[Peace-discuss] to move AWARE meetings or not to move AWARE meetings / that is the question

[Karen Medina]

Dear Peace Discuss,

At the past two AWARE meetings, we have discussed the possibility of
moving our meetings out of the IMC.

Reasons:
1) Low AWARE meeting attendance. High rent.
2) Noise level on Sunday evenings.
3) Ruined demonstration posters -- the recent fiasco with the IMC
moving our demonstration posters and then getting them water-soaked.

Rent to the IMC for the meeting space is $800 per year.
Low attendance: When we were having about 20 people per meeting, we
could afford the expense; and of course the IMC was a "good cause".
Now that we have 3-6 people per meeting sometimes, we really need to
cut back on our overhead.

Noise: There has been an increase in the number of musicians who want
to practice during our meeting times. Noise carries, from upstairs
down to the Grandpa Wahlfeldt room, but also the drums from the room
right next door. Already the acoustics in that room were not the best.

We had to throw out many signs. We had paid rent for the office space,
but the IMC rented that room out from under us and asked us to move
our signs to a different "safe place". They did not refund our rent
money that we had paid ahead. Then they moved us out of the "safe
place" into the boiler room. In that boiler room, our stuff mixed with
other stuff and it got hard to figure out what was ours. Then, without
notifying us, they moved us from one boiler room to boiler room #3
back in the bowels. On that day, we were doing a demonstration on
campus with CAN. We could not find our signs. Then, a few weeks later,
that area flooded. Our bags had some holes in them from much use over
the years. The bags held the moisture in. Some mould resulted, but
mostly the messages on the signs ran and the integrity of the signs
was greatly diminished.

I just wanted to let people know that this issue is being talked about
in the AWARE meetings.

-- karen medina

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