Minutes of KWPeace Potluck Meeting for Fall 2016, 26 October 2016

Event announcement: KWPeace Potluck Meeting for Fall 2016

KW Peace 26 October 2016 minutes

Present: Emily, Isaiah, Esther, Diane, Dwyer, Laura, Roger, Bob

 

  • Other events of note:

    • Truth Café – November 1st and 17th

      • Nov 1st at 6:30

      • Cathy Bergen has a group that meets monthly for a potluck, every other time is a move or discussion, related to the Truth Café

      • November 17th will be an Israeli person peaking on behalf of Palestinians

    • Isaiah is planning to start a series of documentary viewings on climate change and conflict. Age of Consequences is one such film

      • Needs to get $ to pay for distribution/rental fees

        • Apollo always charges. Princess has done films for free in the past, but also does charge. Approx $450 for a showing

        • Other venues – Kitchener Public Library is $150 (or you can maybe partner with them for free, need lots of lead time). Registry is $500.

        • The Museum in downtown Kitchener does dialogue series, could maybe partner with them as well

        • University is iffy, depending on the topic. Jonathan Kutab wasn’t able to speak as the University had issues with them supporting the BDS campaign (Boycott, divestments, and sanctions) because of the political issues with Israel

        • Laura can help connect, also Ecofilms is a good connection

      • If anyone has any expertise in this area, talk to Isaiah

    • TransitionKW – transition town movement in KW – transitionkw.com

    • Amnesty fundraisers – Write for Rights is December 10th. Will show film on refugees at the Princess

    • Council of Canadians is working on policies over water management, the inaugural meeting is postponed for now. Mohammad Akbar is with that group.

    • Nonviolence festival’s MLK day is in January, might show a film

      Also Matt and Roger have a producer friend who worked with David Suzuki that they could connect people with as a potential speaker. He’s interested in many different things, good at turning issues into narratives, suggesting action

    • Nonviolence Festival’s Usury Free day event coming up in November

    • November 5th Chippewas concert from 2:00pm – 6:00pm, all kinds of music, tickets are $20 and go to raise money for the Chippewas of the Thames First Nations efforts

    • Fringe Play- Laura saw them, Broad Leafe Theatre, do bite sized 3 min vignettes. Laura is meeting with the producer

      They formerly were “the global savages,” they like to visit different groups and communities. Themes of peace justice and reconciliation

      • Previously they’ve focused on refugees, but basically take time to visit a community and then tell the story of the community

      • Hoping to bring them here end of next October (17th?) or a year from next spring

      • Storytelling is a huge part of a movement, could do story telling workshops

    • Nephew of Dwyer did a course on homelessness at Ryerson, and a TED talk on how to respond to homophobia

    • Bob Holmes workshop on Bible and Conscientious Objection

      • When parables are performed, they make more sense than just being told

      • Can use story telling to make political points

    • Blanket exercise will soon be coming to Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church

  • Follow up on Oct 1st event

    Bob will email participants to invite them to participate in groups mailing list

  • KW Peace

    • Mailing lists

      • There are 30-35 groups on the calendar currently

      • About 40 people on the groups list

      • 10-13 on the organizers list

      • Discussion list – hard to engage, people have lots of emails and might find it overwhelming

      • Note that if you reply, make sure to change to reply to the individual if you don’t want to reply to the whole group. Default is reply all.

      • There is a digest option so you can get one email from the discussions list a day

    • You can also subscribe to get notifications as new events are posted manually (doesn’t work for events picked up automatically from a feed)

      There’s also a way to get an alert to detect a change on a website, if you want to keep up to date.

    • Next steps

      • Maybe we could have several events throughout the year, each on a different theme

        • Then have a final event with the speakers from each theme on a panel

        • Is a panel a good draw? Or does a speaker draw better?

        • We can evaluate success of individual events, and use that info for the end

      • Gehan is having her Anti-Racism event in the new year, invited us to be a part of that.

      • But what is our goal?

        • Original vision – to have a shared calendar, a mailing list, and quarterly potlucks with networking

        • We don’t want to become another peace group who is doing stuff, but support each other with our projects.

        • People don’t necessarily have time/energy to be planning multiple events as KW Peace

        • Maybe we can put emphasis on some events, like a series, but instead of planning them as KW Peace, we support events that are already being planned by the groups

        • Have a “Perspectives” like event every year to culminate

        • The goal is to support each other, network, and let people know what’s going on

        • We can’t endorse a particular issue as “KW Peace,” but can say “x group, as a member of KW Peace, supports y”

      • How do we support events that aren’t necessarily public events

        • Amnesty circle – focuses on environmental issues, meets monthly, writes petitions on indigenous rights, pushing reconciliation, Lost sisters

        • Food not bombs supplied food for the opposition at a CPT protest for indigenous rights

          Could support other events as well, willing to have food at actions

      • Could do a monthly blog post to highlight different groups/their initiatives

      • Money for website

        • Need renewal for web hosting

        • It’s currently $20/month

        • Could be cheaper but adds work, and Bob doesn’t have time for that (nor do the rest of us)

        • Need $240 for the year

        • Have $36 left over from perspectives, and Educators for Justice donated $80

          • Covers about half a year

          • If people could donate as individuals or as groups to make up the rest, please bring the money to future potlucks and give to Bob. If everyone chips in $5 or $10 we can easily make the difference

  • Other news

    Esther is resigning as of Nov 1st. Will be replaced by Rochelle Friesen. Esther is continuing as a reservist and is in Palestine for November. She hopes to stay involved in some capacity

  • Next meeting: January 19th, 6pm at Stirling. Potluck as usual

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