April 22, The First Day - The Site

On Sunday morning, thanks to directions from a Florida pastor friend, I found the parking garage next to the convention center. With my carry-on suitcase holding my laptop, books, and papers trailing behind me, and wearing my bright red jacket, I started out to get the lay of the land.

I walked across the street and walked through the whole building. In the foyer on the second floor, the registration booth was being put up along with ones for first aid and information.

On huge placards on both sides of the foyer were printed the icons of sponsors of the General Conference. That astonished me. Previous General Conferences had their expenses covered by amounts in the quadrennial budget and from registration fees of visitors.

As I walked passed those sponsor signs up to the main area where the conference was to be held, the only other people in the area were two bishops that I knew quite well and their wives. The Council of Bishops had been meeting all week in Tampa and they had just finished. We exchanged pleasantries, commented on how odd it was to have the conference paid for by sponsors, and I went on to explore the site.

Many of the sponsors are denominational institutions: a couple seminaries, an insurance company, and some UM foundations. Some were not: United Health Care, the cities of St. Petersburg and Clearwater, a local hospital (that may have been one of ours years ago?), and Travel Portland (where General Conference will be held in four years).

I wondered if the Koch brothers might be involved….

At the third level of the center, agency displays and Cokesbury were also under construction on the west end of the great hall. On the east end, there were piles of round tables on the floor in the plenary area that workmen were putting up. The distance from where the main stage/podium was to the furthest table had to be over 100 yards. I thought having binoculars would be a good idea.

April 30 - Observing the Plenary

I found a place to sit in the stands on the side. To my left was the section where the press sat. Beyond them toward the front were where bishops’ spouses and other dignitaries sat. Toward the front on our side was where board and agency officials sat, easily accessible should someone on the dais call them up to answer questions.

Across the plenary from me were three stands extending from the front of the huge space to the back. At the back of the plenary were two more stands for visitors.

The plenary space included the round tables. Actually, they were oval in shape and the delegates sat only on one side facing the front. Unlike the tight space between the tables that cramped the Fort Worth plenary, people were able to move more easily between the rows. Pages could much more quickly distribute earphones for translation when the batteries failed or the earphones otherwise broke down.

But that added space meant that the presiding bishops had great distances to have to cover to see delegates who wanted the floor. While no one in the front had binoculars, as I suggest, bishops helping the presider were assigned to watch particular sections for those seeking the floor.

One innovation that helped was the use of three colored cards. Rules require at least two statements for and two against before a vote. If a delegate wanted to speak for a motion, the green card was held up. Against, the orange card was used. For parliamentary matters or special privileges, a white card was used. That facilitated the debate from the floor . . . but I think the presiding bishops still should have had binoculars!

April 30 - Layout of the Plenary

The plenary groups its chairs and tables into four sections of equal size. Two are in the front with a big center aisle and two side aisles. The two groupings of chairs and oval tables in back have the same center aisle and side aisles.

Each of the groups contained eleven rows of six tables each, with six delegates at each table. The tables were spaced so that delegates and pages could go between rows without having to go to the end of the row.

At the “four corners” in the middle of the plenary is a circular table which was used in various ways, but mostly for the daily communion service.

Access to the tables was from entrances at five places on both sides and one in the center in the back. Marshals (volunteers like the pages who came at their own expense from all over the world) monitored each entrance to allow only delegates on the floor. Pages sat inside near the various entrances to be available to help carry messages, ear phones, or other things okayed by the conference to the delegates.