Asleep at the wheel... (Sean)

OK, I'm going to take a break from the non-stop play-by-play of GA tonight to follow up on some earlier posts. Also, I'm looking at the several remaining pages of notes from today (mostly on Open Space), and I just don't have the stamina to organize it and get it on here.

I'd like to go back to my perhaps over-the-top reaction to the BOT report yesterday. Maybe I can even say "our" reaction, though I can't really presume to speak for Louise.

First off, these posts generated some comments. Wherein it has been pointed out that this is old news, and, had we just been following along in some major UU information spaces (such as UU World -- duh), we'd have known about it.

Chris Walton helpfully pointed out that UUWorld.org has articles about the theological education and independent affiliate funding discussions, as well as the more recent seminary funding cuts. And Scott Wells pointed out that these items have generated a number of threads on his blog and The Lively Tradition.

So I am inclined to believe that this was all very ho-hum by the time the BOT got around to its assigned time slot in plenary to summarize its report, which is likely always received by GA delegates in much the same way the morning Bloomberg report is received by pension-fund members -- they sort of have some vague sense that it impacts them in some way, but not enough connection to the details to pay close attention. And so perhaps it is true that I really was the only one startled by the news.

We also have some acquaintances on the board, and chatting with one of them over cocktails tonight, managed to glean that the internal perception is that these decisions were well publicized, particularly within the impacted groups, and that feedback has been solicited and is being received. Having only tenuous connections, at best, to the directly impacted parties myself, it is also, in hindsight, unsurprising that I had not already heard the news through those channels.

So my apologies (and shame on me) for possibly over-reacting here. And, sheesh, I had no idea how many people are even paying attention to my ramblings here. (All that being said, I did feed back that the back-channel chatter, as it were, is less than entirely positive.)

I'll try to get some of the Open Space reporting posted here tomorrow. I'm definitely too sleep-deprived to tackle it tonight.