To think people are a bit slack at work these day

[Iseeaghost]

I've worked as part of a multi disciplinary group - both voluntary and statutory sector; for about 2 years

Everyone is quite busy and most of our meetings; 2-4 per month, are on teams or zoom.

Lots of people don't turn up. Most of those that do have cameras off and don't contribute to the meetings. The strategic group ask for feedback to be brought to the session; no one brings it.

On top of this, people don't respond to many emails; even as far as you might be asked for some information or to support a project, will supply that info and don't get a response, not even thank you! There are people working hard on forums who send out valuable information etc but they don't get replies.

I get multiple requests to attend forums, meetings and so on, I get everyone is in a similar position but really?: a simple apology and acknowledgement of an email goes a long way.

Before Covid we didn’t have to have cameras on for all online calls (I have WFH for 12+ years). We only used cameras for things like quarterly ‘town halls’ when speaking.

some meetings are totally unnecessary and can be done through email. i prefer face to face meetings and hate being on camera so will often turn mine off. As a manager myself i can honestly say i really don't need to see someone face to talk to them.

Sounds like you have pointless meetings with too many attendees.

Look at it this way, if the work gets done without the people who don't bother to attend, then they obviously didn't need to attend in the first place.

Most meetings should be an email or chat in a slack channel.

It sounds as though you're caught between not wanting people to feel disconnected, and having a session that's too big online to actually achieve that.
A meeting would keep people connected in real life since you'd get the social aspect and contact if you were all together physically.
As it is, it sounds as though your meeting has too many people to be truly participatory, so it's just a broadcast.

Which could have been an email.

All of us are jaded by the amount of 'audience' meetings that add no value and eat our time.

Maybe consider smaller groups if you're trying to generate discussions. Or scrap the broadcast meeting and replace with different comms types.