Day 0 and Day 1 of Convention

Didn't get around to posting last night (loong day, very tired, you understand), so I'll give a re-cap of that as well.
Anyway, yesterday afternoon at 2 we had a welcoming presentation from the President of the House of Deputies, Bonnie Anderson, the Presiding Bishop, Katherine Jefferts Schiori, and a Harvard professor whose name escapes me who spoke on the topic of Ubunto and the Public Narrative, both of which are to be foci of the convention.
The PB began with a somewhat somber address. She spoke of the Church's current situation as a turning point, a decision point, rather than a catastrophe. She pointed out that at this stage, at this convention, we have the opportunity to enact change and improve the situation, but doing so will require working through our discomfort and our uneasiess and taking the right path rather than the easy path. She compared this choice to Christ's own journey, particularly in his choice to travel to Jerusalem, knowing his suffering if he went there. He just as easily could have turned away from this path. Yet, the PB also pointed out that there is more to the Jerusalem story than calvary: if we chose the difficult path, the path to Jerusalem, though we may have to bear some difficult crosses, we will also be rewarded with our own resurrection as a church.
If the PB's message was sobering, the ones which followed were somewhat more uplifting and hopeful. Bonnie Anderson shared her own experience of becoming a member of the Episcopal Church, and then the Harvard professor spoke on Public Narrative and how using this tool will help the convention in acheiving the spirit of Ubuntu, the "I am because we are, and because we are, I am" philosphy that rejects self-centeredness in favor of a community understanding.
The Public Narrative talk was fascinating and extremely detailed, and almost impossible to condense or summarize, so I'm afraid I'll have to skip over it.
After the presentations we had Deputy orientation. It was fairly standard stuff, the basics of voting and procedure. We had a practice voting session with the clickers, which mercifully not many people messed up, so hopefully that won't be a problem like it was last convention. We also had a roleplay for debating procedures....which was informative, cute and kind of funny but also made me want to bury my head in my hands.
I've decided to keep a report going of the Secretary of Convention (G. Straub)'s outfits. He tends to wear somewhat outrageous jackets, bright colored shirts, and bow ties. Yesterday he was wearing a green and white paisley (sp?) jacket, a lavender purple dress shirt and an episcopal purple bow tie. Today was less spectacular but nonetheless featured a blue, navy, and ochre yellow plaid jacket paired with a white shirt and a bright red bow tie. Check back for more outfit updates as the convention progesses.
Today started early with a Consultation meeting at 7am, followed by the opening legislative session at 8am. The session this morning was spectacularly dull, and mostly consisted of housekeeping sort of stuff. This afternoon's session perhaps could be more interesting, and the committee meetings are already getting under way with the heavy-hitting hearings today and tomorrow. Tonight is also going to be filled with all sorts of committee hearings to keep us occupied, which may be interesting.
Though it is yet to be needed, I will also be keeping an Outrageously Obnoxious Comment tally, which will probably be quite high once the hot-button issues come up on the docket :P