Summer Planning Meeting

After the specially interesting and interactive table @ the Farmers Market on 6/17 (thanks to Tamador, a theater artist), the group moved to Jones Library and had our first Summer meeting. A good action plan was developed after reflecting on last year's plan.

here is a brief summary of the outcomes:
* Review of last year's plan: We briefly went over some of the activities we organized or co-sponsored. These are: 13 Information Tables at the Farmers Market; Holding 3 meetings; Increasing memberships; working and reaching out to students groups; Organizing the Human Rights day (along with Amherst Town Human Rights Commission); organizing/participating in events @ Smith College, Springfield College, and UMASS. Co-sponsoring the MLK Breakfast; and Thomas Paine events. In addition, the Fundraiser Tag Sale was exceptionally successful last year due to attracting legislators and media coverage. A major challenge was how to get the membership more involved and motivated to participate in activities and events.
* Discussion on 2011-2012 Work Plan: We spent sometime to address this new work plan and benefit of our previous experiences. The following offices were suggested and created with one or more in each:
1. Membership Office: Tamador & Gloria................... mainly to organize our membership list and help in contacting inactive members and motivate them more, etc.
2.Media office: Fanny and is looking for more to help her: This office will be responsible of communication with media, and issuing our 2-3 Press releases (HR day, Refugee/Torture Survivors day, International Women's Day).
3. Regional office Liaison: Ester will be helping us in this area especially because of her frequent visits to Boston in her other volunteer work with the Union.
4. Blog/Website office: Ismail & Cylvanna volunteered to help enhance and maintain our Blog
* Petitions and POC: We discussed the progress we made in this area especially in helping to release the adopted POC cases: Aung San Suu Kyi (Burma); and Karim Amer (Egypt). Two new petitions were sent to us from the regional office (India and Chad); and 2 POC cases will be assigned to us.
* Amherst TV Show: We disscussed the request of Mr. Isaac Ben-Ezra to host a 30-min TV show with the group in regard to our success on the 2 POC cases. Fanny, Ester and Mohamed will be working on this piece.
* Budget: We spent like $45 on sponsoring event and printing a brochur for Springfield College event (a full report will be presented in our next meeting)
* Other: The North East Regional Office Coordinator, Cynthia Gabriel, is planning to visit with our Chapter sometimes in Mid July. plan to use her visit to activate our membership.