I am a big fan of David Letterman’s Top Ten Lists. Here is my Top Ten List for deputies after returning home from General Convention, updated for 2015:
10. Remember you were elected by your diocese and you remain a deputy if and until your successor is elected. Your service as a deputy encompasses more than the actual days of General Convention.
9. Read and carefully review A Summary of Actions of the 78th General Convention.
8. Determine, in concert with your bishop(s), the best way to report to your diocese about the 78th General Convention. This can be done in a variety of ways; regional meetings; articles in the diocesan newspaper, magazine or newsletter; webinars; or a report to your diocesan convention.
7. Ensure that the secretary of convention in your diocese makes known to your diocesan convention the first reading of constitutional amendments as required by Article XII of The Constitution & Canons of The Episcopal Church.
6. Consider strategies with your deputation and bishop(s) to implement resolutions with diocesan implications or mandates (the Summary of Actions has a section on resolutions referred to dioceses). Check back with diocesan bodies that are charged with a given piece of work. The General Convention Office annually sends diocesan secretaries a checklist of General Convention actions that relate to dioceses with a request for an update of actions taken by the diocese.
5. Visit the House of Deputies website for information, resources and news for deputies and sign up for the monthly House of Deputies email newsletter.
4. Support and advocate for the budget adopted by General Convention. Speak to your diocesan finance committee, diocesan council, and diocesan convention, and urge your diocese to pay its full asking.
3. Discern whether you wish to offer yourself next year for election as deputy. It’s probably just right that most dioceses elect deputies more than a full year after General Convention adjourns. It gives deputies time to inform the diocese of what happened at General Convention and how it impacts the diocese. It also gives deputies time to forget the worst parts of Convention and want to do it again (kind of like childbirth).
2. Save your name badges and buttons. You never know what they might sell for on eBay someday.
1. Teach the song “We Are One Together – Yo Yo Yo” to your diocesan convention. If you have forgotten the words, here it is:
