Lobbying - Studying the Materials for General Conference

Good lobbying requires reading everything one can before attending the conference. Because I was invited to write for the special project called United Methodist Insight (http://um-insight.net), I read most of those essays over the weeks just prior to Tampa.

There were a lot of things to study: key issues, where my petitions were referred, who was on which committees of the General Conference, the rules of the General Conference, the schedule, and who all were delegates.

I could have done that on-line because all the pre-conference materials were posted there (www.UMC.org/2012General Conference). I was able to skim through the lists of delegates and who were on the legislative committees.

But to work through the legislation, I found that too difficult to do on-line (my dufferishness came out). So I postponed all that, deciding to see if I could purchase the hard copies at Cokesbury in Tampa when I got there. They would all be up-to-date where some of the on-line lists were incomplete.

All I looked at from then on were articles in UM-Insight, UMNS Daily reports, and the UMC.org website.

Let me say that after years of mostly seeing fluff and PR materials among the traditional UM news outlets, I was seeing some articles that were very critical and journalistically more sound. That was a refreshing experience. I know several of the news staff and found them to have come through those years with their integrity intact. This was a good year for them.

I confess I spent more time writing than reading. After reading several articles, I submitted comments that were accepted.

One such piece was divided in two by the UM-Insight editor, with the two sections being filled out with more background and data. They were published there and I put them in this blog (see below April 5 – “Where Do We Find God’s Spirit in Our System” and April 11 – “What Are They Ignoring?”) I resurrected an article from 2008 that went into UM-Insight and this blog on April 13 (see “Priorities for General Conference” of that date below). One of my comments on an article in UM-Insight also made this blog as well on April 21 (“No Large Southern Church Left Behind”)

This seemed to me to be an odd way for a lobbyist to prepare for General Conference.