Peace and Social Concerns Committee, 5/27/2013

 

Present: Andy G,  Roger C,  George M, Beth A, Adele S-P, Susan C.

 

After a time of silence we constructed the agenda.

 

We agree to thank Gee Foster for her willingness to post FCNL things on our bulletin board, understanding that there is one panel of our bulletin board devoted to FCNL and that related things should be posted there.  We believe that Gee can be helpful in conferring with Beth about appropriate after-meeting announcements, but that Beth should be the one to make the announcements.  Adele offered to be a backup for Beth if she is away.

 

We will recommend continuing the Dime a Gallon fund, requesting that the Meeting send another $250 to Quaker Earthcare Witness and continue the collection method as this year.  This year we collected $186.56, not quite enough to compensate for the $250 outlay, and will hope for an increase in the coming fiscal year.

 

Several of us will be absent on June 9, and Beth offers to take charge of letter writing on that day, perhaps on the issues around Guantanamo.

 

Care and Counsel is proposing that if there are incidents, as there have been recently, of a person unable to be given a place of burial, our Meeting offer such a place of burial.  We endorse this proposal though without the wording before us we were unable to be more explicit.

 

Adele is now our AFSC representative and has attended two meetings of its Program Committee.  The committee hopes to have a retreat on Sunday July 7th at Mount Toby.  It remains open to more new members.

 

Andy proposed to continue facilitating the discussions about race and class, the next on June 16 at 8:45am.  We accepted his offer gratefully.  Since there has been some confusion about the date of the next meeting, Andy will contact Joe to request that an announcement be sent out with the date.

 

The next P&SC film in the series will be on June 13, “Amandla: a Revolution in Four Parts.”  Andy has the film and suggests having a potluck, then at 7:00 a singing performance by several Amandla choristers, and after that the movie.

 

The showing of Bidder 70 was poorly attended and in the fall we may consider showing it again.  We agreed to pay for the film, $28.50, from our committee budget.

 

Beth mentioned that housing is still needed for the Pine Ridge visitors on June 5-6.  She will send an announcement out on our P&SC listserv.

 

Andy will invite Andrea Cousins to our next meeting, Monday June 24, to speak with us about her concern about medical doctors participating in torture.

 

“Source to Sea” is a Connecticut River cleanup operation done annually, and we believe that Friends in our meeting would like to participate in it.  We may be able to organize a northern contingent (involving the Upper Worship Group) and a southern contingent also.  The event happens in the fall.  Susan and Adele will work on this possibility for community service and concern for the environment.

 

Beth notified us that she is due in court on July 11 as a result of her recent civil disobedience.   She may end up in jail as a consequence.

 

We closed with a time of silence.