[Bookstoprisoners] Conference meeting minutes

[Suzanne Linder]

Here are the minutes from last night's meeting about the national
conference.  We had a really productive meeting and would encourage anyone
who is still interested in helping plan to join us at our next meeting,
Wednesday, July 11th at 7 PM.  We decided to meet again at Suzanne & Jay's
house.

We talked about places to advertise our conference.  Jay sent email flyers
for people who are attending the US Social Forum to pass out.  The flyers
direct people to our new conference website
www.books2prisoners.org/conference.  People who are interested can submit
their emails to receive updates about the conference and we will add more
information as we get it.

Noah will send an email announcement to the ALA student list and the
progressive librarians list, Yvette will put an announcement in the CURE
newletter, Jay will contact the John Howard association and Suzanne will
send postcards to the other BTP organizations.

We worked for awhile on a statement for Leslie (fund-raiser) that
articulated why prison book work is important.  Barbara will send that to
Leslie and also talk to the ACLU about providing a scholarship and a
possible speaker about book rejections / inmates first amendment rights.

We realized that as a Registered Student Organization, Noah and April's
group, Association for Inmate Rights and Bob's campus BTP chapter can be
co-sponsors of our event and then do fundraising for the conference.  Noah
is going to look into funding for speakers available through SORF and April
is going to come up with some fund raising ideas.  We haven't talked to Bob
yet about the campus BTP chapter co-sponsoring the conference.

We discussed some potential speakers for the conference.  A person from John
Howard was suggested but Jay was worried that their focus would be too
broad.  Suzanne suggested a couple poets who also teach creative writing in
prisons who were in town two years ago for the first Prison Arts Festival.
She is going to contact Stephen and the EBB folks to see if they would be
interested in bringing them back.  Thiyemba Jess was also recommended as
someone that could read if we have a slam jam type event on the Saturday
night.

Noah is going to put together some questions that people answer when they
register so we can have an idea of their level of experience and involvement
as we plan sessions.

We decided that Friday night would probably just be a social time and the
bulk of the conference would be on Saturday.  Sunday morning is still up in
the air.

Noah is going to talk to the bike co-op about having bikes available for
conference participants.

We discussed getting food donations and Suzanne is going to contact Danielle
to find out how things were done during the barn raising.

Jay will contact Nancy about a jail tour and possibly being part of a
panel.  Barbara will talk to Sarah about an assistant warden who might be
willing to speak.
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