wfn.org | [ENS] Volunteers help keep convention business moving

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

August 7, 2003

Volunteers help keep convention business moving

by Janet Kawamoto
Convention Daily

[ENS] Guarding doors, giving directions, delivering messages, keeping the
Convention running the volunteers are everywhere, some 1,100 of them,
made highly visible by their distinctive blue aprons. About three-quarters
of them are from Minnesota; the rest, says volunteer supervisor Katie Hardy
of Edina, Minn., are from just about everywhere.

At the information booth, Trevor Smith, a sophomore at Hamline University
in St. Paul, and Amanda Ziebell-Finley, who just graduated from Hamline,
took a few minutes from assisting convention-goers to talk about being
volunteers. It was his first day and her tenth on the job.

Its been a lot of fun, said Ziebell-Finley, who is a co-supervisor of
volunteers. Ive met so many great people.

At the volunteer center in the lobby of the Convention Center, supervisors
Dusty Maris of St. Paul and Mari-Lou Triebenbach of Plymouth, Minn., talked
about their past General Convention experience. Mari-Lou and I did this
job in 1976, but by hand, said Maris. Now, she says, its all on
computers. The four supervisors, who are responsible for scheduling and
rescheduling volunteer hours, work at the direction of coordinator Rex
McKee of Minneapolis.

The chance to see the Church in action is an important draw for many of the
volunteers. After I got here I found that I could volunteer, so I could
find out more about the convention and the way it operates, said Roland
Wilder, whose wife is a deputy from Southern Virginia. I have been quite
impressed with the way that business is being conducted.

The first thing on my mind today is how proud I am to be an Episcopalian
because of the dignity and restraint and respect that have been so apparent
in the last two difficult days, said Ann Daly Goodwin of Woodbury, Minn.,
who has worked nearly every day of the convention. I was here in 1976 for
the ordination of women, and I was here in 1956 at the Anglican Congress. I
wouldnt miss these events for anything.