For all interested in the progress of the UNA SF Bay Area COO:
The list of participants in the Jan 9th Council of Organizations meeting at AAACC with contact information will be circulated by email next Monday just to those who attended. If you prefer not to have your contact information shared, please let me know at rogerweaton@gmail.com.
Thanks to everyone for a remarkable and hopeful evening, particularly to Chris Whatley and my COO co-chair Elizabeth Weinberg. Looks like we are going to get the Council off the ground. We have a core group of eight so far -- we will be starting up the InterMix sub-committees next week. Those who did not attend, the special interest areas that we will be implementing online are listed directly below. If you want to participate in any of them, including the core group, please let me know.
UN 70th
UN Post 2015 Goals
IGMUN
IWD & Women's Issues
Human Rights
UN Global Compact Sustainability Center
Outreach
Fundraising
Volunteers
Web
Gender Crosstalk
Core group
The following is a copy of the blog at una-sf.org/una-sf-bay-coo-gets-organized:
At our Jan 9, 2014 meeting, the UNA SF Bay Council of Organizations listened intently as UNA-USA Exec Director Chris Whatley described the function of the national COO and how a local COO could benefit member organizations. Then we took the first steps towards getting organized and discussed our common agenda in three breakout tables, before breaking up to mingle and get better acquainted.
We had a good turnout with more than thirty attendees representing at least 18 organizations (see list below).
At the wonderful third floor Exhibition Hall of the African American Arts and Culture Complex near Civic Center in SF.
Our discussion of what membership means was complicated by the question, what if a member organization disagrees with a message that the Council puts out there? This question is not resolved at this point. It was decided that we would have a core group that would discuss the question in greater detail and bring its suggestions to the next full meeting of the Council. Meanwhile organizations that want to join or affiliate are welcome to do so. They will be added to the appropriate list online with their logo and they are welcome to use the Bay COO logo on their own sites.
Everyone filled out a contact form and checked off sub-committees they would be interested in. We will be using InterMix Voices of Humanity technology as our list serve. InterMix is about to implement a new feature whereby sub-group exchanges can be curtained off so only sub-group members get emails, but transparency is preserved by allowing anyone to see the discussion of the sub-groups if they go online. The core group will be set up as one of these sub-groups and we will work online to set up a core-group meeting.
In our breakout sessions, we discussed our “Common Agenda” with an eye towards cooperating on a big event the UN 70th Anniversary set for Oct 24, 2015. While there was general agreement about the UN 70th celebration, there was a sense that we need to understand better what we are about before we get down to setting our activity agenda. The three breakout groups did agree that the goals of the UN are our goals too: peace, human rights, sustainable development, social justice. Also, that getting to know each other better is at the top of our priorities. To that end we decided to have our next meeting in two rather than three months on the second Thursday of March – which is March 13.
Please mark you calendars. If you have questions or additions to make to this report, please contact Eliz Weinberg or Roger Eaton, co-chairs of the COO effort at UNA-SF.
The following organizations were represented (please note that at this point, these organizations have not committed to membership or affiliation with the COO):
American Humanist Association
Asylum Access
Democratic World Federalists
Earth Federation Movement
Esperanto USA, Bay Area
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Gabriela in SF
International Council of Jewish Women
Peace Alliance, Northern California
Physicians for Social Responsibility, Bay Area
Results
Silkworm Peace Institute
Unitarian Universalist Church
United Educators of San Francisco
United Nations Association Eastbay
United Nations Association Marin
United Nations Association San Francisco
U.S. Servas
World Centre, San Francisco
Chris Whatley and COO co-chair Eliz Weinberg at the AAACC, Jan 9, 2014
-- Roger Eaton
UNA SF Bay Area COO co-chair
415 933 0153
rogerweaton@gmail.com
