Differences in this year’s General Council are important for attendees to note
By Dan Van Veen
This year, due to the massive size of the Orange County Convention Center and the combining of evening services with the Youth Convention, all of the events for this week’s General Council will be housed in one building.
Having a single venue (see detailed maps on pages 6 and 7) will make access easier than many of the recent General Councils, as attendees won’t be required to travel to a separate building for evening services or to visit the Exhibit Hall. This configuration will not only save attendees significant foot travel, but keep them indoors, cool and comfortable. The August weather conditions in Orlando are hot and humid — typically with highs in the 90s.
Another change for this General Council is registration badges will be required for admittance into all General Council facilities, including the evening services, Exhibit Hall and Fine Arts presentation rooms. Youth and non-voting General Council attendees will be able to register for $10 each at the General Council Registration area. Free visitor badges will not be available — to attend, individuals must register.
According to John Jay Wilson, administrator to the general superintendent, the requirement of badges will not only aid in enabling attendees in accessing General Council events, it provides a measure of increased security.
Along with the combining of the youth and evening services on Thursday and Friday, possibly the biggest change is that on Wednesday evening, there will be a youth service, but no adult evening service. This change was created to give attendees an opportunity to enjoy a special AG World Missions event.
“On Wednesday evening, World Missions will be presenting an interactive missions event in the convention center,” states Office of Public Relations Director Juleen Turnage. “From 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. attendees can tour the ‘Eurasia Experience,’ which comes complete with customs, international music and much more. Tickets for this exciting event will be available for free from the World Missions exhibit in the Exhibit Hall.”
In addition to the Wednesday evening experience, the World Missions event will be held at additional times later this week so youth may get a taste for real life missionary work as well. Detailed information about additional times will be available from the AG World Missions area in the Exhibit Hall.
For those with specific questions about General Council, location of events or registration, please see the Registration and Hospitality booths. Those who have access to the Internet will also find useful information on the General Council Web site.
And finally, a change attendees may note is that all the exhibitors are in one area this year. Although it may seem like a challenge to find a particular booth in a maze of hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of people, The Council Today makes it easy to find every exhibitor as a map of the Exhibit Hall, complete with exhibitors’ names and booth numbers, is provided on pages 12 and 13 of this edition of the paper.