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Minutes of Peace and Social Concerns Meetings

April 6, 2008 April 27, 2008 May 25, 2008 June 29, 2008 July 27, 2008 August 31, 2008 September 28, 2008 October 26, 2008 November 30, 2008 January 11, 2009

February 22, 2009 March 29, 2009 April 26, 2009 May 31, 2009 June 28, 2009 October 31, 2009 February 28, 2010 March 28, 2010 April 25, 2010 May 30, 2010

Minutes Peace and Social Concerns Committee
May 31, 2009
Present were: Ken Magee, Tony Swan, Faith Marsalli, Kate Murphey, and Bill and Shari Burke

First up for discussion was the Torture Banner and related issues. The banner will be rehung in June to call attention to the issue once again. Also, Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon has a free DVD on the issue available. Faith will request a copy and plan to show it after a meeting for worship in June.

The Food Bank was the next item on the agenda. Faith updated us on the progress being made towards a decision about whether or not to use the Friends House as a food pantry site. She made a visit to St. Paul's Episcopal Church's food pantry and observed. She talked to the people working there, who gave her a wealth of information and extended offers to help should plans at Friends House move forward. We discussed whether to take the next step, and if so, what that would be. It was agreed that there would need to be committed people from outside the meeting in order to make a food pantry viable, but there should be someone within the meeting to take the lead in terms of organization and leadership. It was suggested that perhaps it would be a good idea to have two people working together on this, with at least one of them being from this meeting. Tony has some contacts for people who might be willing to be a part of this and he will get in touch with them. We will bring this forward at the next meeting for business to see whether anyone is interested. Faith will go ahead with the application from the food bank if there are enough people willing to commit. We decided to collect toiletries for the food bank in June.

Peace Supper follow-up resulted in a good discussion. We will be open to the idea of doing further activities around this issue as interest arises. Faith has been invited to be a part of a task force through NWYM and she will be accepting this invitation. Ken will be putting together a letter summarizing thoughts from members of southern Oregon Friends meetings and submitting this to the NWYM.

Several people have expressed an interest in helping with the PALM Dinners at First United Methodist Church, so it looks like there are enough people to go ahead and commit to that. We will bring a recommendation to that effect to the next meeting for business. The participants will be needed on one Tuesday a month for a few hours in the last afternoon/early evening to plan, set up, serve, and clean up. No one has come forward as of yet to be the lead person on this.

The garden project is growing by leaps and bounds this year. Terry Morton has agreed to be the organizer and there are many people volunteering to be a part of garden care and working with the kids from Fairview Elementary during the garden camp. The flyers for the camp have gone home with students, but it is too early to tell how many will want to participate. There may be a need for people to help with transportation, but we were a bit nervous about having to take responsibility for children in this way, so it is unclear whether that will happen.

Quaker Bakers will not be organized by Peace and Social Concerns this year. We will bring it up to the larger meeting so if anyone feels strongly led to take this up, they can do so.

Shari and Bill will be leaving town by the end of June, so this was their last Peace and Social Concerns meeting