Fond Memories of the State Convention
By a delegate to the State Convention
I have rarely participated in conventions or seminars since my retirement in 1991. When I said, "Yes," to this one I surprised even myself. But, oh boy, I enjoyed myself! I have great fond memories from being a team member, from observing how the convention was conducted, and from learning how to enhance the effectiveness of convention process.
My ride with our Government Director to and from Long Beach was filled with great conversation and a Barbara Kinsolver's book on tape. What a fun ride. At night we, or rather she, worked into the wee hours honing the speech to present our resolution to the required two minutes.
During the convention, our Natural Resources Drector would listen, feel the air, and rush back to the team to rework the resolution. Just imagine; it took three weeks and fifteen revisions to come up with the final resolution. And in two days it was changed twice. Our GOvernment DIrector did the word rearranging. Our President did the mass printing from his printer. One of our members served as our reference source on the issues. A second member was busy putting out billboards, handing out flyers, and cornering delegates in conversation. We all did some of that. We conducted our workshop quite effectively and changed at least one mind from being our opponent to being our proponent.
The convention room where the plenary sessions were held had two big screens that showed projections of motions, resolutions, program proceedings, and awards as the session proceeded. That arrangement made the programs easy to follow. The mix of light and heavy topics made the convention flow light-heartedly. The adherence and consulting of the parliamentary rules elevated the convention to a professional level. The respect paid to it tickled my funny bones especially when the state board tried to rearrange the agenda to fit the time.
Right out of the gate of the first plenary session, someone moved to alter the order of the agenda so that the non-recommended motions from the floor would be debated and voted on before the recommended motions from the state board. Oh, power to the people! Who was that brave soul? Liza White, the president of the LWV of LA. Later on she made another motion that was greatly to our liking. I actually wrote it down as a recommend-dation for the future. But here she was doing it right on the spot where it mattered. Liza made a motion that the voting of the resolutions be placed in the same session as the presentation and debate of the resolutions. It was the sensible thing to do. You see the delegates' attendance changes from session to session. It made great sense that the same set of people who heard the debate of the resolution would vote on it.
Well, I learned a lot and enjoyed a lot. Thank you for sending me to the convention.
