Hey, somebody reads this... (Sean)

I have a few minutes here before my next session, so I thought I'd take advantage of free WiFi in downtown Portland to post a few thoughts.

First off, thanks to "Boy in the Bands," who is apparently reading our posts and gave us a great plug in this post on his blog. I feel a little sheepish, though, because I haven't really participated in any of the Open Space sessions -- I've attended a couple, and mostly have just taken away some statistics and observations to post here. Frankly, I've looked at the matrix of all 120 break-outs, and I can't find a single title that moves me to jump in and contribute to the discussion. As Louise wrote in her last post, I am hopeful that the "convergence" sessions and the final roll-up in Plenary will engage me, and that I will feel I have something substantive upon which to cast my five votes.

This is a good reminder that I owe an answer to a comment that he posted here earlier, although I'm afraid it's not much of one: I believe the somewhat muted response to the new congregations had to do with several factors, including the energy level with which their presentation was made (lower, IIRC, than in years past), and the fact that it was already late in the evening, even later if you consider how many folks are here from the east coast, where the first day is always the worst jet lag.

Since I am caught off guard by having an actual audience, now is also a good opportunity to point out why we are writing here: As CLF delegates, we owe the board a written report of our experience at GA. Louise had the idea back in '05 (when she was a delegate but I was not) to use the format of a blog to create that written report. It's a great format, because it makes our report accessible immediately to the CLF board, but also in real time to CLF members who could not make it to GA. And so I try to organize my thoughts and words with that "audience" in mind (although I am always surprised when an actual audience materializes).

Louise also happens to be a big fan of several UU bloggers (the real kind, who blog year round and not just at GA), and has been following along on their plans here at GA etc., and apparently put a short link to us on somebody's comments, and, voila, we have new readers. I do know that we also get some folks from completely outside the UU community, who are some of the 300 or so readers of our regular travel journal and come over here just because I'm not posting over there during GA.

We'll be going to the UU blogger panel (as attendees, not panelists) today at 4:30. And, now, I have to run off to my next session, so more later, including notes on today's sessions.