Please post additions and corrections or send them to rogerweaton@gmail.com for posting.
We met at 6:00 PM at the UU Church in the Stebbens room. In attendance:
Liz Cormier, UU-UNO
Larry Danos, UU-UNO
Roger Eaton, SF Bay COO co-chair
Roger Kotila, SF Bay COO: Democratic World Federalists
Karen Melander-Magoon, UU-UNO
Mary Jane Mikuriya, UU-UNO
Marlo Sagatelian, UU Church
Natalie Shuttleworth, UU Church
Melvin Starks, UU-UNO
Takashi Tanemori, SF Bay COO guest
Eliz Weinberg, SF Bay COO co-chair
We had a good spirited meeting beginning with a UU-UNO meeting and then moving on to UN 69th matters.
UU-UNO
UU Center was designated a UU-UNO Blue Ribbon Church, a welcome honor.
Larry Danos reported his experiences at the UU General Assembly.
UNO Climate Action Table needs volunteers.
The co-chair of the Guardian Group is stepping down and there is a need to find a replacement.
UN 69th
Liz Cormier will keep John Buehrens, the new UU minister informed about our progress on UN 69.
Mel Starks will continue to liase with our likely lunch provider and will have a menu/report for our next meeting.
We decided that Shannon Biggs will speak for 20-25 minutes starting at 1:00 PM even if people are still eating. This will give people at lunch time from 12:30 to 1:00 to get acquainted at their table. The event ends at 2:30, so we will have one hour for discussion at each table on the topic that was pre-set for that table. After Shannon concludes, half the tables will adjourn to the ML King room for the final hour so the room won’t be too noisy. We will have seven tables set up in the MLK room for this purpose.
Roger will discuss with Shannon that we would like her to be sure to connect her talk about Community Rights with the more general topic of Human RIghts as well as with the United Nations. Liz has expressed concern that “Community Rights” is not the same as “Human Rights”. Here is more information on this line: Shannon is a Director at Global Exchange, a Human Rights Organization. The Global Exchange Community Rights page says the following: “At the heart of the Community Rights Program is the belief that our right to create the kind of place we want to live and reining in corporate exploitation of our communities is the next evolution of the civil rights revolution.” We will also ask Shannon if she would like to head up a table for discussion after her talk.
We decided there will be 14 tables. The following topics/leaders were approved:
1) Animal Rights - person to be provided by Natalie Shuttleworth
2) Immigration - Rochelle Fortier
3) Homelessness - Sr Carmen Barrady of Faithful Fools Ministry
4) LGBT refugees - Galen Workman
5) Sex Trafficking - Glenda Hope of SafeHouse for Women Escaping Prostitution
6) Climate Action - Larry Danos
7) Peace & No Nukes - Roger Kotila
Please send amendments to the above titles as needed. Placards with these titles will be provided (by whom?) for each table.
There were a number of other possible topics suggested including Slavery, Mass Incarceration, Women’s Rights, Corporate Personhood, International Declaration of Human Rights, Solitary Confinement, Amnesty, Democracy and the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) coming up for the U.S. in 2015. Eliz Weinberg will post the full list in InterMix.
The pre-set topic will be clearly displayed at each table, allowing participants to decide for themselves which topic to join. Each table will have a topic leader who will start off the conversation. We also decided that each table will be responsible to come up with a short statement about their topic. These statements will be posted on the COO website and perhaps elsewhere and a COO sub-committee will take on the task of reducing the 14 statements to a one or two page summary. (Which would be good for a press release - this can be discussed at the next meeting.)
Roger suggested that we should bring in new organizations to the COO by inviting them to set a topic for a table. He has prepared an online google document of local area human rights groups that he will be reaching out to before the next meeting (on July 31). Others in the UN 69th committee are encouraged to utilize the same document for outreach so we don’t contact the same organization twice: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1in0iLQo2UKaqmhLBhah7qUYRECaugCjBt05k_aKxQac/edit?usp=sharing
We will want to reach out to the press. At least get our event listed in the pink pages. Pablo Castro will provide 193 flags, one for each member of the U.N. These are standard sized and we can consider having a march around the block with them directly after morning service.
On the subject of a speaker for UN 70th, the names of Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and Willie Brown came up for consideration. Roger said that securing a main speaker who would be a big draw was the key to a successful UN 70th.
