JHR Minutes #7

JHR Meeting #7 – Minutes

January 17, 2006 – Café Solstice

Present: Jacob Galfano, Nari Corley-Wheeler, Janice Goh, Todd Price

Faculty Advisor: The group has decided to officially change its advisor from Stephanie Camp to Jamie Mayerfeld. Nari will contact Professor Mayerfeld; this should be finalized by the next meeting.

Recruiting: The sentiment of the group is that by focusing on concrete projects, promotion and recruitment will occur naturally. The projects and events described below will provide opportunities for the campus and surrounding community to learn about JHR and its mission, and as a result will attract individuals predisposed to becoming members. Read on…

Club alliances: February’s speaking event (see below) has provided a solid opportunity for JHR and Amnesty International to collaborate. These kinds of working relationships are invaluable to coalition-building, and can generate interest in both organizations and their respective work.

Fliers: A flier is being created to help promote the aforementioned speaking event; please speak up if you’re interested in helping table and promote the talk.

Projects:

- Newsletter: The first issue is coming along nicely! Here are topic ideas (with authors in parentheses… feel free to choose one and let us know!):

- Homelessness: OneNight Count/TeenFeed/Homeless Fair (Janice/Nari)

- Sidebar: Facts about the homeless

- Gentrification in the Central District (Dr. Mako Fitts)

- NISGUA/GAP: Seattle Sponsorship/UUCAN (?)

- YES! magazine: Human Rights Issue & Interns w/ resources (Jacob)

- Safe Zone Project (?)

- Comic (Jacob)

- Poll/Survey (?)

Distribution is still being discussed; the Daily, Ruckus, and community spots like cafes and restaurants are all possible outlets. However, the Daily has quoted us a price of $500 per newsletter – which would require fundraising. Nari suggested fundraising during the below speaking event, perhaps selling human rights-related texts.

- Guatemala human rights speaker: The Guatemala Accompaniment Project is offering a speakers’ series with a human rights observer named Jillian returning from her service. JHR, Amnesty International, and the Center for Human Rights and Justice (UW Law) are teaming up to organize and promote the event. The event will be held in Smith Hall, Room 205 at 7 pm on Thursday, February 1^st.

- Interviews: JHR-USA director Regina Eddleman has established a connection with BJ Bullert, a local documentarian who might be willing to help out. If there is interest, BJ will be asked to speak at an upcoming JHR meeting.

- Radio show: KBCS (at BCC – 91.3 fm) offers workshops to train volunteers to get onto the airwaves. A human-rights radio report is a definite possibility, and would be a great way to report human rights news to the community at large. Also, Amnestia Phil Neff works for Rainy Dawg Radio. As of now, the station’s content is all music, but this could be another site to work with to promote more human rights/public affairs reporting.

- End of Year Event: A larger public meeting could allow us to screen an interview, host a speaker, or any other idea you may have. This would be a great way to segue into the summer months so that the following school year has a strong corpse of JHR members from the start. Also, the JHR official fundraising event (SpeakSilence) is to be held in October. This should be a focus for preparation at one of our final meetings of this school year.

- News Monitoring: A discussion has been started about JHR members participating in a news monitoring project that is currently being developed by local advocate Daniel Hannah. Daniel works for SCAN-TV and Reclaim the Media. There may be school credit or Work/Study payment available. This will be discussed at the next meeting.

Other Recruiting: Please continue to make announcements in your classes about next meetings and events and send that sign-up sheet around!

Next Meeting: Will be held on Wednesday, January 24 at 1:30 pm at Café Solstice (on the Ave.)

Tentative Agenda for meeting #8:

- Advisor: Jamie Mayerfeld finalized?

- Text shopping

- AI/Guatemala speaker: Promotion for 2/1

- Newsletter: Topic assignments & drafts/Fundraising

- Monitoring project

- Bellevue Event: Thurs. Feb. 8 – Race & Culture in the Media