Minutes of General Meeting
September 25, 2008

A general meeting for USC4P&J was held at Ilona´s apartment on September 25, 2008. Attending were Andy, Anna, Becky, David, Cynthia, Gene, Greg, Ilona, Maria Chiara, Marilee, Michael, Patrick, Rose and Stephanie.

Rose chaired the meeting and Stephanie took the minutes.

We talked first about the upcoming film series. Ilona mentioned that she had spoken with someone at John Cabot University regarding showing films there. It was agreed that this would be a good venue, however some questioned whether there would be a fee to use the facilities and also if we would be free to screen the films we choose. Cynthia also mentioned the bookshop in San Lorenzo as another possibility. For the time being we will continue to show the films at our current venue, Arcobaleno in Garbatella, which has given us a new day of the week, Thursdays as opposed to Sundays.

We then discussed the line up for the upcoming series. Films include Radiant City, Meeting Resistance, John Pilger's Stealing a Nation, Iran is Not the Problem, Michael Moore's Slacker Uprising. Another possibility mentioned was the episode from Zeitgeist dealing with the Federal Reserve, though it was noted that this film has been criticized for a lack of fact checking.

Additional films, which may be used for the 2009 program included I.O.U.S.A., Body of War, It's No Dream, Flow, Religulous and Standard Operating Procedure.

Michael, a new member of the Film Committee, was introduced. Ilona and Gene mentioned they still were looking for an additional member. Andy, who has some experience of organizing film series volunteered to join the committee. Andy also volunteered to create the flyer for the film series. Greg suggested making our group name more evident on the flyer (at the top of the page) and others agreed.

We then picked up a discussion from our last meeting on ways to encourage more participation in our group. One idea was to add a description of our group to the back of the film series flyer handed out at the screenings and elsewhere. It was decided we will update a flyer used in the past which includes a description and highlights of our activities over the years.

We also discussed the need to make new people showing up at our film screenings feel more welcome. We decided to allow for some time to chat over a drink before the film screenings, inviting people to come at 7:30, with screenings starting at 8pm.

In order to get the word out on who we are and what we do, we will also make a short video introduction to our group, using photos from previous events, to be shown before films as well as included on our web site and youtube. Anna, Becky and Stephanie volunteered for this, with some additional help from Andy.

Next on the agenda was the October 4 anti-racism demonstration. Rose informed the group that we had endorsed based on feedback from members. Becky and Rose had been to a meeting of the local group in Garbatella and reported on some of their ideas/activities to make the neighborhood more welcoming for immigrants. Anna, Becky, Rose and Stephanie volunteered to form a working group to decide on our group's participation in the demo.

Anna and Gene then gave an update on the idea of a series of events (films, panel discussion, etc) on Israel/Palestine. Things are currently on hold, but should be picked up again soon. To begin with, our two filmmaker friends – Joseph and Stephen, who have both shot documentaries on related subjects and might be able to present their films – will be contacted by Gene and Anna. Anna said she would then try to patch together the Israel/Palestine working group, which has lost some of its original members, and begin working on organizing a series of events (films followed by discussions). Maria Chiara suggested a larger venue than Arcobaleno once we do get the events organized. Michael later expressed an interest in being involved in the group and mentioned that he had a number of relevant documentaries we may like to screen as part of this series.

We then talked about the use of our members mailing list for political campaigning during the election season. It was decided that as a non-partisan group, our mailing list should not be used for such purposes -- for any party. It was however noted that there is a fine line between sending articles regarding the elections and actively campaigning. We will ask our members to use their best judgment.

Stephanie brought up a proposal made by Mat Callahan, who had performed together with Yvonne Moore in Rome at the No Bush demo as well as the No Dal Molin festival in Vicenza. Mat, though he lives in Switzerland, would welcome the chance to contribute more to our group. One way he suggested was through writing articles. The idea is for a blog with contributions from members of our group, as well as from similar U.S. citizens' groups in Europe (Florence, Paris, Montpellier, Berlin, Munich, etc). The blog would deal with peace and social justice issues in the various European countries, and as much as possible tied to U.S. policy. This would be a way to share information among our groups as well as with a U.S. audience. Mat has offered to coordinate this for us. The idea was met with approval.

Rose then brought up a change to who has voting rights in our group. Currently, members who have attended a meeting within the previous 12 months may vote in our annual elections for Coordinating Committee members. Rose suggested opening this up to members who have been involved in some way, for example attending demonstrations, but haven't been able to make a meeting. This was generally not seen as a problem, though Gene questioned if we were really limiting people by the one meeting in 12 months rule. Andy also mentioned that it would be impractical to keep track of who had been at a demo while the meeting minutes clearly show who attended. Rose explained how difficult it was for her to make meetings in the past, though she had been actively involved. Stephanie mentioned that, in any event, it was not something we could decide during the meeting since it would mean a change to our organizational rules, which requires communicating the change to the membership prior to the meeting. The issue was tabled for the time being.

Special thanks to Ilona for hosting the meeting and providing much food!

Next general meeting: date to be announced. Join our mailing list for updates.