Minutes for MPJC Meeting of August 29, 2016

Present: Peter, Ellyn, Glenda Rae, Lois, Rey,Wanda, Galen

Old business

    1.  Approval of Minutes for July 6: The minutes were approved as written after a wide ranging discussion of what the country was called before the civil war (Ans: United States with emphasis on States and after the war the emphasis was on United); skin color being a mix of parents' skin color, New Orleans paper bag parties in the 60's; Caribbean people - Indians vs Black; why people from Africa lost pigment when they moved north.

    2. Progress Reports

        a. Topic of the Month: Issues in Admitting Refugees into the U.S. - Rey had submitted a draft of this document, Peter had made some revisions, and we revised the draft at the last meeting and sent it to the list for comments. Ellyn sent an article giving pages of statistics about immigrants in this country. We decided not to revise our document to include these statistics, but will include a statement to the effect that the issue position is subject to revision as information becomes available. Peter will put it on the website under Issues.

        b. Hiroshima/Nagasaki Day Action:: Kevin, Rey, and Peter wore sandwich boards calling attention to the bombing and stating "Never Again." Lois and Lee held a banner. Carol and others passed out paper cranes to passers by, explaining the story. We were generally well received.

        c. Book of the Month report: No one had anything to report except Ellyn who was reading the book Rey recommended last month. She noted that the author was from Baltimore and described the terrible incidents of his life there, e.g., he had to go out in company with his buddies or he ran the risk of being shot.

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. International Day of Prayer for Peace - Sept. 21: Lois had many ideas. She had been unsuccessful in getting the URC to pick up the ball. She asked MPJC to endorse an ad in the SB Tribune which an anonymous donor will underwrite. She had a circle with little dolls pasted on it, representing the children of the world, which she hoped to copy and use for the ad backdrop. She was adamant that we must protect and support the suffering children of the world. We decided to look at what Lois had proposed and OK MPJC as a supporter on the ad. We also decided to devote our vigil on September 19 to celebrating the International Day of Peace. We will ask the ABC-57 reporter that Kevin knows to cover this vigil and publicize it.

    3. TV interview: See above.

    4. Topic of the Month: We decided to skip this topic for this month.

    5. Around the Bend archives: Our old copies of ATB will be digitized by the Civil Rights Heritage Center. We have signed the agreement. We will let everyone know when they are available.

    6. Other Topics and Issues: The film "An eye in the sky" will be shown at Debartolo Fine Arts Building at Notre Dame at 8pm on Wednesday, August 31st. You need to call 631-2800 to reserve your free tickets.

Little Taste of Peace will be held at Little Flower auditorium, on Saturday, January 14, starting about 6:30pm. There will be 13 circles. We discussed how to get people to reserve their place ahead of time. One suggestion was to advertise that attendance will be limited to the first 150 people who register. People who expect to register at the door must arrive by 6:15 and run the risk of being turned away.

There will be an "All-Access" party on September 10 from 6pm to midnight at the Lauber building on the corner of Niles and LaSalle. You need to reserve tickets at eventbright.com, browse events, and look under Sept. 10.

To send a message to the list, send it to mpjc@googlegroups.com. Peter tried to update the website about joining googlegroups but was unable to figure out how to do so. He emailed Kevin Barry, but no answer. He will keep trying.

    7. Next meeting: Monday, September 26th, at 2:30pm at Peter and Ellyn's.