Fort Worth, Texas

The closing celebration of General Assembly 2005 is over — and the closing celebration was lots of fun. Check out the video online at the video page of the General Assembly Web site.

General Assembly is done — but we’re not done here in the Web room. We’re going to be up late, trying to get the last of the stories written and posted, the last of the videos archived, the last of the photos formatted and available. We just ordered two dozen Diet Cokes in — caffeine to keep us going.

Me, I’ve got about 3,000 words to write before I go to bed. I probably won’t be able to post on this blog again until Wednesday, sicne I will be getting on the train tomorrow for the ride home. See you then.

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Fort Worth, Texas, at the General Assembly of Unitarian Universalist congregations

The best workshop that I have attended at General Assembly this year by far was “The Electronic Frontier: Growing Unitarian Universalism via the Web.”

At this workshop, we learned that the great majority of our newcomers learn about our congregations through our Web sites. By now, more than 90% of Unitarian Universalist congregations have Web sites. As Deb Weiner put it (she’s the Director of Electronic Communications at the UUA), people who are looking for a Unitarian Universalist congregation should be able to find one if they’re looking via the Web. And right now, hundreds of people visit www.uua.org each Sunday morning looking for a UU congregation near them!

Another highlight yesterday, needless to say, was the meeting of the UU bloggers who are here at General Assembly. One clear thing came up for all of us — at least part of the reason we are blogging about Unitarian Universalism is that we want to welcome those people who might be looking for our liberal faith.

I’m really coming to believe that if a congregation wants to grow these days, it had better pay close attention to its Web site.

When I have a little more time, I’ll try to write more about this topic — but now I have to run off an report on yet another General Assembly event for the UUA Web site. Where am I headed? Off to “The Prom You Never Had.” Ironically, I’m one person who never had any interest in attending my high school prom — that will just mean that I am able to maintain journalistic objectivity.

More about General Assembly tomorrow!

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Fort Worth, Texas

We’re sitting here at the UU bloggers meetup at General Assembly. Here’s who’s here:

Enrique, from the Blue Chalice — Annabelle and Curtis, from Talking UU Technology — Chris, from Philocrites — Joseph, from Radical Hapa — Phil, Phil’s Little Blog on the Prairie — James, from Left Coast Unitarian — Patrick, who’s a regular reader and commenter — and Larry, who’s also a reader, and looking to incorporate blogging into his church’s Web site.

John from Returning, and Jess from Jess’s Journal were here earlier. Greg from (r)evolUUtions could not make it, but his wife stopped by to send his greetings.

Hi, all you other UU bloggers who are following General Assembly from afar! More on our meeting later….

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Electronic Communications Room, General Assembly, Fort Worth

Yes, you can watch the best of General Assembly live online. Go to the streaming video page of the UUA Web site, and click on the link in the upper right corner to get the live video coverage. You will need “Real Player,” a free download (link to that site on the streaming video page).

Dwight Ernst, our tech guru here in the electronic communcations room, just announced that about 50 people are watching the Service of the Living Tradition as I write this. There are another 10 to 20 people downloading the archived videos of earlier events, inlduing the session with Pete Seeger earlier today.

What are you waiting for? Check it out!

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