Minutes for February 8, 2005 Meeting

Old Business

1. Progress Reports
   • banner: The banner is in the final construction stages. It will be orange with blue trim and lettering. there will be a circle containing a white dove on black background, with the words Michiana Peace and Justice underneath. There will be holes so the wind can circulate through. The material costs amount to $65.00. We took up a collection to defray this cost and a good bit more was collected than needed. Glenda Rae will deposit the excess in the Peace Ed Fund account for us to draw upon. She reminded the group that donations to the Peace Education Fund of Indiana, Inc. are tax deductible.
   • speaker's bureau: The brochure for the speakers bureau will use the logo and will come out very soon. Zae reminded everyone that they need to get names of speakers to her ASAP if they are to be included in the first printing of the brochure. The logo on the banner will be also used on the brochure. The title of the brochure is "Volunteer Speakers"
   • anti-war pamphlet: still in the preparation stage. Much research has been done and is being written up. This leaflet is to be handed out at the vigils and other coalition events.
   
   
2. Student brunch/ vigil event: The Notre Dame Peace Coalition is hosting a brunch at 11 A.M. Saturday morning, February 12, at the Center for Social Concerns on the campus of Notre Dame. They are hoping to gather groups from Notre Dame, Saint Mary's, Holy Cross, IUSB, Goshen College, Ivy Tech State College, and a few local high schools and other organizations to discuss each group's efforts and past and/or coming events. The coalition has endorsed this effort and several of us will be there in support. Peter will describe the Michiana Peace and Justice Coalition, its program, and how it came to be, and Kathy will describe the Midwest Peace Summit weekend in March. After the brunch and ensuing discussion, we will encourage attendees to come to the vigil at Grape and Cleveland from 1 to 2.
   

New Business

1. Midwest Peace Summit: The plans for this are underway. There was a meeting on February 5 in Lafayette of the folks doing the planning. Zae passed out a tentative agenda for the March 18-19 summit. Joe Miller will give a talk on the media, democracy, and the war twice on Saturday. MPJC has already endorsed the summit. There is a web site which comes up from a google search for Midwest Peace Summit and has registration and housing information. The planning for the Sunday rally is just beginning. The main speaker, Michael Parenti is very popular -- on the order of Noam Chomski. We were asked to endorse the rally as MPJC. The vote was 12 in favor and 1 opposed, mainly because the peacekeeping situation was not well established. Lee asked for volunteers to be trained as peacekeepers and four folks volunteered with a couple more possibilities. We decided to redo the rally flyer to make it appeal more to our constituents, especially students. Paul will work on this. We will have a table at the rally (and possibly at the summit) and will sell buttons, ribbons, and possibly water and soft drinks. Dustin and Rey are working on procuring items to sell (See below). Kathy is working to get folks to the Peace summit. She will collect names of students who come to the brunch on Saturday, both for the summit and for the rally. We decided to try to get a bus for the trip to the rally. Grace is working on a bus from Notre Dame and will be contacted to see if she will coordinate the bus situation for other community members.
   

   There has been interest in a local event commemorating the start of the Iraq war. We encouraged folks to plan the local event for Saturday, March 19, perhaps surrounding the Saturday vigil, and plan to attend the rally on Sunday in Indianapolis.
   
   

2. Indiana Peace and Justice Network need for funds: MPJC has already contributed over $100. The network is asking for help from the other 40 groups.
   
   
3. Procurement Sucommittee report: Dustin and Rey have met and looked at some ribbon designs. They liked a gray cross with a purple ribbon. There was much discussion concerning the religious significance of this design. Kathy emphasized that white was the color agreed upon nationally for resistance to to the war. Several folks had suggestions for websites selling reasonable peace and justice ribbons, buttons, etc. Dustin and Rey will look into these and report back at the next meeting.
   
   
4. Sharing of Letter-Writing duties: Ellyn and Ed will arrange the letter-writing schedule. Anyone interested in volunteering to write from the heart can contact one of them. We decided to put the letters on the website. Peter will do this. Some of the letters have generated responses from Bayh and Chocola, but these are often form letters with little connection to the original letter. We talked about getting ad space in the Tribune to publish an open letter to Congress and the President on the theme - Two years in Iraq: Time to get out - but the costs may be prohibitive.
   
   
5. Other topics and Issues
   • New signs for the weekly vigils are needed to highlight the impact of the Iraqi elections, and also that of the proposed 2006 budget. A suggestion for Valentine's Day -- Make Love, Not War. For Dyngus/Solidarity Day -- Beer not Bombs. Every week -- Iraq is Arabic for Viet Nam. A naughty slogan from the Internet -- Bush has Iraq Tile Dysfunction.
     
   • The Saturday vigil was sparsely attended (Ed and Zae only) last week. Please come out.
     
   • The Indiana Peace and Justice Network will have a table at the United for Peace and Justice 2nd annual conference in St. Louis on February 19. No one was planning on going to this event.
     
   • Peter proposed that we endorse the April 15 actions: vigil and leafletting at the post office using the Where your Tax Dollar Really Goes flyer; and possibly a penny poll at various locations during the day. The vote was unanimous for endorsement.
     
   
   
6. Next Meeting. We will meet at 1036 N. Niles on Tuesday, February 22. It will be announced via the List Serv and at the weekly vigil.