March 31, 2009

Erie Peace Initiative meeting
1001 state st May 26,09
In attendance: Richard Mcvay, Anne Zielinski, Bob Johnson, Barb Roseborough, Lora Caldwell, Mark Mateja


1. Introductions

2. Last two weeks actions
5-15-09 rally…enough to make it worthwhile
5-22-09 yard signing got out aprox 100 signs
5-25 09 –parade at Meadville great women in black turnout….just Mark and Bob from EPI

3. Treasury report…same as last meeting

4. June 17 Bush Appearance Rally At Bayfront and Convention Center, 430pm to whenever. Not EPI sponsored..done on an individual basis.

-Publicizing the rally, flyers, emails, facebooks, etc.
GE plant gate flyering with Bush rally flyers?
-Signs for this event and what do we want them to say?
-Pass out EPI flyers/materials there?
-More letters to the editor on this. Richard suggested posting flyers up and down state st night before June 17th.

June 6th next women in black vigil Diamond Park Meadville

Good letter to editor from Rich Quiggle today

5. Fundraiser idea: for Vets for Peace and/or Iraq Vets Against the War. Different ideas discussed. We can talk to Travis Lindsay and Sandy Kelson. Lora will make a few calls to see if we can get a band/ place donated or for very little cost.

-VFP does have a civilian auxilary membership category, maybe we could pay the yearly dues as a group?

6 EPI participation in Erie Days in Aug/Block Party Nights
a. Table/booth, either our own or with some other groups, at least with partial staffing during peak times like Friday and Saturday night. We could borrow table from Richards office.

b. Sponsoring a Chalk Walk space with peace art/messages, simple design that could be produced by untrained artists. Was about $300 last year, but art supporters would probably donate, and we could even split the space with another group, or incorporate their design/message into ours.

c. Rally on State St. during prime time like we did a couple of years ago.

7. EPI participation in Erie Art Festival wk-end of June 25th


8.Suggestions for developing our educational/information materials for our tables and rallies:

---Printed Military Information Cards from American Friends (order more?)-
---Print more enlistment info flyers, and more copies of the Erie School District court case.

-If we could keep the website updated reasonably, we could have both an online and print version of an EPI newsletter for face to face distribution, and hopefully build a web site readership this way.

-We can order used anti war books for about .50 on Amazon plus 4-5.00 shipping, then ask for a donation to cover the shipping, and have a handbill with a book review and the Amazon site if they want to order it later.
Examples: Hutto’s Antiwar Soldier, Soldiers in Revolt by Cortwright,
Mission Rejected by Laufer (Iraq Vet interviews)

-EPI bumper stickers-Will cost around a dollar a unit; would be good to have for summer events, could have our web address on them. What should they say? Lora will get prices.

-EPI yard signs-We would have to charge about $5 each, couldn’t give them away. What should they say? Something with a long shelf life could be sold over the course of the next year or two, and they would be a good visual attraction at our appearences. Any quantity can be ordered, per unit cost goes down with increase in quantity, but we could do a starter order of something like 10/$75 or 25/$150. Another option is ordering the sign only, and using the old sign holders we have left; this would cut out a lot of shipping cost and bring it down to about a buck a piece.
We should continue to plant/distribute the 1, 000 or so signs left from the Iraq summer campaign and try to phase them out this summer. Also there are still hundreds of placards left, and we should figure out how to get them out and use them up, they are a resource just sitting in the garage.

-Still a few dozen buttons left too.

-More copies of The July 10-12 Pittsburgh Anti –war Conference brouchure; They also may have speakers/materials we could use here, and perhaps they could recreate the workshops here in Erie, or we could do our own series of classes/workshops.

10.National Antiwar Conference in Pittsburgh week of July 10 at LaRoche College. The Merton Center is hosting this, we should help publicize and send some people. They had a nice multi-page brochure out, with a lot of workshops and classes over the weekend, we could pass this out at our events.

Demo on Friday May 29, at the 8th and Bayfront venue, 4:30-5:15p
Street demo
Next meeting 7pm tue June 9th 1001 State st