disorganized.

We’ve received many requests to help our special districts communicate the need to host public meetings remotely for the foreseeable future. We hear you, and are developing content that should help you in various situations. Read on to learn more about how to help your community adjust to the new normal. We will continue to update our blog with additional communication ideas over the coming weeks.

If your organization is moving to remote collaboration for the first time, these tips will help!

Updated April 22, 2020 We have received many requests for help communicating our special district’s need to host public meetings remotely. We will continue to update this FAQ page with additional information over the coming weeks.