Press barred from NNPCW Leadership Event By Paula R. Kincaid The Layman Online Friday, August 6, 1999 Two correspondents from Voices of Orthodox Women were not allowed to attend either the opening orientation or evening devotion held the first night of the National Network of Presbyterian College Women's Annual Leadership Conference. The NNPCW enforced its own open meeting policy for its five-day Leadership Event, a policy that disregards the 1997 General Assembly's open-meeting policy adopted by the 1997 General Assembly. VOW correspondent Laurie Johnson said she and Carol Janssens, also from VOW, will be allowed to attend the Sunday worship, but that NNPCW officials "were not happy about it." NNPCW officials claimed the worship service was "also a small group time, but made the concession to us," Johnson told The Layman Online. She said they had a private meeting with NNPCW intern Gusti Newquist and General Assembly Council liaison Kristen York Gerling. The meeting was taped, with the consent of all attendees. (For the complete transcript of the meeting, click here.) Johnson said that during the meeting, she and Janssens were assured repeatedly that they would be given any material presented in closed meetings. But when she asked for it, she was told by Newquist, "I don't have the material yet." "My concern is that what they hand me is not what is being discussed in small groups," said Johnson. Important for the whole church In the transcript, Gerling asked why the two reporters thought it was important to listen to small group discussions. "This is a leadership training program. If it's leadership training then it's important for the whole church to know the leaders of the different college groups and how they are being trained," replied Janssens. When Johnson pressed that since it was a leadership conference, it should be open to the press, Gerling said NNPCW had "received counsel from the church's attorneys that we are within our bounds to only open to the large group presentation and we will stand by that." "In my conversation with [Mark Tammen, manager of polity guidance training for the Office of the General Assembly] he mentioned that he advised you that the Office of the Stated Clerk encouraged us to abide by the same rules that the Unity and Diversity Conference abided by, which is what we did," said Newquist. The Unity and Diversity policy states that "The small group discussions may be closed to reporters at the choice of those present in that small group." When Johnson questioned that, Newquist replied "The women have decided themselves. It was decided by the planning team; and that is made up of college women." "But not the women participating in the conference," stated Johnson. 'We are not a threatening presence' Newquist said the women would vote on closing the meeting the following morning (Aug. 6), with Janssens present. Johnson said that meeting might be an opportunity to "explain why we're here, and we are not a threatening presence, and we'd like to share what's going on. NNPCW has a responsibility with their increased budget to communicate pretty effectively and clearly to the denomination as a whole. There's been an awful lot of questions and you could certainly put a lot of that to rest if things were more open and on the table." "Their direction for their reporting to the denomination is National Ministries and General Assembly Council, not through Voices of Orthodox Women. Therefore they will be reporting to the denomination through official channels," said Gerling. "I appreciate that," said Johnson, but she continued that the money that NNPCW gets "comes from Carol and me who contribute our dollars to GA, and so we want to know what's going on." "I'll just say in response to that, we're happy to provide you with all the materials as I said, to make sure you are aware of the content of the program. We'll see you tomorrow morning," said Newquist. At that point, said Johnson, Newquist and Gerling walked out of the room. "They left so quickly we ate their dust," said Johnson.

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