Building a Hybrid Community
By Jacob Day, Communications Manager
Living through the past two years has been tough on all of us. It feels like the next shutdown is a Greek alphabet character away. I’d never heard the term, “cautiously reopening” before, but now it feels as common place as “sorry we’re closed, please come back soon.”
As a musician and someone that lives for performing and going to shows, it’s been a different kind of tough. Many of us make our living from performance or at the very least find refuge in sharing our art with others.
As The Good Table approaches closer to officially opening its doors to the public, plans for a post-COVID world must be considered. Here’s another term for you, ‘hybrid event.’
If you’re not familiar with the term, you are certainly familiar with the idea in 2022. Hybrid events are, quite simply, a mix of live and virtual events. You take your live event, complete with an audience, content, and more, and you add a virtual component to it so your audience can participate and engage with your event, no matter where they are.
Pastor Melinda leading hybrid worship in El Cerrito, August 2021
These plans have been on the table, so to speak, long before 2020, but now more than ever seem necessary to engage with a community not only here in El Sobrante, but for the world. We look forward to opening our doors to you here 5166 Sobrante Ave, but are also excited to open our Virtual Doors to a larger community.
As we are building walls and doors to house our café plans are also being made to lay industrial grade cat5e cables for cameras and streaming. We are excited for the opportunity this will give us the chance to share our space and all those that are ready to share their art with the local and world community.
Jacob Day is our new communications manager. He studied Music Theory, Performance, & English at Berklee College of Music Boston & the University of New Hampshire. Jacob moved to the Bay area in 2014 to pursue working in the local community arts and music scene. He’s a multi-instrumentalist and writer of numerous musical collaborations & solo projects. He currently lives in Albany with his cat Oskar.
Do plan to join us THIS Saturday, May 28th for our Community Work + Fun Day, 12-3p. We will be gardening (bring tools for weeding), filling a debris box, and sorting through recent donations of furniture and equipment to consolidate, secure, and organize our storage for the next phase of construction. Wear sturdy clothing and shoes, a mask to protect you from dust and COVID, and bring your favorite work gloves. We’re also happy to simply give you a tour of the site!