First off, I'd like to thank everyone who came to the first meeting of the semester. It was nice to see so many new faces. Now, on with the minutes...it's a bit long, so bear with me....
Heather opened the meeting with an introduction of the officers.
President - Heather Turner
Vice President - Emily Klein
Treasurer - Melanie Jones
Secretary - Monica Chapman
It was decided that 8:30-9:10 on Wednesday nights in the WRC is a good meeting time and place (if this meeting time is bad for any of you who missed the meeting, please email Heather).
Emily Klein talked about what Amnesty International is and a little about who we are as a campus organization as well as what we do. Heather pitched in about what we have done already, such as having gone to the Amnesty General Meeting in Seattle, Washington, bringing speakers to campus, and urgent actions or letter writing campaigns to end human rights violations. More information about Amnesty can be found at http://www.amnesty.org.
The Women's Resource Center (WRC) has offered us some of their library space once they've finished "renovating." We already have books and information to put there, but we'll probably be looking for more books once that's ready.
The T-Shirt design was discussed. Emily was nice enough to model the previous version of the shirt. It was suggested that we hold a design contest on campus for the next shirts. So, if you have any design ideas, start drawing. A gift certificate to Target could be the prize for the winning design!
J. Mapstone makes many of the lovely posters you'll see around campus this year promoting various events. She'll make 25 of them free, which is probably more than enough for our purposes. Please bring ideas for posters to the next meeting.
Emily announced that we have put in for our bulletin board near the Main computer labs.
Heather told us of her plans for a Mardi Gras/Amnesty Event in the Sommer Center. Most campus events are scheduled at the very end of the semester, so having an event in the middle of the semester when people aren't busy with finals would probably mean a better turn out. The event will be further discussed at future meetings.
Melanie couldn't make Thursday's treasurer's round table this week, so Angie volunteered to fill-in. Also, Julie is our new Collegiate Rep.
The floor was opened for ideas. Emily talked about the Tibetan Buddhist Monks and a possible "field trip" to the monastery in Ithaca. Whitney suggested having a touring group of monks come to campus such as the one that visited her high school. It was also suggested getting together with Planned Parenthood regarding women's rights in Namibia. Heather said she'd find out about Amnesty's stance on Planned Parenthood from the Eastern office. Internships with Amnesty were mentioned as well as a book drive. Discussed at the meeting and surely open for more discussion was how we can make ourselves more visible on campus.
We look forward to a productive and exciting year. See you next Wednesday!
~Monica Chapman '05