Minutes of General Meeting - July 20 2006

A General Meeting of the U.S. Citizens for Peace and Justice-Rome was held on Thursday, July 20th at the home of Kathy Ford from 7-11pm.

Those in attendance were: Barbara, Ilona, Kathy, Marco, Michelle, Nick, Patrick.

Kathy chaired the meeting as Stephanie was out of town.

She started the meeting by handing out copies of “USC4P&J Year in Review”. It was recognized by all present that Stephanie, who created our group, had carried the work load over the last year+ and that we needed, at this point, to assess what sort of human and financial resources the group has (current treasury E243), as we look to plan for another year of activities.

At this point, Patrick explained that Steph would be traveling to Camp Casey in August and that she had asked several Italian Peace groups to autograph and send along a PACE flag for her to carry. Those present signed a PACE flag which will go with her.

The following matters were discussed:

It seemed as though our group had two routes to follow:

1) Get more people involved both in terms of taking on tasks and in attending various events OR

2) Commit to fewer activities, both ongoing and one-time events

Under the first option, the suggestions of trying to involve university students studying in Rome was mentioned again as was trying to be more visible to people employed by the various UN agencies here in Rome. There was also talk of forming more committees, like the Film committee, delegating responsibility to willing group members.

Under the second option, we took a look at four of our ongoing activities:

News/Take Action - It was recognized that this takes a lot of time to prepare (@6-7 hours according to Becky Tavani) and members questioned whether it was the most beneficial use of our time since there were so many websites and weekly news mailings from existing groups? [It should be noted that the members involved in writing the bulletin were not present to comment/provide feedback]

Eyes Wide Open - Ilona was present to speak for this committee. She reported that they had met once and were starting to consider various films. She mentioned that Steph had sent them the titles of about ten possible films to show. Kathy at this point suggested that they consider “Refusniks” a film by Payday that our group aired on July 7th. She also passed along a catalogue of films from the Tek festival. Ilona made two suggestions that their group had come up with; one was to charge a subscriber’s fee of E20 for the fall series of films and then again in the spring so that even if the person did not attend all the films they still had made a pledge. They thought that an entrance fee of E2 was affordable to all. The other idea was for it to be a regular practice that whomever could go would have pizza after the viewing and make it more like the commercial film nights out that Gene organized during the year. Michelle suggested that we use the back side of the handout at the film to give a write-up about the group and what we do and to list upcoming events as well as films.

Letter-writing - A discussion ensued as to whether or not we should continue to write letters to Ambassador Spogli if he never acknowledges them/answers them. The group consensus was to continue to write them but to try and incorporate them more into the demonstrations in front of the Embassy. The group thought that letters to the Italian government and the Pope should be written as needed.

We did not discuss how letters should be written: by a single person and then receive comments; a committee decide first what should be in a letter and then someone draft it; or use the forum. It was agreed though that some consensus needed to be found on the “how to”.

Organizing protests and events - People thought that the use of the mini list constituted a committee and generally this was working well.

The question was raised about deciding which events/protests to participate in or organize by bringing ideas/suggestions to the General Meeting.

The overall feeling of the group was that we should have regular monthly General Meetings. It was thought that this would facilitate decision-making and keep everyone informed. Due to the holiday season, it was suggested that our next one be at the end of August or early September.

Three dates/events were mentioned:

International Fair at John Cabot University - September 16th

International Day of Peace - September 21st

A Halloween Protest before the November midterm elections with the theme, “Don’t Fall for the Trick, Treat yourself to Change”. This idea was put forth by Michelle.

Lastly, Nick got the floor to talk about whether we should expand our focus from Iraq and include Israel/Palestine, even Afghanistan. He spoke a bit about his email committee and how they were discussing how to take a position on this sensitive issue and our group not be seen as anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli.

(N.B. In light of our participation in two recent protests (candlelight march and Sec of State Condoleeza Rice’s visit, it would seem that we have taken a position against Israel’s aggression on its neighboring states.)

Topics shelved until the next meeting: Affiliations, Endorsements, Elections

Next meeting: Early-mid September, exact date to be announced. Join our mailing list for updates.