March 29
Activities for the remainder of this year:
April tabling on urgent actions
Supporting other groups on issues akin to AI (Take back our space, Environmental)
Cold Stone Creamery fundraiser in May
Discussed next Fall:
Structure: Roles to fill, defining discrete responsibilities so the group functions well without burdening individuals (stay tuned for a list!)
Meetings: to be every other week, at a time convenient to many (9:00pm some weekday?)
Variety of activities, including informing ourselves and/or sponsoring a forum on the issue(s) we are doing action for; and sometimes given over to planning a specific event - at least we'll know a time when people are available.
Launching the year: meet early August with core group to plan; kick-off meeting early September (another spaghetti dinner? or?)
Wrapping up our big event:
Many thanks to the bands and to Big Poppa E who made Thursday’s Jamnesty a success!
Despite the many last minute reversals, the concert did NOT fall apart!
It went smoothly on the night, the sequence of bands was good,
We enjoyed the hot chocolate,
We gathered bunches of actions, we raised about $250 !
And a big debt to Big Pappa E who created community with the small audience at the start, sustained a thread, and concluded on a fine last poem about The Poet...
February: small group meetings have taken place to plan for Jamnesty
December 7th Meeting Notes
Our meeting was replaced by attendance at the
Student Session & lunch: Issues and Activism
part of the UI Center for Human Rights 2008 Colloqium
Commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
November 2nd Meeting Notes
We made a lot of good progress at our meeting and are starting to need action on our events!
Here's what:
1) Thai Flavors Fundraiser: The fundraiser will be held on November 24th, at Thai Flavors, and we'll receive a percentage of all proceeds from lunch and dinner. We're working on publicity, and as soon as it's ready we'll need everyone to start spreading the word! Please encourage friends, teachers, family, and anyone else not going way for Thanksgiving to Take out or Eat in at Thai Flavors on Burlington Street..
2) Participation in the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: We began discussing our participation in an event to take place on December 7th which is the student activism part of part of the three-day 2008 Colloquium co-sponsored by the UI Center for Human Rights. We identified Individuals At Risk as our general focus. Everyone interested in participating actively in planning and executing this event, please email julia-zalenski@uiowa.edu asap, we’ll be having some small-group meetings.
3) Jamnesty: Great job to everyone who has already begun work on Jamnesty! thrilled to know that we have Old Brick for the evening of Thursday, January 22! We’re working on publicity, contacting bands, talking with cosponsors, and identifying the organizations we will benefit with the funds raised. If you haven't been involved with this event and would like to be,contact
Many thanks to everyone who has been involved so far - let's keep going! - Julia, Juliet & Maria
October 5th Meeting Notes
Thanks to all of you who attended - it was great to see you all and start making plans for our fall activities! For everyone who couldn't make it, here's what we discussed. Feel free to contact Julia on anything.
1. The Regional Conference Oct 26-28, St. Louis, Missouri: We're not sure yet what funding we have, but once we do we'll contact everyone who has said they're going and work out final plans. Everyone should know that you will need to be registered members of Amnesty USA to attend!
To become a member of Amnesty USA click on the pink strip JOIN AMNESTY and then “Student Youth Membership” at www.amnestyusa.org
2. Monday November 24th, we will be having our Thai Flavors fundraiser. Yes, this is when everyone on campus will be out of town for Thanksgiving - which is why we really need to get some good publicity going so people in the community will show up! If you are willing to put a little bit of time toward this at some point, let us know!
3. THANK YOU to everyone who volunteered to start working on Jamnesty! To remind you, you are: Lauren, Alex, Kim, and Renugan. Anyone else who's interested in planning/organizing the concert, contact us!
4. A general consensus was reached that a big focus of the semester will be an event for the 60th anniversary of the UDHR. So far we're thinking that we'll be working with the Economic Human Rights Organization and the Anti War Committee to put together an event that will work with the UI Center for Human Rights' conference on December 6 and 7. We had a lot of great ideas floating around, and even though it's a few months away it would be good to start planning soon! I'll email everyone who expressed interest at the meeting as well as anyone who emails me saying they want to be involved about meeting at some point to do some more planning.
5. Anyone who finds a letter from Amnesty on an issue you care about, please bring it to the meetings and collect signatures!
6. Also: on October 25th, a GuluWalk will be held in Iowa City - if you're interested check out the website: http://www.guluwalk.com/iowacity/, or contact us for more information. Please keep an eye on all the great human rights events around campus!
7. Our next big group meeting will be November 2 at 4:00pm, location TBA. It would be great if the project groups could meet and do some work before that, though - there's a lot to do
Thanks again to everyone - we're getting started on a great semester!!! - Julia, Juliet & Maria
September 7 (first of the semester) Meeting Notes
Thank you to everyone who attended, and we hope to see those of you who couldn’t make it soon! Here’s an update on what we discussed and what we’re thinking about for the semester so far…
- We’ve decided to meet at least the first Sunday of every month at 4:00 pm. If this isn’t a good time for you, PLEASE email one of us and we’ll set up a second time – we want everyone involved!
- We need a couple people who are media, design, and/or web savvy:
-A publicity person, who will coordinate publicity for our events and take care of some design elements.
-A website person, who could help get a new site up and running well.
If you would be willing to do either of these things (or contribute to them in any way), please contact us!
- We already have several events (or potential events) in the works!
- Darfur Awareness Day: is being co-sponsored by Amnesty and the Roosevelt Institution. It will be held on October 27th, and will include a lecture by Mohammed Yahya, who was the founder of the first Darfurian advocacy group to be founded by Darfurians.
- One Community One Book: is an ongoing event sponsored by the UI Human Rights Center. Each year, a human-rights-related book is selected, read campus and community-wide, and followed by a series of film screenings, lectures, discussions, etc. This year’s book is “A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah, who will be speaking on campus October 29th.
- Amnesty International Regional Conference: is October 24th-25th in St. Louis. It’s a great opportunity to connect with fellow activists and learn about both new and recurrent issues – if you’re interested, let us know so we can get funding!
- A Visual Arts Event/Exhibit: relating to human rights is a potential event for this year – if you have ideas, let us know!
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: celebrates its 60th anniversary this December! (Yay!!!) We’d love to do an event commemorating and celebrating this important document while thinking about what progress still has to be made.
- J[amnesty]: was a big success last year, and we want to start working on it early this year to have another great concert.
We’d like to have someone take on a leadership role for each particular project to organize, coordinate with the others working on it, and keep it on track. If you are interested in doing this or working on any particular project, send an email!
Thanks everyone, and we hope to see and hear from you all soon! - Julia, Juliet & Maria
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