SNOW General Meeting - March 31, 2003

Meeting Held at St. Joseph's Church, Capitol Hill.
Marcia Mullins and Warren Northrop masterfully facilitated the meeting.

The meeting opened with some general announcements.
The committees gave reports of work in progress. Members were encouraged to check the website for info.

Ellen Finklestein talked about the harassment issues that have occurred recently with the 570 KVI pro war demonstrators. She alluded to negotiations with the Seattle Police over incidents that occurred downtown last week but no specifics were given. Several suggestions were made to the group of different strategies to deal with these hecklers:

  1. Contact others in the SNOW group and let everyone know what's going on.
  2. Have a camera at vigils etc. to document any incidents
  3. Have someone take notes about what occurs.
  4. Neighborhoods should come up with specific plans for dealing with situations (i.e. is there an alternate site for tabling? Is there an open public place nearby where you can go if things get too hot?)
  5. Get training on non violent responses
  6. If you need more people to support you have the neighborhood contacts reach out to adjoining areas for back up.
  7. If you call police have one point person who will deal with them.
  8. Don't demonize the other side.
  9. Talk to the opposition.
  10. Call the police if you need to.
  11. Call legal help if the police are the issue # for legal is 206-447-3990.
  12. Request peacekeepers from the peacekeeper pool.

David Baum is gathering video cameras for groups to use to document these problems. If you have one or need one you can contact him at david (at) greenhammer.com


There was a discussion of what actions SNOW might want to endorse next. After some discussion the following was agreed upon by a supermajority of those present.

  1. Support an April 12th action currently being planned by a coalition of area anti war groups to coincide with actions in other parts of the world. The contact person for working on this is Rad and he can be reached at 206-718-6948. There is a meeting on April 1st at the Church Council Office at 4759 15th NE at 7:00 for the various groups participating.
  2. Some yet to be decided action about war profiteering $ will be coordinated, Walt and Rebecca are the contacts, 206-354-0651.
  3. Ellen F. will be the coordinator of a group to plan something for May 15th (near mothers day) she can be reached at 206-935-0653 or at ehf5 (at) yahoo.com
  4. Educational material, forums etc. on the sanctions and the affects of depleted uranium will be coordinated by maguireinteriors (at) atti.com.
  5. A drive to increase our numbers, Rory Murphy at RA_murphy (at) hotmail.com
  6. There is interest in actions at the post offices on April 15th. This is action that individual neighborhoods can take on as they wish and coordinate on their own. Glen Gersmehl will post specifics of the [...]


There was a suggestion that SNOW be the first group in history not to be killed by infighting.


Minutes, or rather this rough summary, taken by wendy reilly