FUSsa-talk Mailing List: Oct 30, 2005 Social Action Minutes

[Becca Brackett (ecbrackett]

Oct 30, 2005 FUS  Social Action Committee Minutes by Becca Brackett

Note these minutes follow the agenda numbering, summary:
1) OPENING.
2) TREASURER'S REPORT  - Madalyn
3) ANNOUNCEMENTS
4) OLD BUSINESS
5) MUUSJA UPDATE  - Jo (who is Muusja co-chair)
6) SERVICE PRIORITIES
7) SAC EDUCATION & SUPPORT. Supporting FUS individuals active in Social
8) Social Change work - brainstorming about FUS connections to N Mpls:

1) OPENING. In attendance:  Madalyn Ciocci, Adele Hanson, Jo Haberman, ,
Polly Peterson, Gary Blegstad, Bill Ogren, MaryLou Nelson, Jean Toll,
Marcie Leussler, Becca Brackett, Carol Koepp, Jo Franco, and 3 Guests from
out of town

The agenda and 9/25 minutes were reviewed and approved.

Dec 4th will be the next meeting of the Social Action Committee
to avoid Thanksgiving weekend.  There will be no meeting later in Dec.


2) TREASURER'S REPORT  - Madalyn
  Balance in the Social Action Comm. Regular account - Use it or
  lose it is $3,593.78
  Balance in Restricted fund 86 the Social Action account which is
the recipient Service Auction Funds last fiscal year is $8,401
$266 rcvd from 8/22 potluck but clarification will be sought.
A check has been sent to Prairie Star to reimburse  UUAHP's loan for the
Rent - Hurricane Relief

Outside requests for funding
Jo reported that we have rcvd a request from the Alliance for Metro
Stability for a $1000 donation.  We have also rcvd a request from
Harriet Tubman shelter but not a specific amount.  Adele noted the
Harriet Tubman has had a drop in donations from foundations.

After some discussion we postponed the decision on disbursement of
funds until our working groups have determined their priorities. Our
working groups are Peace, Children's Issues, Youth, Affordable Housing and
Environmental Issues.  Last year we divided our funds between
subcommittees equally.  This topic will be revisited at the Dec 4th
meeting.

3) ANNOUNCEMENTS
Madalyn announced she will represent UU Ecominds at a meeting on
10/31 with the Governor's chief of staff She was invited by the United
Steelworkers as a result of Ecominds coalition work with them to pass
the Renewable Energy Standard.

The FUS Board has called a Special Congregational Meeting for Sunday,
December 11 at 12:00, after the service. The membership will discuss and
consider a congregational resolution against a constitutional amendment
to ban marriage, civil unions and other legal protections for same-sex
couples, and a second resolution expressing concerns about officially
sanctioned use of torture.

Polly gave an update on the negotiations of AFSCME with U MN, no
contract has been signed and the union will do informational picketing
at the Bill Clinton speech coming up.

Pearson Fund did grant $500 towards landscaping  of the Oasis of Love
and Agape Child care Center's Playground. - this was a joint request
with RE Dept to be done in Spring 2006. Carol Koepp will be our liaison
person with RE and Agape. others interested were Marcie and Dave
Leussler, Becca, Adele

Nov 19th at FUS there will be a showing of the video "Secret Ballot"
  about problems of lack of a paper trail for electronic balloting.
Maryann Lundquist asked for Social Action Committee endorsement and this
was granted.

4) OLD BUSINESS

Service Auction 2006
We were not sure of the date of 2006 Service Auction.  It was the sense
of the committee that we did want to work on it. Jo agreed to look at
last year's proposal and revise it to consider at the next meeting.


Mailing list update
Review of our email new list.  The SA talk list will be for back and
forth discussion of committee members and will also include any
announcements that are sent to the Announcement only list.
You should have gotten an invitation to join the Talk List - Fred will
send a reminder to those who did not respond.

Remember these will not be able to include ATTACHMENTS.  If you usually
compose in MS Word and attach things - you will have to convert it to
plain text and send it in the Body of the message.
Please Be sure your  SUBJECT LINE tells about the content of what you
are saying - something like " Nov 1 Winona LaDuke speaks at MAP"
is better than "RE: Two weeks out"

5) MUUSJA UPDATE  - Jo (who is Muusja co-chair)
Muusja is holding a three part series on world view and framing -
Finding our concept of how the world works, and how  we
present our views to the world. The second session will be Nov 12th at
FUS. The FUS leadership retreat will follow in the afternoon; we
collected names of folks attending both to order lunch.
Muusja has a new working group UU's Out For Marriage
Muusja has joint the JRLC - the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition
    This was in response to FUS's SAC suggestion.
Muusja plans to have training for congregational "in-reach" with Vic
Rosenthal
There were 3 handouts - If you want a copy contact JO Haberman
o  Shir Tikvah Inreach training- with a flow sheet on Organizing and
     Development
o  ONE -ON -ONES - the Art of Building Public Relationships
o  EXCERPTED from Power and Social Change Feb 2002

We formed a committee to look into doing in-reach at FUS - members:
Carol K. Adele, Madalyn C. Jean Toll, Gary and Jo

See also Adele's report item 7)

6) SERVICE PRIORITIES

    Thanks to Carol Koepp very complete list of needs for the Families
who are refugees from Katrina is in the Bulletin
Color line ???
Madelyn reminds of the Nov 20th  Food Collection 4th and 5th grade and
also whole congregation. This will be going to the Sabathani Food Shelf.

Becca presented  that Nellie Stone Johnson School in North MPLS has need
of monetary donations, Target Cards, or Rainbow Cards.  The school uses
uniforms and some families cannot afford to buy them. More information
to follow.

We reviewed the Special Service Collection Schedule
  Oct 16th the MUUSJA collection was $1,079 - they thank us.
  Nov, Dec, Jan - are settled.
  Feb - Carol will get a date soon and it will be for Agape Child care
  April 23rd Madelyn Proposes that we do a collection to have FUS  buy
some of the WIND POWER thru Xcel energy - this program as consumers
designated dollars for  Wind energy - increasing their own bill, but as
the money in this fund rises Xcel must build wind mills above the ones
the PUC ordered them to build.  SAC endorsed this  but will ask Madelyn
C. to take it to the Board of Trustees  along with Barb Weatherhead as our
Liaison.  Specifically because for "businesses" the program requires a 3
year commitment.


7) SAC EDUCATION & SUPPORT. Supporting FUS individuals active in Social
Actions, and growing the FUS Congregation wide support.
Adele presented from a subcommittee:

 The sub-committee of Jo Haberman, Marcy Leussler, Jean Toll, Gary
 Blegstand, and Adele Hansen met and came up with the following proposal
 for a series of educational programs:  Building Community through Social
 Action.

 We would invite interested members (those who signed up at the Summer
 Assembly) to read The Prophetic Imperative by Richard Gilbert.
 Gary has talked with the people in the bookstore about making copies of this
 book available for purchase. Many people on the Social Action Committee
 stated they would purchase the book, so Gary will follow up on his request
 to the bookstore.

 We would meet after a soup luncheon but did not establish whether we'd start
 in January. We talked about having three monthly events.

 The format of the program:

 Gary would lead a discussion of the key element of one chapter from
 Gilbert's book. (10 minutes)

 Jo would make a presentation on one of the core skills (not quite sure that
 that means)  in social justice work (10 minutes)

 We'd practice one on ones for 20 minutes  -- we'd need someone to help us
 here.

 The program would close with a "Where do we go from here?" session (10
 minutes)

 Our goals are  to learn more about social justice, and to have an
 opportunity to know other FUS members interested in social justice. (The
 words "getting to know" mean have a deeper relationship than just...hi Barb,
 hi Adele...we'd use the one on one time to learn about the work we are doing
 and what we are passionate about.

 We will continue to plan for this event, and will make a report at the next
 SA Committee meeting

 Adele

Adele also mentioned that hopefully training on One to ones would come
before this large meeting.

Consensus decision that we want to have Gary Delgado from Applied
Research Center give a major Social address at FUS  when he comes to
MPLS for a different organization in January or February 2006. Jo H has
sent out information about him via email.


8) Social Change work - brainstorming about FUS connections to N Mpls:
-- N Mpls people and orgs someone at FUSSA has connections to --
Polly P, Becca B and Fred Olson live in N Mpls
Peace Foundation dir Michelle Martin
Don and Sondra Samuels
Principal Larry Burgess
Agape / Oasis
Pastor Diane Thibodeaux  http://www.holdingforththewordoflife.org
Keith Ellison EJAM       http://www.ejam.org
Jordan Area Community Council
Masjid An-Nur Mosque near Broadway and Lyndale
Bahai Community
Urban League
NRRC
Jordan New Life Church
Brunswick Church

-- questions to consider when making research visits --
Values
 What do they think of UU's?
 How are they working with people in their community / constituency?

Key issues
 What are they working on / interested in?
 Have they worked with pople outside their group/community?  How?
 We are interested in working with others.
 How can we work side by side concretely or at a policy level?
 What do they think would be useful for UU's to do?