Convention Day 4

I promised some pictures today, so . . .

This is Rev. Adam Koontz who is serving with me on a Floor Committee. This picture I took for my Dad, for Adam was in his church (St. Mark's, Ridley Park, PA) for a while when my Dad still lived there. He and Mom were quite fond of the Koontz's.

This is my view from the floor. I am seated a good ways back (assigned seats), but not all the way in the back. But as you can see with the jumbo TV screens, it really doesn't matter - you can see fine. It's actually probably easier on the neck!

My brother, who is also a delegate this year (which I think I said in earlier posts).

I was privileged to be invited to the Mill Neck Manor Deaf Ministry banquet last night. It was very nice. This picture is of Mrs. Grace Lam receiving the John of Beverly award for her work with the deaf in Macau.

So yesterday, convention-wise, we elected VPs and the Synod's Board of Directors. No surprises, really. And after this election, it became crystal clear who has the delegates and who does not, and so it is easy to predict how the rest of the elections will turn out. There may be a few exceptions or surprises, but its pretty clear how things are going.

My Floor Committee met again yesterday morning. We still had to discuss one sticky resolution and how to handle it. No one (and I do mean no one!) was absolutely certain what to do with it. The only thing that was certain was the desire not to set a precedent for future conventions by whatever we did. So, a way forward was chosen that might be palatable to all and achieve many purposes. We'll see how it turns out! (I know, is that vague enough? But I really shouldn't say more than that.)

Lots more elections today - we'll finish all the elections today, actually. And there should be some fun resolutions coming - we haven't really had the fun ones yet, IMHO. The only thing that has disappointed me so far is how quickly we sometimes stop debate - and whenever that motion is made, be it from the floor or the chair, it is ALWAYS passed. I understand the need to not get too bogged down and that we have limited time to get through everything, but still, there are people who wish to speak and times when I wished to have heard more. Maybe if time is a problem, reduce the maximum time allowed to speak from 2 minutes down to 1.5 or 1 minutes. Talk fast if you need!

I must also say that I've been busier than expected. I didn't really think about it much ahead of time, but did expect a bit more down time than I've had.