Guest Blog by Shawn Risley
Why did I attend GA this June? I’m a lifelong member, sure, with long-acquired historical facts, but my education had stopped there. This was a faith I cared about, yet felt this was a now-or-never opportunity for intense learning. I signed up online about a week before GA, glad that I could attend virtually and somewhat anonymously. I saw GA as something delegates and leadership attended and – heck – I was clueless. Who did I think I was, anyway? I dove headlong into articles, meetings, fora, glad to absorb the wide range of information. A mental baleen whale’s feast. I started to notice more than factual information.
Accessibility features assisted participants to gain a more real-time input of information. Those of us who process speech but benefit from lip-reading, those who benefit visually by reading captions due to processing delays and/or hearing loss, those who benefit from simultaneous sign language interpretation, had an extra slice of remaining attention and absence of disconnectness which allowed them/us more chance for an emotional response to content instead of just struggling to gain content. What a gift, to get that emotional response that adds to remembering information in context!
GA participation included these guidelines: Agreement and Practices for Online Content and Discussion. Members of specific caucuses could indicate a preference for discussion rooms with like caucus members, allowing high-context discussion to occur. Some opted for rooms but could switch to another if needed. If moderators noted miscommunication or micro-aggressions during any group discussions, they’d interrupt the flow, identify the mismatch of communication so all had a common understanding. I witnessed no tension at GA, but do not yet understand majority culture patterns that injure others.
I dove in, hoping for head knowledge, and came away with an appreciation that useful communication is the first goal and the key factor for building community. Building skills of collaborating within the growing and diverse UU community, and within our larger communities, we join in. UUA.org and YouTube are worth exploring for updates.
Thanks, Betty. The agreement and practices themselves might describe healthy work interactions. More detail than usually seen, yet decent behavioral baselines we experience in context rather than reading from a document! But others may have found it reassuring.
I appreciate your comment.
I love, “A mental baleen whale’s feast.” That is what I experience also. I study not just what is being said, but how it is said and what tools are used. I even took a workshop on tools! Thank you Shawn for such an interesting and well written blog.
Shawn:
Glad you attended. I agree that what QUUF (and the world) needs is more collaborative communication. If QUUF can’t do it, who can? Thanks for sharing.