[Peace] minutes of weekly AWARE meeting 2009-07-05

Tue Jul 7 09:54:05 CDT 2009

Minutes of 07/05/2009 AWARE meeting are below, but first, AWARE Volunteer
Opportunities and the Upcoming Events Calendar:

*************** NOTE - IMPORTANT *******************
AWARE's monthly "Main Event" demonstration will be postponed for July
by one week due to conflict with July 4th holiday and parade and will thus
take place July 11th at the usual time and place (see Upcoming Events
Calendar below for details.
*****************************************************

AWARE Volunteer Opportunities
----------------------------------
(various ways to volunteer in AWARE's work)

AWARE is considering moving our monthly demonstration venue from Main &
Neil in Champaign to a higher-traffic site. It would be helpful for us to
discover which intersections in Champaign/Urbana have the most traffic to
help us in that decision. A volunteer is needed to contact the appropriate
city department/official in both Champaign and Urbana to obtain a list of
and available statistics on, say, the 10 busiest intersections in each
city. It's probably a fair assumption that this is tracked by both cities
and that it's public information. For assistance, contact Randall Cotton,
recotton at earthlink.net, 351-8644/722-8470.

AWARE is helping search for locations to set up
a portable electronic LED display that reports (in a loop) various
statistics on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (casualties, financial
cost, etc.). Here's a video of the sign going through a typical loop:
http://dart.ncsa.uiuc.edu/stuffed/slevy/costofwar-sign.mp4 Dimensions of
the sign are: 50.3" L x 6.3" H x 1.7" W and it weighs 12 pounds. Full
specifications are at: http://www.bigbrite.com/product.aspx?id=78 . The
display could be set up anywhere indoors - home, business, event - where
it will be seen by many, for as long or as little as you like. If you can
volunteer to display the sign somewhere or have any ideas where it could
be set up, contact Barbara Kessel, barkes at gmail.com, 365-9473 or Randall
Cotton, recotton at earthlink.net, 351-8644/722-8470. As of March 2009, the
sign is installed in the lobby of the Urbana/Champaign Independent Media
Center, right next to the Post Office there in the building (202 S.
Broadway, Urbana).

Help is needed with content creation and maintenance for AWARE's website,
anti-war.net. Technical experience (UNIX/HTML/CSS) required for
maintenance work (but not content creation) Contact: Stuart Levy,
slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu, 351-9264/244-1543 or Randall Cotton,
recotton at earthlink.net, 351-8644/722-8470.

Meeting minutes: Someone is needed to share or take over meeting minutes
duty (preparing these notes each week). Help will be provided (as much as
necessary). Contact: Randall Cotton, recotton at earthlink.net,
351-8644/722-8470

AWARE publicity: Someone is needed to maintain AWARE publicity documents
(and arrange for copies, as needed). This includes our business card,
intro sheet for new meeting attendees and our general information sheet
for tabling events). All reproduction costs reimbursed, Help provided as
needed. Contact: recotton at earthlink.net, 351-8644/722-8470

Upcoming Events Calendar
----------------------------
Jul 7 (TODAY, Tuesday) 1PM, Urbana City Council Chambers, 400 S Vine St
Taping of "AWARE on the Air" for UPTV to be broadcast later the same day
(see below)

Jul 7 (TODAY, Tuesday) 10PM, UPTV (cable channel 6)
Broadcast of "AWARE on the Air", taped earlier in the day (see above)

Jul 11 (Saturday) 8AM-noon, AWARE's weekly presence at Farmer's Market
(Urbana Market at the Square), providing literature, expression (bumper
stickers, buttons, etc) and conversation to further AWARE's mission.

Jul 11 (Saturday) 2-4PM Main St & Neil St, Champaign
The Main Event - AWARE's monthly street demonstration event. Largely
focuses on opposing U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, but is open
for anyone to join us either using one of our signs or one of their own.
We try to have a topical flyer to distribute to motorists and passers-by
each month.

Jul 14 (Tuesday) 1PM, Urbana City Council Chambers, 400 S Vine St
Taping of "AWARE on the Air" for UPTV to be broadcast later the same day
(see below)

Jul 14 (Tuesday) 10PM, UPTV (cable channel 6)
Broadcast of "AWARE on the Air", taped earlier in the day (see above)

Jul 18  (Saturday) 8AM-noon, AWARE's weekly presence at Farmer's Market
(Urbana Market at the Square), providing literature, expression (bumper
stickers, buttons, etc) and conversation to further AWARE's mission.

Sep 12-13 (Saturday-Sunday) Chicago, IL
US Campaign to End the Occupation:
8th Annual National Organizers' Conference. See:
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?list=type&type=253

*****
Minutes of 07/05/09 AWARE meeting:

About 10 in attendance

News of the week was reviewed jointly

-----------------
Finance  Report:
estimated balance: $705

AWARE funds are substantially lower than in the past ($2000 has been
typical for years, we're now in the few hundreds).

Contribution jar passed around

Working group reports:
******************
Main Event:
========
(AWARE's monthly street protest held at the intersection of Main & Neil
2-4PM on the first Saturday of each month).

**REMINDER** Main Event postponed by consensus without objection to July
11th due to conflict with the holiday & parade.

**UPDATED** Suggested flyer topic - a quick outline of Iranian history
esp. regarding US involvement from, say, 1952 onward. David has
volunteered to work on this. Stuart volunteers to check with David on
progress.

No new information yet on Champaign/Urbana's busiest intersections.
Volunteer opportunity posted for this.

Weekly Action
==========
**NEW** First "Weekly Action" posted to the peace list regarding Senator
Durbin's role in on an appropriations subcommittee that will consider
$2.775 billion in military aid to Israel.
See: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace/2009-July/022391.html
. All AWARE members and friends encouraged to take part in this joint
group action.

AWARE Presents:
=============
(Organization of AWARE-sponsored events in the community)

An AWARE Presents meeting may not be imminent, but is still in the offing.

**NEW** Mention made again that AWARE could organize an event to educate
about
the elections in Iran.

**NEW** Mention made again about the recent visitor to the Farmer's Market
table who mentioned a relative that currently works for an NGO in
Afghanistan and who also has done so in Pakistan and Iran. We may be able
to arrange a talk with him. Stuart and Randall have contact info and will
follow up.

Ideas under consideration for the future:

- Invitation to Stephen Kinzer to appear again.

- Invitation to William Blum

- Jeremy Scahill event: previously contacted, currently in a "wait and
see" pattern.

Anti-Racism:
=========
(AWARE's efforts to keep apprised of and provide support for
anti-racism/anti-discrimination efforts, including efforts of CUCPJ -
Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice)

**NEW** No CUCPJ meeting yesterday. Mention made of Jim Dey's extensive
article regarding the Kaiyewu case. Comment made that a number of
important details were left out of the article.

AWARE on the Air
==============
(AWARE's weekly television show on public access cable channel 6 - UPTV,
Urbana Public Television)

Discussion on who can make it this week. Some volunteered, more always
welcome.

A likely feature in upcoming editions is a weekly discussion of recent
news in much the same form as occurs at each AWARE meeting.

Some "Aware on the Air" recordings are now available on-line. See the
AWARE home page at anti-war.net.

Taping typically occurs each Tuesday at 1PM and is broadcast later the
same day at 10PM. AWARE members (and friends) invited to participate - the
more the merrier (see details above in upcoming events calendar). Program
quality is always better with more participants.

There is always room for more participation in AWARE on the Air - prepared
statements OK. Arriving late/leaving early is OK.

Farmer's Market
===========
(AWARE's weekly seasonal presence at the Urbana "Market at the Square" AKA
"Farmer's Market")

**NEW** signup sheet passed around.

**RATIFIED** T-shirt purchase proposal of $100 for three designs:
http://syracuseculturalworkers.com/sites/default/files/images/5261no-justice.jpg
http://syracuseculturalworkers.com/t-shirt-love-thy-neighbor-unisex
http://syracuseculturalworkers.com/t-shirt-peace-mideast
Various sizes of these to be sold at Farmer's Market for slightly more
than cost:
Ratified by consensus without objection.

Blackwater
========
(Activism regarding notorious domestic policing and international
mercenary contractor Blackwater, including coordination with
Illinois-based activist group Clearwater: see:
http://www.noprivatearmies.org )

(nothing new this week)

Student Groups
===========
(AWARE's efforts to keep apprised of and provide support for local
chapters of student-affiliated progressive and anti-war groups such as
Campus Anti-Network, International Socialist Organization, and Iraq
Veterans Against the War).

(nothing new this week)

Monthly Message
============
(Efforts to propagate the content of the Main Event monthly flyer through
various media channels)

**NEW** Reminder that a Monthly Message could be composed regarding the
issue being addressed by the current Weekly Action (military aid to
Israel).

**NEW** The local "Smile Politely" website is mentioned as an additional
media outlet. Carl has published twice there. www.smilepolitely.com

AWARE Films:
===========
(Organization of film and video showings in the community)

Possible future showings:

**NEW** 1. "Rethink Afghanistan", new Robert Greenwald film.
http://rethinkafghanistan.com/ . Copy already ordered.

2. "On White Privilege" (see
http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=137 )

3. Another showing of Naomi Wolf's "The End of America".

4. "Pray the Devil back to Hell  - the gripping account of a group of
brave and visionary women who demanded peace for Liberia, a nation torn to
shreds by a decades old civil war. Combining contemporary interviews,
archival images, and scenes of present-day Liberia the film recounts the
experiences and memories of the women who stood up to their country's
tyrannical leader and brutal warlords, in order to bring peace to their
tormented country" [from imdb.com]. **NEW INFO** Rights to show this could
be as much as $300, but we could charge admission and provide copies for
checkout to Libraries.

Talk has arisen regarding a possible film festival focused on
"Peacemakers".

Old Business
**********
(new developments regarding ongoing issues)

**UPDATED** Anti-Recruitment - Meeting still being pursued with
administration at Centennial High School, where it was reported that
apparently, military recruiters were given free access to students in the
hallways recently. AWARE has met with Centennial in the past regarding
this issue, but there's been a change of principal since then. Folks
interested in pursuing this: Mort, Linda, Dave H, Durl. After repeated
attempts to contact and set up a meeting, finally there is agreement for a
meeting in July, which may be finalized when Mort returns from France.
Recently another individual (Betty) has expressed interest in
participating. Question raised as to whether Principal Justin Moore will
be staying on for the next school year.

**NEW** July 4th parade was unfortunately cancelled. However, posters were
made that could be used at monthly Main Event demonstrations.

Sweet Corn Festival application has been received. Some folks wonder
whether early submission will help us get a choice booth.

Concern regarding dwindling AWARE attendance. Idea was proposed to survey
past AWARE participants to discover why they have lost interest. Anonymity
deemed important. A survey could be constructed online to assure
convenience and anonymity using a service such as surveymonkey.com.
Randall has volunteered to construct list of folks to survey. Wayne has
volunteered to draft questions. Initially, however, questions may be
solicited via AWARE's mailing lists. Bob Illyes survey from 2004 may
inform question construction.

**UPDATED** Participation in the US Campaign to End the Occupation's
campaign to oppose military aid to Israel. See:
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=2143 .
AWARE is now officially listed as an endorsing organization for a
congressional letter. See:
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/downloads/FY2010BudgetOpenLetter.pdf
Formal letter sent by Carol to Durbin regarding opposition to military aid
to Israel and including a request to meet in person with AWARE.

Recent idea proposed for publicity/awareness efforts: a scavenger/treasure
hunt, perhaps at Farmer's Market, focused on raising awareness of peace
issues.

New Ideas
*********
(never before discussed ideas brought up during this meeting)

(nothing this week)

Events of the past week
******************
(comments/reviews of recent events since the last AWARE meeting)

(nothing this week)

Other Upcoming Events
******************
(events of note which aren't listed in the upcoming events calendar above)

**NEW** July 16 (Thursday) First Mennonite Church (adjacent yard), 902 W
Springfield Ave, Urbana
Statewide-coordinated "Vigil for Reform at Tamms Supermax Prison"

Plans in formation for a "Midwest Liberty Festival", perhaps in the fall,
possibly at Du Quoin in southern Illinois. Possible speakers mentioned so
far: Naomi Wolf, Ron Paul with Rand Paul, Cindy Sheehan

Mennonites may offer a presentation this summer from a couple who live in
Tehran.