SNOW Coalition - Meeting Notes for December 19,2002 Meeting was held at the Seattle Mennonite Church. Facilitated by Brenda Collier; Notetaker – Eileen Heimer Financial Report – Brenda Collier The collection at Garfield on December 8th was $4,500. There are still bills outstanding, but the estimated cost is $4,250 This means the donations from the members of the SNOW coalition to sponsor the event are now available for other projects. After all the bills are paid we will have about $3,500. (This does not count the Tractor Tavern benefit). The Tractor Tavern benefit raised about $800 to be split between EPIC and SNOW. This does not include our percentage of any profits from the bar. There was an appeal for people to sponsor bus signs; we got eight sponsorships of $140. Emergency Response Network – Brenda Collier Emergency Response Network has representatives from five groups – SNOW, Not In Out Names (NION), No War Against Iraq Coalition, Church Council and the Green Party. They are working on plans for what to do if war begins. "DAY OF" action: Gather at the Federal Building. At 5:00 pm there will be a rally. At 7 p.m. march to Westlake Center, and then back for another rally. Each of the five groups (NWAIC, Church Council, NION, Green Party, SNOW) will have 2 speakers lined up for the DAY OF rally, one to speak before the march and one after the march. We need to pick the SNOW speakers. The Coordinating Committee should make recommendations. "DAY AFTER" action: Meet at the Federal Building at noon and march to Westlake to be there by 4:30 p.m. Other independent feeder marches will be organized by different groups/students (e.g. University of Washington) and everyone will meet at Westlake by 4:30pm Each group was asked for $500 in seed money, to pay for expenses, like a sound system for the rally. This was approved. SNOW needs to help find a diverse group of music and speakers, for the rally. Someone who has been to Iraq should speak. Please come to the next meeting with other suggestions. SEVEN-DAY VIGIL There will be a seven-day presence at the Federal Building starting on the DAY OFF. SNOW needs to take responsibility for one day. At our next meeting there will be flyers for the coalition groups. In addition to people for the programs at the two rallies, SNOW needs to provide: Event decision maker and backup Collection overseer and backup 3 people to take the collection Note: The other four groups will provide people also. We approved the following: Fred Miller will be the event decision maker, and Howard Gale will be the backup. Brenda Collier will be the collection overseer and Elaine Hickman will be the backup. We decided not to appoint three people to help take the collection, but to have the collection overseer or the event decision maker pick people at the event. Proposal for Coordinating Committee – Brenda Collier Brenda Collier, Ellen Finkelstien, Howard Gale, Elaine Hickman, and Marcia Mullins worked on a proposal to set up a Coordinating Committee (which is attached). Jean Buskin proposed that it be modified to explicitly state that all meetings would be open to all. The meeting approved the concept. The feeling of the meeting was that this should be set up as soon as possible. An interim committee was chosen, to act until elections take place (hopefully at the next meeting). The interim committee consists of Jean Buskin, Brenda Collier, Rad Cunningham, Ellen Finkelstien, Howard Gale, and Fred Miller. (Note: the first meeting will be on Dec 26th at 7:00 at the FOR office). Website - Carl Meyer Carl made an appeal for donations for riseup.net, which is providing our listservs for free, and we passed a hat around. Cindy talked about proposed changes to have four listservs: 1.Announcements. This will become the default listserv. 2.Organizational. This will use the current SNOW name, but will have only things like proposals, meeting notes…. 3.For Neighborhood groups to exchange information 4.News items. People can sign up for as many of these lists as they want. In addition individual Neighborhood groups can also have their own listservs. We decided to try this. People on the current SNOW list will be added to the announcement list. When the lists are set up, instructions on how to sign up for the lists will be sent out. We asked Carl and Cindy to work out the details. Potluck Update – Marcia Mullins Marcia reminded us about the “Potlucks for Peace” on January 18t. There is a link on our website where people can register on-line. There will be a radio station call-in from the potlucks. J. E. McNeil – CO Training – Marcia Mullins J. E. McNeil of Port Townsend is going to conduct training for counseling Conscientious Objectors. The cost will be $25. Is anyone from SNOW interested? SNOW participation in MLK Day Activities – Jean Buskin The Martin Luther King Day event on January 20th will that as a theme “Martin Luther King call to conscience- support the poor –no more war’. The event will be at Garfield High School starting at 9:30 with a March at 12:00. We decided to endorse the event. There was an objection to supporting it financially. This was referred to the Coordinating Committee to make a recommendation. Phinney Proposal for “hanging out at the malls” – John Bito The Phinney Neighborhood group is planning a demonstration at the Mall on Dec 24. As there is a problem taking signs, they will wear the ‘NO IRAQ WAR’ tee shirts. John Bito asked for us to sponsor the event be allowing people to where the tee shirts without buying them. After some discussion we agreed that John could have the tee shirts at cost. Sue Donaldson suggested we contact with the ACLU so we know what our rights are at a demonstration. FOR office support – Mike Yarrow The FOR office is overwhelmed by SNOW calls. Help is needed in the office to handle calls. A signup sheet was passed around. The FOR office also needs to upgrade its internet access to free up the second phone lines for calls and this will cost money – maybe SNOW or the neighborhood groups could defray this. We need to have in the office several leaflets that can be given to Neighborhood groups. The Neighborhood groups need to give themselves a name and decide if they want to be a member of SNOW. It would help to have the yellow card filled out for each group. First Hill Event We decided to sponsor the event at Central Lutheran Church, with Congressman Jim McDermott on "IRAQ AND THE PEACE MOVEMENT" SMALL GROUP MEETINGS We split in to two groups. Neighborhood Organization Civil Disobedience Next Meetings – 7:00 PM December 30th - Phinney Neighborhood Center – Between Phinney and Dayton on 67th January 7th -Keystone Congregational Church (Basement Room)