A business role play

Rev. Dr Norman Shanks led delegates through a role-play example of a business session on Tuesday.

A variety of Assembly personnel on Tuesday morning used a creative role play to provide an orientation to the way that business sessions will work.

Rev. Dr Norman Shanks, moderator of the Assembly planning committee, served as moderator for this fanciful session as well. Shanks had the "delegates" seated on stage wrestle with an issue using silence, prayer, small-group discussion, and the blue and orange consensus cards to give the real delegate body as sense of the proceedings to come.

A 5-minute discussion period among delegates was compressed to 10 seconds for sake of the demonstration, and other bits of humor were inserted through the play. Shanks finally declared, "Ah, we have consensus!" on the fake business item, receiving laughter and applause from those in the plenary hall.

Actual decision plenary sessions begin on Monday, 20 Feb.