Overview  

The Public Display is where most activity by Members will be viewed, real-time, by the public. This will include Agenda titles and details that are discussed, member requests to speak, member motions and seconds, and voting results. This document will preview these actions and what they look like on the Public Display. 

For purposes of illustration, we will assume that you are well-versed in preparing and starting meetings and have already started a Meeting with the Public Display running in your meeting room.  For more detail on starting the Public Display, please see the following document link. 

• Meeting Prep – Start the Public Display 

Details / Sequence of Events 

Public Display – Waiting for a Meeting to Start 

While waiting for the Chair, Members, and the Public to assemble in the meeting room (and/or remotely) you may have the meeting loaded, but not yet pressed the green Start Meeting button. In this case, the Public Display will show an introductory screen with the meeting title and date, and that the meeting has not yet started (as shown below, but with your organization’s logo).

Public Display – Meeting Started & Roll is Called 

When Roll is called by the Chair, and the Clerk presses the green Roll Call button on the Meeting Manager, the following screen will display. Members will mark themselves “present” via their Member Apps (MA) which will display on the Public Display as shown below. Note that if members are NOT using the Member App, the Clerk may mark them present manually on the Meeting Manager, by simply pressing the P button to the left of each member’s name.  In the example below, the Public Display shows that four members have not yet marked themselves Present.

Public Display – Upon finishing the Roll Call Tally 

When the Clerk presses the green Tally button on the Meeting Manager, the Public Display will immediately present the results of the Roll Call, showing all members who are present/absent, as shown on the display below. Note that on the Meeting Manager, the Clerk can manually mark the reason any members are absent, via a drop-down option to the right of their names.  

In the above Public Display example, there are 11 members present.  Those not present have been marked with a reason by the Clerk, manually on the Meeting Manager. There are 4 options for not being present / accounted for and all 4 examples are shown on the sample Public Display screen above: 

• Excused – Member has notified the chair they are unable to attend 
• Late – Member has notified the chair they will be coming late 
• Absent – Member has not shown up and no notice has been given 
• Recused – Can be used on any voting item if a known conflict of interest 

Public Display – Showing Agenda Item Title and Details 

As the Chair and Clerk progress through Agenda Items, each Item being discussed will be titled on the Public Display and the Clerk can choose to show any and all detail regarding the item via the Meeting Manager. On the Meeting Manager, the Clerk can press the Maximize Detail button to display the entire Agenda Item Details.

Public Display showing only the Title of the Item being discussed: 

Public Display where the Clerk has “Maximized the Detail” of the Agenda Item: 

Public Display – Showing Activity during Discussion 

During discussion of any Agenda Item, members interact with the Chair verbally but also via requests on their Member Apps. In the following example, the public sees the following activity is taking place on the Public Display in real-time: 

• Motion by Vaughan 
• Second by Cornish 
• Howard is recognized to speak presently 
• Clarkson requested and is 1^st in line to speak after Howard 
• Mackay requested and is 2^nd in line to speak after Clarkson. 

Public Display – During Member Voting on an Item 

There are various settings in the configuration file as to how voting is actively shown on the Public Display. These are: 

• Member votes shown all at once after all have voted 
• Member votes shown one by one as votes are cast 
• Member votes kept anonymous during the process 

If you wish to learn more about these and other vote display options, please view the following document link: 

• Meeting Settings – Voting Options 

The following example shows the Public Display during voting, with the setting to not display results until the last vote is cast AND not all have finished voting. 

The following Public Display is showing results after the final vote has been cast, showing that this item Passed by Majority Vote, details in the upper right ribbon area, and the vote choices of each member. NOTE that there are settings in the system to NOT display member vote choices (vote anonymously) if you wish.   

Public Display – Speakers and Speaker Timer 

When public speakers are on the agenda, they can be listed in order of speaking on the Public Display. Many organizations will have time limits for speakers and a countdown timer can (but is not required to) be displayed on the Public Display. In this example, the Speaker was given 5 minutes to speak and at 1:30 minutes left, the timer is set to turn from white to red and an audible sound is heard, indicating the speaker’s time is nearing the end.  Note also, that on the Meeting Manager the Clerk has an option to “Maximize the Timer“. This option will display the Timer “large” on the entire screen if desired, rather than the smaller block on the right shown below.

To set the speaker time and ending alert, please see the following link: 

• Meeting Settings – RTS Options 

Public Display – Showing & Editing Resolution Detail  

Often, it is advantageous for the public to see the narrative of a Resolution being discussed on the Public Display. The Clerk can easily show the detail of a Resolution or any narrative in full detail since the Public Display screen is scrollable.  You can show any document language with as many pages as needed, scrolling from page to page. The following example screen shows a long resolution. Note the scroll bar on the right side of the screen. 

Notes / Special Situations  

Multiple Public Displays  

You may wish to display the Public Display on multiple large monitors in the meeting room. For example, you can have the Public Display showing all the activity noted above in this document, but also intermix those displays by showing .PDF documents, Word Documents, Pictures, Internet Pages, and Videos during your meetings. This can be done on a single large monitor OR multiple large public display monitors in your meeting room. OpenMeeting will be happy to discuss this with you and your IT and A/V support team should you wish to understand how this can be set up. Feel free to call us and we will book a time to discuss these details.  

If you are having issues that are not successfully addressed above, or you are not successful signing into the Meeting Manager, please call OpenMeeting Customer Support at 320.249.0555.