Present: Peter, Ellyn, Glenda Rae, Rey, Lois (by phone), Wanda, Galen
Old business
1. Approval of Minutes for April 23: The minutes were approved as corrected. Glenda Rae pointed out that the committee she was asked to participate in was not sponsored by the school board or the City Council. Regina Williams-Preston from the City Council invited Glenda Rae to join a committee to construct a proposal to prevent the state from taking over the administration of Navarre School which has received a failing grade for three years. There are representatives from other West Side groups on the committee. They hope to involve restorative justice in the school and also have the teachers participate in a study circle in 2019. Lois asked if there was an active PTA at the school, but Glenda Rae did not know.
2. Progress Reports:
a. Topic of the Month: Why we oppose nuclear weapons: Ellyn had separated out the sections reflecting MPJC exhortations from the background material. She will continue to work on this and Peter will send the statement out for comment. Wanda reminded us that the original purpose of her written remarks was to write a Michiana Point of View. Rey thought that the statement was too long for such a use, but Ellyn discovered that the core of the statement was only 500+ words. We will look into converting it to a Point of View after we finish and send it out.
b. Memorial Day Parade: Peter had sent in the application and received an email stating that we were float 63 and he would find out our staging area at the Wednesday required session. We decided to gather at 6:45am to decorate the truck that Rey is renting. Everyone should be there by 7:30am. Peter thought that the step-off time was 7:45, but it is actually 8:15am. Peter will pick up Lois about 6am and meet Wanda and Galen at 6:30 at the St. Adalbert's parking lot to spot one of the cars. We could not figure a way to attach the Veterans for Peace slogan to the truck, so folks will carry it on a pole as we did last year. Rey will get some streamer material for the truck bed and we will put Veterans for Peace and MPJC signs on the doors. Lois has not found any veterans to join us but she is still working on it. Rey does have ramps to get a wheelchair into the truck bed. Lois did find some young people from Prince of Peace to walk with us.
c. Book of the Month report: No one had anything to say about this topic
d. Immigration Coalition: The coalition met on the 2nd Wednesday of May and is supposed to meet the 2nd Wednesday of June. Neither Glenda Rae nor Ellyn received notice of the May meeting, but Wanda did. She will notify us if she gets further notices. They don't seem to be planning any actions at this time.
3. Treasurer's Report: $196 with $30 in petty cash. We will use Bernie's donation to rent the truck.
New Business
1. What do we (can we) do next? We incorporated this topic into other discussion
2. Topic of the Month: Why we oppose nuclear weapons. We will try to finish up this topic. See above.
3. May 25 Gaza Vigil cosponsorship: We decided to cosponsor this vigil on Friday at 5:30pm at Main and Jefferson
4. Hiroshima/Nagasaki Day: August 6 is on a Monday, so we will dedicate our vigil to this topic.
5. Other Topics and Issues: None were mentioned.
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6. Next meeting: Monday, June 18th, at 2:30pm at Lois' assisted living center. We will send the directions in the meeting announcement.