[KWPeace-groups] Meeting MInutes from 1 February 2018

[Bob Jonkman]

A message from Mo Markham:

=====
KW PEACE February 1, 2018

(*** With apologies to all. I forgot that I hadn't done this yet. I
will request that people send me their events in advance of the next
meeting, if possible, and then I will include them in the minutes. And
I will charge my phone before the next meeting. Sorry again, Mo)

; PRESENT: Mo Markham; Bob Jonkman; Esther Kernes; Dwyer Sullivan;
Laura Hamilton; Ellen Papenberg; James Sannes; Cathy Scott; Tamara
Lorincz; Aleksandra Petrovitch ; Sue Klassen

Agenda items:

* what we're all doing
* what we post on KW peace …
* a KW Peace spring symposium?
* A community hub
* any money stuff or other? …
* next meeting *** likely end of March … BOB TO DO A POLL

Agenda discussion items:

* Re what we post on KW peace
** We’ll try to be careful to be sure what is posted is in alignment
with most of our values. if concern expressed then ask group and give
them 24 hours to respond.

* a KW peace spring symposium
** We discussed the possibility of having a Spring Symposium put on by
kw peace
** we discussed possibly doing it in the rotunda at City Hall and
** we discussed having a speaker and food, and each of us at tables.
** We discussed having a banner outside, and trying to get some press.
** We will aim for late April, a Saturday afternoon.
** Food not bombs can make extra soup and we won't need to worry about
food
** Laura will speak to the city, and let us know once she has a date.
** Then we will set up a meeting for all of us to do the planning
around it

Groups we belong to

Mo Markham
* fairvote
* KW Animal Save
* Kitchener-Waterloo Climate Save
* The Worldwide Save Movement
* Green party

James and Ellen Papenberg
* The Council of Canadians … bill c190 and pharmacare
* Unitarian social action committee
* Ontario oral health association ...low income people and seniors /
dental care under ohip
* fairvote Canada
* a pharmacare group?

Laura Hamilton
* Faith and the common good … national organization … greening sacred
spaces / reduce carbon footprint… and greening their churches (so
using them for more purposes)
* Divest Waterloo
* transition KW
* food not bombs

Dwyer Sullivan
* educators for justice / diversity and equity
* conscience Canada
* camp Micah
* leadership for social justice … (Christian peacemaker team
indirectly involved)

Sue Klassen
* missions peace and justice committee at Stirling mennonite church
* and she teaches alternatives to power in local prisons

Bob Jonkman
* Fairvote
* Green Party
* WR Nonviolence
* KW Peace website

Aleksandra Petrovitch
* Social Development Centre Waterloo Region (old social planning
council)… does communication and organization for them

Cathy Scott
* Fairvote

Tamara Lorincz
* Canadian voice for women for peace
* Will be guest speaker for Conscience Canada in april

Jon Ellis
* Basic Income Waterloo

=== Upcoming Events for Our Groups: ===

* every third Wednesday there will be a meeting of the Council of
Canadians at Bread & Roses (James and Ellen)

* ( date passed … soooo sorry … but I believe it was sent to all of
the organizers previously by Sue)
Bill C-262 will ensure that UNDRIP – the human rights of Indigenous
Peoples - are enshrined in Canadian law. The second hour of debate on
Bill C-262 takes place on February 5th and voting on the bill will
happen on February 7, 2018. We must keep the pressure on and make sure
all the Liberal MPs vote for Bill C-262. (Sue)

* Feb 24th … The Co-op Kitchen at St. John's will be having cooking
classes. The first will be February 24th, and tickets are $40 on
Eventbrite. The ticket price covers the class, and dinner, and you get
to take food home ( Laura)

* Feb 27 … the working Centre is partnering with divest Waterloo to
put on a number of films. The next one is on February 27th and is
economics of happiness (Laura)

* March 1... The Ambassador of Costa Rica is coming to the Balsillie
School of International Affairs and screening the film "A Bold Peace:
Costa Rica's Path to Demilitarization" on March 1. It is being
co-hosted with Project Ploughshares - I highly recommend. More details
to come.(tamara)

* March 3 ...Bridging Communities through Song (Laura)

* March 7th … the chemical Valley project, a play at the registry
Theatre, regarding environmental racism and chemical Valley, which is
near Sarnia (laura)

* March 21 … International Day for the Eliminatino of Racial
Discrimination. If groups want to have information tables or speak,
they should apply to Gehan (Gehan in absentia)

* March 23 … there will be a coffee house to fundraise for United
Services committee (James and Ellen)

*. April is the Conscience Canada AGM and the Global Day of Action
Against Military Spending usually on the third Monday, I (Temara?)
hope we can do an action locally:
http://www.ipb.org/global-campaign-on-military-spending/ (Dwyer?)

* April 7th Conscience Canada AGM speaker Tamara Lorincz 3:30 at
Conrad Grebel, Center for the Advancement of Peace. Topic: Climate
Costs of Canada's New Defense spending. (Dwyer)

* Sunday, April 22, Blue Scarf Earth Day Walk in Toronto with Camp
Micah, CPT, Pax Christi and Kairos.(dwyer)

* Kitchener-Waterloo Climate Save will be at the Eco Market on April 21st
: https://www.theecomarket.org/ (mo)

* April 26th, courthouse vigil with KW Animal Save for the 1500 pigs
who were left to die … sentencing at Simcoe courthouse
: https://www.facebook.com/events/848482485356583/?ti=cl (mo)

* The Pegasus: Peace, Global Health and Sustainability Conference will
take place in Toronto in April 27-29, and you can propose a topic
: https://www.pegasusconference.ca/#about-1 (tamara?)

* Month of May ... Mothers for Mother Earth (Climate Save etc) …
brunches, raising awareness throughout May and beyond (mo)

* June 7 … is the provincial election

* July 7th, KW’s 1st Vegfest, in front City Hall (KW Animal Save is on
the committee)
: https://www.facebook.com/KWVegFest/ (mo)

* July 14 ...WR Nonviolence Day in the Park (Bob)

* July 14 … Nation Rising, a coalition of individuals and
environmental groups and animal rights groups trying to get the
federal government to stop subsidizing animal agriculture and climate
change, will be holding a demonstration on Parliament Hill in Ottawa (mo)

* World Beyond War is planning a big international peace conference in
Toronto on September 21 and 22. You could offer to run a session at
the conference. Would be great to have a good sized group from KW
going. Details are being planned now:
http://worldbeyondwar.org/nowar2018/ (Tamara)

* There is an absolutely excellent CBC Ideas program with Andrew
Feinstein, author of "The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade"
that Temara highly recommends you listen to and share:
: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas (Tamara?)



=== Other things we've been working on ===
(And things I don't have dates for)

CATHY
* Fairvote has been having meetings with Raj Saini and Bardish Chagger
and Bryan May regarding election reform, broken promises, and
advocating for proportional representation. January 31st was the first
anniversary of the broken promise around PR.
* They we'll have information tables at the International Day of race
relations
* Dave Meslin - http://fairdebates.ca/
* the city of Cambridge is asking citizens about having ranked Ballot
(or PR?) for their municipal elections

SUE
* Bill C262 … there was an upcoming debate and vote on the bill, and
Sue’s group was trying to get all the liberal MPs to endorse it

ESTHER
* MCC
* a lot of actions that have been doing in London in opposition to
Trump and the announcement re Palestine
* a neo-Nazi group called pegida has been coming to London, and
Esther’s group has been organizing counter-protests peace rallies
aiming to deescalate the violence. They had 500 people out at the last
one. London has a large Muslim Community. Unfortunately there are a
lot of Evangelical Christians who stand with pegida.
* people for peace, the London Action Network, and CPT
* she is also a member of a working group to discuss the
israel-palestine conflict with MPs
* in November and December Esther Co-chaired a delegation to Israel.
She says each time she goes things are worse
* there will be a Liberation Passover meal with three United churches.

MO
* I've been working on launching a films page for the worldwide save
movement, so that we can encourage groups around the world to show
animal rights / climate films
* also launching a campaign with another woman from the Save movement
to get mothers on board and thinking about climate issues. It will
likely be called a Mothers for Mother Earth, and we are planning
Mother's Day brunches in the month of May
* there have been a number of barn fires in Southern Ontario in the
last couple of months. Apparently arson. Whenever possible our groups
have been holding vigils for the animals who have been burned alive so
that we can raise awareness about the conditions that they live in,
and the lack of safety.
* we've been doing virtual reality in the schools, where we pay
students to watch a short video on the life cycle of a pig. This has
been very successful in getting students to rethink eating meat.
* the save movement is part of nation Rising, which will be holding a
demonstration on July 14th to try to get the federal government to
stop subsidizing animal agriculture and slaughterhouses

LAURA
* Niara Vangalen has started the petition to have 90% of Canada's land
and seas be declared a nature reserve
* Laura is working on the chemical Valley project, to bring the play here
* she is also working on Co-op Community Kitchen, an incubator for a
start-up food businesses... at St John the Evangelist
* she had a dinner on December 9th, with the Syrian community, and a
hundred people signed up ... 220 showed up,
* she is also working on a doctrine of Discovery play, that talks
about reconciliation
* divest Waterloo is partnering with the working Centre on a number of
films. They showed Tomorrow, and on February 27th will be showing
economics of happiness
* she is working on a fundraising dinner for indigenous people she
from Louisiana who were displaced by climate change
* transition KW is working on getting people to tap their own trees.
This is called the urban sugaring project
* she is working on “bridging communities through song” which will be
on March 3rd
* a course at renison called reconciliation for communities
* and she recommends a book called quest for respect (A guide for
discussing indigenous issues)

TAMARA
* she screened a Martin Luther King film at Laurier. This year was the
50th anniversary of his death. His death waswas on April 4th, so if
you can use it that would be great
* a call to conscience, a PBS documentary of his last speech, which is
likely why he was killed
* Canada has a 20-year plan to increase military spending by 553
billion dollars, and is intervening in other countries increasingly
... and is refusing to join the United Nations nuclear band
* she has a meeting coming up with bardish chagger to discuss spending
and nuclear weapons
* the Canadian voices of women for peace is working on building a
Canadian peace movement, which we don't have. Their conference will be
September 21st and 22nd ( in the events). She is hoping that KW peace
will have a presence there

ALEKSANDRA
* she is continuing the work looking into getting a community Hub

-- 
Kitchener-Waterloo Peace and Social Justice Groups
bobjonkman at kwpeace.ca           https://kwpeace.ca


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