By Greg Ellison

(Dec. 23, 2021) In hopes of live-streaming future meetings, the Ocean Pines Board of Directors debated investing in audio upgrades for either the Golf Clubhouse or the Community Center’s Assateague Room during its meeting on Dec. 11.

Director Amy Peck introduced the discussion point during the recent board meeting held in the Golf Clubhouse.

“An important goal for me as I serve on the board is to increase community involvement,” she said.

Peck said the intent is to better accommodate both part-time homeowners and full-time working residents.

“The hybrid approach would allow people to call in and have remote input,” she said.

Peck said although board meetings alternate between Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings to provide access for residents, turnouts are typically low.

Based on the results of the just completed property owners’ survey, it appears evident association members want greater input.

“In the community, one of the challenges they wanted us to address is transparency,” she said. “Streaming live meetings would help with that.”

Peck initially conferred with General Manager John Viola and Marketing and Public Relations Director Josh Davis on the matter.

“One of the reasons we didn’t do this in the past … we did not have a dedicated meeting space that allows a lot of people to attend and call in,” she said.

The board recently approved purchasing and installing glass doors to improve acoustics in the Golf Clubhouse.

Peck said Viola had already proposed acoustical improvements for the clubhouse.

“The Assateague Room was the other option,” she said. “In doing my research, I feel this room is the best to test out  because the cost is not as much since we already have the projector here.”

In addition to roughly $8,000 to improve acoustics in the clubhouse, the audio system would cost approximately $15,000.

“I think we can come up with a friendly system for the community and a cost-efficient way to do this if we just concentrate on this room,” she said.

Taking a different bent was Association President Larry Perrone.

“We’ve talked about this several times,” he said.

Perrone expressed concerns the Golf Clubhouse would not be large enough to accommodate well-attended meetings.

“We’ve had annual meetings that filled up the Assateague Room,” he said. “This is a great place to have meetings but it’s a smaller space.”

Citing acoustic challenges with the clubhouse, Perrone endorsed installing live-streaming equipment elsewhere.

“If we’re going to invest the money to do live meetings, I think we should be looking at the Assateague Room,” he said.

Peck said the Assateague Room would include additional costs of roughly $15,000 to install a projector.

Director Doug Parks voiced support for live streaming.

“A hybrid solution using Microsoft Teams is probably the answer,” he said.

Parks noted the associations’ recent contract with Comcast includes a community channel, in a similar fashion to the earlier agreement with Mediacom.

“There’s probably some technical challenges associated with it, but we used to broadcast the meetings over the community channel a few years ago,” he said. “At the very least we should look and just see if it’s something that’s feasible.”

Speaking on Monday, Peck said she contacted Comcast after the board meeting.

“I looked into it but didn’t see any advantage with that route,” she said.

Peck said a larger percentage of people are familiar with the currently used Microsoft Teams platform.

“There was not a cost savings. It was just going to be another layer that I didn’t feel we needed,” she said.

Perrone’s preferences notwithstanding, Peck said audio upgrades for the Assateague Room would cost nearly twice as much as outfitting the Golf Clubhouse.

“In the clubhouse, we’re already doing things to improve the acoustics,” she said. “The money has already been spent to get those glass doors.”

Peck, while acknowledging there are currently noise issues with using the clubhouse for meetings, said the pending acoustical upgrades would also make the space more accommodating for other purposes.

“That has the dual benefit if anyone wants to rent that space for a banquet,” she said.

Peck plans on returning with further price estimates during the board meeting in January.

“If we wanted to do it piecemeal, my feeling is let’s get the acoustics taken care of,” she said. “It’s already been on the table and it’s better even if we don’t have the live streaming just for the audio quality.”