Present: Peter, Ellyn, Glenda Rae, Lois, Rey
Old business
1. Approval of Minutes for March 21: The minutes were approved as corrected.
2. Progress Reports
a. Topic of the Month: Issues in Admitting Refugees into the U.S. - Rey needs someone to hold his feet to the fire. Ellyn volunteered to bug him every few days. We will take up this topic at the next meeting.
b. Tax Day Vigil and Earth Day Table. On Monday, April 18, five of us and four surrogate stands held signs about military spending, including the slogans: "Divest from the Pentagon - Invest in People," and "Global Days of Action vs Military Spending." Lois felt that fewer drivers paid attention to us since the construction on Main forced us across the street from the federal building. She thought we should move down near the federal bankruptcy court. Since we had only been at the spot across from the federal building for two weeks, we decided to wait a few more weeks before deciding whether or not to move. (Indeed, there were more honks at the vigil immediately following the meeting.) Peter and Lois staffed a war tax resistance table at the Earth Day celebration at Potawotami Park on April 23. There was a lot of interest in the bean poll. Peter posted the results on the website. Glenda Rey noted that the Bernie literature in the Frack Free Michiana table might compromise the Peace Ed Fund non-profit status, as they are using the PEF for donations.
c. Book of the Month report: No one had anything to report.
3. Treasurer's Report: $83.72 with a $5.11 in petty cash.
New Business
1. What do we (can we) do next? We incorporated this topic into other discussion
2. Topic of the Month: We decided to continue the topic: Issues in Admitting Refugees into the U.S. Rey will get us started.
3. Memorial Day Plans: Lois has been unable to find any local vets, except Peter, to carry the Vets for Peace banner in the West side Memorial Day parade. She will keep on trying. We will put out a request for interested veterans on the list serve. When looking for the VFP banner we found the flag with the peace symbol replacing the stars. Ellyn mentioned that she had seen a house flying the confederate flag.
4. Other Topics and Issues: On May 18 at 6pm, there will be a showing of the film "Gerrymandering" at the Civil Rights Heritage Center on West Washington.
WAND has a petition to ask Obama to stop at Hiroshima. See www.wand.org
To send a message to the list, send it to mpjc@googlegroups.com. Peter updated the website about joining googlegroups.
5. Next meeting: Monday, June 20th, at 2:30pm at Peter and Ellyn's.