Last week, the West Virginia Annual Conference met at its “home among the hills” on the campus of West Virginia Wesleyan College for its annual meeting. Once again, I paid attention to how individuals with disabilities, both visible and invisible, were welcomed and included. I also continued my streak of entering the annual conference gathering with a visible injury which gave me a different perspective on the proceedings.
From a disability perspective, the annual conference gathering was a mixed bag. There were things to celebrate and opportunities for better inclusion in the future.
The conference did well to let people know how to access golf carts, which help transport people who may have difficulty walking around the lengthy and uneven campus. Leaders made sure people had a phone number to reserve a cart. This was an important step to help make sure those who needed the service had priority.
The conference also did well by encouraging people to not use the handicap-accessible bathrooms in the areas adjacent to the chapel and to leave them for those who needed that access. However, the fact an announcement was made as people were leaving for a break may have made it hard to hear. The locations of bathrooms that require people to traverse steps made it a challenge for people with difficulty walking.
The conference did well in having a disability presence. It would have been helpful to have more than one person at the table to encourage more dialogue and interactions with people.
Those were some of the positives. Some challenges took place throughout the gathering.
We sang a verse that was offensive or, at least, expressed a lack of understanding regarding the needs of the disability community. While “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing” is a historic and beautiful song in our tradition, a simple rewrite of verse 6 or omitting the verse altogether would have been helpful to prevent a congregation from singing for the deaf to hear.
We need to find a better way to administer the voting process. At several points, delegates were asked to stand for a vote when it was unclear how the body was voting. When we ask people to stand to have their vote count, it can harm those who have difficulties standing or cannot do so. Moving to an all-electronic voting system, while it would cost the conference more, would be a more inclusive and quicker way to vote on matters before the body.
There is a deep need moving forward regarding the quality of sound and the importance of closed captioning to allow for better access. There is also a need for sign language interpretation to help guide toward a more inclusive gathering.
I experienced several moments where I felt uncomfortable by the words and actions of others directed towards my injury. While done in jest, I don’t believe we always recognize the limits of our humor. At the same time, I am responsible for expressing my exhaustion at the moment of the same joke or how uncomfortable it made me feel. Though I am one to laugh at myself, we all have our limits of what we are comfortable with before it goes too far.
Overall, I thought the conference was more inclusive than in 2022 though there are still issues to consider. In the long run, however, the conference might want to begin to have the conversation of whether a gathering can be truly inclusive for those with disabilities in its current location and, if not, should a move be made to a place that would provide for more access and acts of welcome for all.
Shannon Blosser 