MtToby Peace and Social Concerns Committee, 4/17/19

Present: Diane C, Roger C, Sandi A-S, David A.

1a. David told of the progress on the “Call to Prevent Nuclear War,” which has been adopted by 70 nations, and some have ratified it. Jim McGovern has introduced a House resolution, HR 302, basically listing the Call in a flyer David handed out, “Back from the Brink.” “We call on the US to lead a global effort to prevent nuclear war by: Renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first; Ending the sole uncheck authority of any President to launch a nuclear attack; Taking US nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert; Cancelling the plan to replace its entire arsenal with enhanced weapons; Actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among nuclear-armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. Cities, e.g. Northampton and Amherst, have adopted it but not Northampton Meeting which considered it too incremental. We will use our May letter writing (May 19) for the Call. (Heading this group: Ira Helfand)

1b.David then spoke of the nuclearban.us effort and its Treaty Compliance Campaign, described as getting individuals, businesses, faith communities, schools, organizations, cities and states to work towards ‘complying’ with the 2017 Nuclear Ban Treaty by disconnecting – as far as possible – from the nuclear weapons industry. We propose this “Treaty Alignment” for MtToby. Then for consistency we would divest from companies invested in the nuclear economy, such as Honeywell. Northampton Meeting is an Aligned meeting and wrote to Honeywell saying that they would not buy more Honeywell products, and Honeywell replied. (Heading this group: Tim Wallis and Vicky Elston.)

1c. Roger and David will work on a one-page (max) Newsletter article and a document for the May agenda, on the Alignment matter.

2.Roger will handle the May 19 letter writing on The Call. We hope that the ISG will handle letter writing in June. Diane will confer with them.

3.Resistance Center. We will again suggest that MtT give $330 to the Center. There was an 11:40 Hour on it which seemed to answer Friends’ questions. Roger will talk with Ken about his reservations. He will explore the RC and become well informed. Sandi will help.

4. A replacement for Ka as FCNL representative is needed. Diane will send in a newsletter article about this opening.

5.Clothes for refugees in Pima AZ; Sandi will bring a box for donations on Sunday, Diane will write a newsletter article about the need. Donations can be kept here until May 1 when Eleanor Alden will return here from Pima. Our committee budget can be used to pay for shipping the donations to Pima. (News: the ISG is also interested in this.)

6. Items 3,4,8, and 9 of our March meetings are proposed for our May meeting.

We closed as we had begun, with a period of silence.

We noted that Sandi is our liaison with the Committee on Care and Counsel. She was welcome on that account but additionally because of her interest in our committee and its work.