[Bookstoprisoners] Conference meeting minutes

[Suzanne Linder]

Hello all--

Barbara, Leslie, Yvette, April, Max, Jay and Suzanne met last night for
another conference planning meeting.  Below are the notes:

We began by talking about funding.  Suzanne is meeting with Stephen Harnett
on Tuesday, July 17th and will be talking to him about approaching the
Center for Democracy in a Multiracial Society for funding.  CDMS funds the
Prison Arts Festival and Stephen is interested in perhaps hosting a third
PAF during the time of the BTP conference.

We have an anonymous donation of $400 and Suzanne is waiting to hear from
her church about a $200 donation that she asked for.

We decided to send a letter (snail mail) to people who have given through
the alternative gift program asking them to donate money for the
conference.  April is going to write that letter and circulate a draft via
email.

We decided to send an email to the IMC list, CU Peace and Justice and any
other progressive email addresses we have asking people to host conference
attendees or give a small donation to defray travel and food expenses for
attendees.  Barbara is going to write that letter and circulate a draft via
email.

Leslie will approach McKinley Presbyterian about how to ask them for a
donation and to ask their congregation members to host attendees.  We
discussed also approaching the UCC church and the UU church.

We discussed and approved (with slight modifications) the survey we will use
for people offering housing and requesting housing.

Jay will get the paypal account set up and will work with Suzanne to get the
registration page up and running.

Max is going to begin contacting grocery stores to request food donations.

We discussed a budget for food and scholarships.  We hope to raise $2000 to
use as scholarships for people who would not otherwise be able to attend the
conference.  We set $1,300 as a food budget and as food donations come in,
we will subtract those from the amount we need to raise for food.
Conference attendees are paying $20 which will go towards food cost as well.


We are hoping that CDMS and the potential Prison Arts Festival can provide
food for the reception Friday night and we will provide lunch and dinner on
Saturday and coffee and pastries on Sunday morning.

We talked through a brief schedule for the weekend which we will publish
with registration materials.  It is:

Friday night: Registration and Reception--hopefully there will be prisoner
art on display (this could be the opening for the prisoner art show).
Hopefully Sandra and an ex-inmate can give a 20-30 minute welcoming speech.

Saturday: 9-10:15--concurrent round tables

               10:15-10:45--coffee break

                10:45-12--concurrent round tables

                12-1--lunch

                1-2:30--keynote address--hopefully and ACLU lawyer who can
discuss book rejections and prisoner rights to reading material, time for
questions

                2:30-5--choice of activity--options: jail tour, working on a
group publication of prisoner writing, check out bike from bike co-op and
ride, maybe a movie sponsored by the PAF?

                5-6--Social hour--possibly with an attempt to gather data
about different BTP projects

Dinner at 6 on Saturday

7:30-late:  Slam Jam, Romp Stomp with poetry and music (hopefully in
conjunction with PAF)

Sunday: 9AM coffee and wrap up--what have we accomplished and what comes
next?

NEXT MEETING:  Wednesday, July 25, 7 PM at Suzanne & Jay's
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