Present: Peter, Ellyn, Glenda Rae, Jenny, Rey, Wanda, Galen, Kathy, Lois (by phone)
Old business
1. Approval of Minutes for December 5: The minutes were approved as presented after Lois corrected the information about the reception for the Library Photo Exhibit. It was not on December 6, but on Sunday, January 13, at 2:00pm. Several folks had attended the Jobs with Justice Human Rights Day session at the Library on December 8 and the vigil outside Rep. Donnelly's office on December 10 and reported that these were well attended.
2. Progress Reports
a. Topic of the Month: Climate Change and the Environment- Rey was not able to put out a statement for discussion via the list serv. We postponed discussion of whether to continue with this topic until New Business. We did discuss the problem of gun violence in our community. Several folks had attended the CPNV gathering at noon at St. Augustine's and had lots of ideas. Kathy had called the offices of the mayors of both South Bend and Mishawaka to ask them to join the "Mayors against Illegal Guns" national group. Neither office has responded after 5 days. She will prepare a petition for us to pass around at both the Little Taste of Peace and the Martin Luther King Day festivities. Those who sign the petition will get a white ribbon to wear. Ellyn offered some pins to attach the ribbons. MPJC endorsed this petition gathering activity as an organization. CPNV will help circulate the petitions. Kathy will keep the names and email contacts of the signers so we can gather support for other activities related to gun violence. Ellyn had prepared a summary of the medical community's stand on gun safety which she passed around. We agreed to have such a flyer available on the MLK table. Another suggestion was to convince MSNBC to keep a counter running in the corner of the TV screen with the number of gun-related deaths constantly updated much like the National Priorities project keeps track of the cost of war. We noted that CPNV has tried to get the County Fairgrounds to refuse access to the annual gun show without success. Perhaps picketing the event is called for.
b. MLK Day Table: Wanda and Galen have to go to Texas to help their daughter and will probably not make it to MLK day. They will attend the Little Taste of Peace. That leaves Ellyn and Pam to set up the table and staff it in the morning. Peter and Glenda Rae will work the afternoon shift, closing it down at 3pm. Lois will be in the Veterans room all day.. Peter had picked up Lois' posters and a rolling table to put the bean poll on earlier in the afternoon. We will need one of the vigil surrogate sign holders to hold up the bean poll poster board. Peter went over some suggested changes to the categories above each bottle and received agreement for these. John Goodson had asked to share our table for his project opposing human slavery. He offered to pay $10 which is 1/4 of the table cost. We agreed to let him use 1/4 of the table.
c. Little Taste of Peace: This year has been a particularly trying one for the event organizers. The list of contact names was lost and had to be recreated and duplicates were not removed. The host church did not have tables and chairs, so we had to borrow them from Kern Road Mennonite church which needs them back for service on Sunday. There will be a couple of trucks and a long trailer to pick up the tables and chairs at 4pm on Friday afternoon. There will be 4 or 5 folks to help. The Rhema Word parishioners will set up the tables and chairs on Saturday. We need folks to help break down the tables and chairs immediately after the LTP, bring them back to Kern Road and set them up. If you are going to the Little Taste of Peace we would appreciate your help in this endeavor. Wanda, Peter, Rey, Glenda Rae, and Bernie offered to help with this. Glenda Rae was concerned that the evite link was not working consistently and the YWCA did not have the link on their website. Hopefully this will be corrected by early in the week. The deadline to register is Wednesday, although registrations will be accepted right up until the start of the event.
3. Treasurer's Report: Our bank total is $77.43 with $5.56 in petty cash. Peter had not put a request for donations on the list serv, but we passed the hat at the meeting and collected a fair amount. Jenny asked that we purchase a three hour video on "Race, the Power of Illusion," which we thought would be good to show at the library for the three weeks following the study circles in April. The cost for a community organization is $25. We decided to order it immediately. Peter and Ellyn will draft a Peace Ed Fund letter with logo and Glenda Rae will send it in. A couple of other compelling videos were mentioned: "The Color of Water" and "Even the Rain" (available at some Redboxes).
New Business
1. What do we (can we) do next? We ran out of time and had to pass over this topic. We have plenty on our plate through January.
2. Topic of the Month: We decided to take up the topic of gun violence prevention per our discussion above. Kathy will use the draft of the petition as some text to get us started.
3. Other Topics and Issues: None.
5. Next meeting: Saturday, February 10 at 4pm. Peter and Ellyn's or Lois's place, depending on the weather.