Back to where we started
GA planner Kate Trigger Duffert was both the first and the last guest on GA Daily
MILWAUKEE — GA Daily, a half-hour program that has allowed host Fred Tangeman to interview newsmakers at the 227th General Assembly, completed a circle of sorts when Tangeman booked a return engagement Thursday with the guest who started it all last week — Kate Trigger Duffert, the director of GA Planning.
Watch their conversation here. The two discussed the just-concluded Assembly even as staff packed up production gear backstage in the Baird Center in downtown Milwaukee.
Tangeman asked Trigger Duffert about standout moments during GA227, and she immediately flashed on Baird Center internet issues on Sunday evening. The GA production team sprang into action to find a workaround.
“Immediately everyone was laying down cables, taping things and trying to find a back-up solution so we could hold plenary without any online voting. Hopefully, it felt smooth for everyone in plenary hall,” she said. “That was a standout moment. I’m so proud and grateful for this team.”
“Otherwise, it’s been fairly smooth,” she told Tangeman. The teams managing business and production on the platform “have been wonderful keeping things moving forward.”
Some items of business had to wait until a later session when other items took more time to debate and discern than planners expected.
“We take into consideration where we think we might have some flexible space,” she said. “When we have to change things, we look at what’s part of the docket that’s not business. We look at when we can move those so we can continue the discernment that body is indicating it needs.”
The Bills and Overtures Committee was a valuable contributor to arranging the reshuffling because a member of each committee served on the B&O committee.
“We would go to them and say, ‘we are short on time. What can we do?’ They were able to come up with options for us quickly,” she said, including setting 90-minute time limits on items of business expected to generate plenty of questions and proposed amendments.
“It’s a reminder of all the collaboration that has to happen [at an Assembly] and it happens on the fly,” Tangeman said. He then asked Trigger Duffert if she’d thought much about the return to completely in-person Assemblies — committee work and plenaries — starting in 2030.
Planners will need to look at what locations can accommodate a meeting like this at the time of the 229th General Assembly, she said. “I’m sure we’ll make site visits by the end of the year to find a place that can be home for the Assembly in 2030,” she said.
Trigger Duffert said she remained backstage during the first-ballot election of the Rev. Marta Pumroy-Cordero and the Rev. Dr. Kristopher D. Schondelmeyer as Moderators of the 227th General Assembly. “We were still doing integration with voting and getting everything on screen,” she said. “I like to be part of that.”
One reward is the backstage crew learns who the next Moderators will be ahead of the public announcement. “We were all a little stunned we had Moderators on the first ballot,” she said.
She said she enjoyed taking “a moment” during the service that followed by worshiping alongside her husband and son. “It was a wonderful way to end the Assembly,” she said.
Looking ahead to the 228th General Assembly in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Trigger Duffert said she’s been impressed with “how incredibly connected and hospitable” the host presbytery has been.
“They are so vital and present. It will be wonderful to be there with them in their home context,” she said. “We get to meet this important part of our [Presbyterian] community in their home.”
The Puerto Rico Convention Center “is bright and airy. You won’t feel like you’re stuck in a dark bubble all day,” she said. “It is a place where people can take a breath, gather together and feel at ease while they discern.” Also, “there’s a lot of good coffee in that convention center,” she told Tangeman.
“For so many commissioners and advisory delegates, it will be a new experience,” she said. “If the Assembly can do some of the growth work of looking at ourselves and expanding our experiences, it will be so good.”
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