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The background here is that the UNA SF Bay Area Council of Organizations (COO) wants to help put together a great UN 70th centered around a big celebration at the War Memorial on Oct 24, 2015. The COO is a hybrid, being a project of UNA-SF, yet at the same time a Council of totally independent organizations. Also, we are still very much in the idea phase of UN 70th. Much of what we would like to do depends heavily on our finding the resources to do it with. Still, in the one-pager, we have narrowed the initial focus to the top three items. That is a start, but we still have to make a list of concrete steps and make sure reliable people are assigned to each.
The COO wants to cooperate with the NCD. The COO does not expect the NCD to put its resources at the disposal of our UN 70th efforts. It may well be that UNA NorCal would like to take a hand in one or more of the proposed COO events. It is also very possible that the NCD will have plans of its own which the COO can help with. Let's make this a partnership. There are two or three more parties who might be part of the grand partnership for a San Francisco Bay Area UN 70th: SF City Hall, UNA-USA and the UN itself, particularly the Department of Public Information (DPI) with its annual NGO conference, which we might, just might be able to entice here for 2015.
Enough - here is the one page letter the COO has prepared to introduce ourselves to SF City Hall.
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April ??, 2014
Dear (City Hall Contact),
The UNA SF Bay Council of Organizations is preparing to host a big UN 70th Anniversary celebration for Saturday, Oct 24, 2015. We have several events in mind that we are settled on and others that are under consideration. We would like to find out a) if San Francisco already has plans underway for the UN 70th and b) if the City would consider participating in and supporting our events.
Here is the list of events we are decided upon:
1) Oct 24, 2015 UN 70th Evening Celebration at the War Memorial.
2) Oct 26, 2014 UN 69th Sunday morning Celebration at the First Unitarian Universalist Sanctuary in San Francisco followed by lunch and afternoon breakout sessions on Human Rights and Gender Equality, Post-2015 UN Development Goals, Peace and Nuclear Disarmament and doubtless others.
3) A fund-raising event early in October 2014, if possible at the Fairmont Hotel. Ditto for 2015.
We are also considering:
1) An NGO conference for October 2015
2) Historical Exhibits at the downtown Library and StoryCorps recordings of SF residents’ stories about their UN experiences
3) A Green Labor-Capital Conference in October 2015
4) A push to bring existing City plans for a UN Global Compact Sustainability Center to life again, possibly by catalyzing a High Level Committee for UN Offices in San Francisco and/or encouraging a Fall 2015 meeting of the UN Global Compact’s US Network. We have a list of candidates for the High-Level committee and want to discuss the possibility with the Mayor’s Office.
5) October 2014 and 2015 San Francisco Social Good Summits parallel to the New York events of the same name.
Finally, we are very interested to learn whom we should talk to about arranging for a plaque on the outside of the War Memorial to inform passersby about the role the building played in the signing of the UN Charter in 1945, and whether it would be possible also to have a flag pole outside the building to fly the UN flag.
-- Roger Eaton and Elizabeth Weinberg for the UNA SF Bay Area COO
