Event announcement: KWPeace Potluck Meeting for Spring 2017 | KWPeace
KW Peace Meeting Minutes April 6, 2017
Present: Diane, Mo, Cassy, Isaiah, Laura, Dwyer, Ester, Michael, Emily
- WR Nonviolence (Waterloo Region Nonviolence)
- Same folks as the Nonviolence Festival, but changed the name. Follow us on Facebook – facebook.com/wrnonviolence. Website coming soon. Update: https://wrnonviolence.org/
- Next event is “The Golden Rule: A Common Thread.” April 19, 7pm, at Queen St Commons.
- It’s an interfaith discussion panel to explore how the Golden Rule sentiment is expressed in different faith traditions, and explore why we so often fall short of this platitude. There will also be time for questions and small group discussion.
- Possible board games night on May 10th as well. 7pm Queen St Commons.
- Day in the Park – July 9. Let Emily know if you’d like to set up a booth for your group!
- April 20th – Cowspiracy film screening. Co-hosted by Climate Vegan, Divest Waterloo, Food Not Bombs, Citizens Climate Lobby
- May 27th – Community dinner as a follow up to the Cowspiracy film at St. Johns the Evangelist
- May 11 – CIGI is pairing with Divest Waterloo to have Jeff Rubin speak. He writes on divestment, particularly with pension and OP trust and says it’s in our financial interest to divest from fossil fuels. He’s a former chief economist for CIBC.
- There’s a Divest OTPP group in Toronto, aiming to advocate for divestment in the Teacher’s pension plan.
- Food Not Bombs needs drivers!!
- Only commit to what you can do. They break the drives up into chunks so if you only have an hour on a Saturday, that’s ok! And no ongoing commitment – sign up when you’re free.
- Shifts:
- 11am Central Fresh produce to Working Centre
- 1:30 Move the food to City hall
- 2pm get bread from Grain Harvest
- 3:30 Drive dirty dishes from City hall to working centre
- Contact Laura if interested
- Fairvote – there are leadnow/fairvote petitions up now to get Trudeau to follow up on his promise of electoral reform. Also helps to call your MP/Trudeau
- KW Animal Save – still doing their pig witness in Breslau every week. That plant is doubling production soon.
- Planet Save Place – gathering place for vegans and animal rights activists, 75 Wellington, near Wellington and Weber
- KOALA – there’s a fur farm protest May 26-28 across the province, going to different locations to protest
- Vegan Chili Cookoff May 13 at St John’s, hosted by Guerilla Vegan
- April 29 – Climate March in Toronto
- There are 2 marches simultaneously, the one associated with the American marches and then one related to reducing animal agriculture. They’ve tried to join forces but so far unsuccessful
- Dwyer is going to the march, if you want to go with his group let him know. They’ll be meeting from 9-11:30 to make banners and eat pizza beforehand
- Ester meant to bring a BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions, regarding Israel Settlements) workbook but it was left with Rochelle. Will bring next time.
- The Mennonite Church Canada Assembly passed a resolution to put economic pressure on Israel and support the BDS campaign
- Ester is part of the meetings of MCC Eastern Canada. They have the 2nd meeting next week, actively educating people and provide resource material
- It’s for people who want to learn more about how to respond and converse with people who are opposed to the BDS movement. Word of mouth invite only. The details and location will be released closer to the date (in London). Ester is happy to host if people need a place to stay.
- There’s a 20 max attendee limit. Cost is $30, with dinner before at Paramount
- Contact Ester if Interested.
- Most opposition is biblical, people thinking god gave Israel that land
- Starting April 23 from Stirling and walking 3 weeks to Ottawa. Asking the Government to ratify the UN declaration of the rights of indigenous people
- Anyone can go. Registration closed but might be space available. You can also join for part of the walk. Approximately 25-35 km/day
- Isaiah’s PeaceHub initiative commitment ends in June. If you have ideas to tell the story of the relation of conflict and the environment, contact Isaiah.
- Starting a local currency with Kindred Credit Union. Hoping it will be successful because it’s backed by a financial institution and by doing it regionally.
- Michael Says Local currency has worked in many places, Austria, Germany, America, Britain, Russia. It ended because of federal pressure
- Local currency helps to bridge unmet need with unmet capacity
- Isaiah is hoping to rent a house which he can open up to hosting refugees. There’s a house that opened up but he needs more money to rent the place, so contact him if you want to donate. Also share on Facebook.
- There’s an Open Homes network of individuals who opened up their homes to refugee families
- Previously they’ve put an amendment to the floor to apply, which was put forward by Elizabeth May
- You can withhold a small amount, like $20.17 or $10, it’s too low for the government to bother with
- 3rd week of August. Last year 60% of the attendees came free, so money shouldn’t be a barrier
- Talking about Trumps first 10 horrible things that impact climate change, as well as the LEAP manifesto.
- On a Refugee camp in Jordan. Had a refugee there to answer questions
- Greatest barrier for adult refugees is language
- This village grew from 1,000 to 20,000 quickly. Shows the human spirit and optimism. These people were still in tents after a year.
- The world food bank at one point ran out of food, and the shelves were just empty. The US bailed them out, but how long with that last? Not sustainable.
- You can find all of Amnesty’s urgent actions online if you want to get more involved.
- Understanding these components of change will help societal change efforts
- Money stuff
- Bob has been keeping track of finances because he’s dealing with the web, but would ideally like to not have to do treasury duty. Does anyone else want to volunteer to be our money person?
- We have a $7.99 web hosting package, so our current funds ($125) should last a year. The site was transferred to IndieServe on March 7, 2017.
- So far, we’ve had an income of $486 through donations, and spent $360. Expenses are as follows:
- Jan 6, 2016: $172.89 went to CCJ clearline for the KW Peace Website
- Nov 19, 2016: $37.29 went to CCJ/Clearline for the domain name renewal
- Nov 30, 2016 – $150 to CCJ/Clearline for KWPeace Web Hosting
- Should we get a bank account?
- Even through the credit union, Amnesty pays $5/month fees.
- Is there an over 70 discount? Dwyer thinks so.
- Is it worth it for our small cash flow?
- Do we want to do another event? Consensus is yes.
- We want to give groups an opportunity to share, but not overload our guests with info. How do we do that?
- Get creative with the sharing.
- Maybe have rotating tables, where each group has a table and people switch. You’d need a different venue, the commons isn’t big enough.
- Community Centres? Church of the Good Shephard?
- We will strike an organizing committee to work on this in the meantime and meet more frequently. Let Emily know if you want to join. Meeting date/time TBD.