Please sign the guestbook and view it.

Louie & Ernest Clay-Crew
Married February 2, 1974


12/21/1974
 
8/17/2006

Some suggestions:

Bring a sign-up sheet to your worship table on the first day and ask people to give all their contact information locally and at home, including email, plus their birthdays and anniversaries. Photocopy this sheet and give it to everyone at your table on the next day. I still have special friends by correspondence going back to our being at the same worship tables at earlier conventions. It is also good to bring a camera, take group pictures, and share them with all members of the group.

If you are on a legislative committee, you might want to do the same thing for that group. You will receive an official roster with some of this information, but it wont have local contact information, and it wont have birthdays, anniversaries.

If you are not on a legislative committee, choose one to attend throughout the convention, ideally one focused on concerns about which you have interest and expertise. Enjoy being attentive to special needs. If information is sought, quietly leave the room and find it. Bring with you a Clerical Directory and The Episcopal Church Annual to facilitate the contacts you might need to locate the information. Know in advance the fax number of your hotel and of the hotel where the committee meets in case you need to have information faxed to it. Long before I was ever a deputy, I was integrally a part of the work of committees by taking on this kind of commitment. It is very fulfilling work.

I have published birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and ordination anniversaries by date of all bishops, deputies, and first alternates in my Prayer Calendar for General Convention. You might print out the portion of it for the dates of General Convention and make cards for everyone. Pages will deliver them for you in both Houses. The print out can also serve as a special way to focus your prayers in private as well as table worship. Many of you already subscribe to my daily mailings of the celebration prayer calendar for any one day, that go out by email just after midnight every morning. If you would like to receive those mailings, send a blank message to praygc-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Surprise people with joy. Be especially attentive to ways that you can make others feel welcome.

Studiously attend orientation sessions of groups with whom you disagree. I learn much that is valuable by attending the luncheons of the American Anglican Council, and I am too old to stay up for the late-night Integrity briefings. Most people practice radical hospitality across our divisions, and if I dont spend time with those with whom I disagree, I may miss some important chances to be with Jesus.

Most large business supply stores have machines which can make business cards. Even this early you can make some to use in Columbus, showing contact information at convention and at home. They save lots of time when you are trying to tell people how to contact you. You can get your hotels address and phone number now, and you can leave a blank after Room #_________ and can add that information by hand on arrival. With almost no extra work, you can design your own cards with your diocesan logo and the GC06 logo on them and print a supply before you leave for Columbus. Most word processors have grids that walk you through creating business cards.

Several conventions ago I stopped using the official hooked binder than we receive to use for all the legislative handouts. Instead, I buy a sturdy plastic fan folder at Staples for under $5 and use the same labeling system for divisions within it that are used in the official binder. In this way I avoid the clicks and the hole-puncher; I can easily move sheets around within any section; I dont have to worry about hooks in the notebook bending out of shape, as they often do; and my folder is not large until it gets large, whereas the official binder is as large as it is going to get on the day your receive it.

Many of us use small suitcases or other containers on rollers, to move our material from place to place. Tote bags can become exhausting.

I hope these suggestions are helfpul.

Louie

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