Peace and Social Concerns Committee, 6/16/14

Present: Adele S, Beth A, Dan G, Andy G, Chris M, Susan C, Roger C.

We opened with a time of silence and then a sharing of concerns on our hearts.

Pat Hynes gave us four proposed dates for her presentation (see May minutes) and we preferred September 25. Andy will contact Pat. [Note: He did, and the date set is Thursday September 11.] Beth offered to be on a committee planning the event. She was advised to reserve the Champney and Fellowship rooms for that evening. Adele offered to contact George L and Andrea C to see if they would like to work with Beth. Susan offered to put a brief save-the-date notice in the upcoming newsletter.

Roger will contact Diane to assist her with the letter-writing responsibility which she has taken for July 13.

Adele will prepare a report about AFSC, regionally and nationally, to give to the July meeting for business.

We looked into the Handbook description of our committee, during which we noted that we have not been active in providing information and counseling to young men about the possibility of conscientious objection. Although we do not have trained draft counselors in our committee, we can put young men in touch with them, and we should be offering this possibility to men approaching or near draft age.

We spent some time with the Handbook sections and left it to Andy and Roger to finalize the revisions.

In discussing the P&SC listserv, we decided to continue with the currently existing guidelines, but to add to them some explanatory specifics on the website where the listserv is described: http://www.mounttobyfriends.org/organization/organizational/peace-and-social-concerns/peace-and-social-concerns-listserv/

It was noted that there is a good deal of overlap between our committee’s concerns, and environmental issues. This revealed some lack of agreement about what is appropriate for the listserv. In 6 months we will review the guidelines.

Chris asked about the topic for the monthly letter-writing and suggested inviting the meeting to propose topics. He may write an invitational article to the newsletter or otherwise find a way to invite the participation of the meeting in selecting topics.

Andy will prepare an annual report of the Committee for the July meeting for business.

Our next meeting will be at 7pm on July 21, the standard third Monday.

We closed with a time of silence.