[Peace] minutes of 4/13/03 AWARE meeting

[Randall Cotton]

Ricky Baldwin facilitating

Attendance: 30

This meeting was abbreviated to less than an hour because of the AWARE
fundraising event which began at 6PM
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Carl: news of the week
- April 12 Worldwide demonstration summary
- 79 billion war spending bill
- Powell and Wolfowitz already demonizing Syria
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Joe P.: attended a conference of the World Socialist Web Site (www.wsws.org)
March 29-30 in Ann Arbor, MI. He distributed a handout with a sampling of
articles from the site relating to Iraq, 9/11 and the conference itself.
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Gabe: finance report

Estimated current funds: $2000

$100 raised at P4P

Peaceful Tomorrows was a $656 expense and this was discussed due to its
size. Expenses included:
$200 for flight
$60 for van back to O'Hare
$80 for fliers
$200 honorarium directly to Jeremy Glick

Meredith suggested a way to cut costs for such events through RSO status at
the University.
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Ricky: P4P report

attendance was about 100 people

Pending action item: Future P4P strategy/motivation discussion/meeting -
Ricky may host this.

Counter-protestors crossed the border at one point and disturbed an
interview of Ricky. Police intervened, threatened arrest and warned
counter-protest organizers.

Randall displayed the "casualty posters" project used for the first time on
Saturday at P4P and asked for further input (about 15 people participated on
Saturday)

Some consternation was expressed by two new meeting attendees about the
counter-protestors (much discussion has occurred on this in past meetings).
This led into the "P4P alternatives" working group report...
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Linda: P4P Alternatives working group

Meeting was held at Linda's last Tuesday:

Ideas proposed

top 3:
1. Town Meeting, perhaps regularly scheduled
2. regularly scheduled Candlelight vigils (Joan  N.)
3. Bastille Day Party (July 14th)

other ideas:
July 4th float
Education Study groups (Lisa)
Humanitarian Efforts
More social events (bowling, pool, etc.) (Ryan)
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Charlotte: War Tax Resistance/Conscientious Objector working group

There was a meeting/party at Kickapoo landing where Paul King did a
presentation on tax resistance.

There is a conscientious objector working group meeting/event scheduled for
Monday (TODAY) 7PM at Channing-Murray

There are plans now for an April 29th counter-recruitment effort at Urbana
High School (with possibly an additional Spring date as well).

The group is looking for mentors to counsel students about alternatives to
military enlistment for college finances, etc.

The group is looking for conscientious objector counselors as well.

Two new AWARE mailing lists were created for this group: peace-wtr and
peace-co
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Carol: Peaceful Tomorrows (Jeremy Glick), last Thursday at University Y

Attendance: over 100

Press coverage was good:
sympathetic article in the News-Gazette the day before
WILL radio interview day of
good DI article day after
TV 10:00 news coverage

Jeremy provided a few additional copies of the book he co-edited "Another
World is Possible". Cost is $10, funds going to AWARE.

Jeremy proved to be a hip, urban guy with a long history of activism (though
it turns out he wasn't actually heavily involved with Peaceful Tomorrows).
He provided keen insights into the current war in particular and building
activist movements in general.

Special thanks to: Al, Lisa, Janet, Meredith, Ricky, Darrin, Carol, Peter
and those who made calls to promote the event.
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Linda: Palestinian Truth Tour, earlier in the same day of this meeting at
Red Herring/Channing-Murray

Attendance: 40-50

4 International Solidarity Movement activists presented slides and video and
spoke of their firsthand experiences in ISM's non-violent direct action in
support of resisting the occupation. Also discussed was the recent killing
of ISM activist Rachel Corrie and the recent shooting of 2 ISM activists by
Israeli forces (all within the last month).
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Meredith spoke up about the importance of more phone calls to encourage
people to attend P4P. A sign-up sheet was passed around for people to
volunteer for this.
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Mort spoke of a peace demonstration he attended in Normal, Illinois over the
weekend
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Carol noted that the Urbana Farmer's Market will start up again soon, so we
should get literature ready and start planning for it. (ed. note - as best I
can tell, Farmer's Market will start May 3).
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Robert introduced the idea of having a caravan to a planned Vietnam Veterans
Against the War Memorial Day rally in Chicago.
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Matt M. renewed the call (with much agreement) for letters to the editor to
counter the many outrageous pro-war letters appearing in the News-Gazette
and elsewhere.
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Al and Robert had initial, sketchy information on a "campus anti-war panel"
and it now seems they were referring to a university-sponsored
student-faculty forum consisting of a series of 4 presentation/panel
discussions under the moniker "The Nation and International Conflict:
Impacts on the Community, World, Country and Individual". Dates are April
21, 22, 28 and 29. Full information is at: http://www.oc.uiuc.edu/oc/forum/
. Free and open to the public.
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Lisa has details on an offer by "Notes 'n' Quotes" copy shop (502 E. John)
to establish a "special account" for reduced copy rates for AWARE - 3 cents
a sheet for white, 4 cents a sheet for color.
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Carol reports that Brant Hansen (WDWS radio talk-show personality) expressed
possible interest in co-moderating or co-hosting a town meeting. This might
dovetail into the "P4P alternatives" working group idea for a town meeting.