Peace and Social Concerns Committee annual report, July 2011

This year Peace & Social Concerns continued to offer monthly letter-writing opportunities to the Meeting. Topics were usually taken from FCNL suggestions for the month. To facilitate more rapid delivery to Congress, we added a fax option on most occasions.

We also cosponsored two events: “U.S. Detention Policies a Decade After 9/11:  Two Perspectives on National Security -  A Conversation” on 3/30 and “A talk by Takaaki Morikawa about Hiroshima and the threat of nuclear weaponry” on 4/28, with Traprock, and have arranged publicity at our Meeting through posting flyers and using our listserv.

Along with Ministry and Worship and Care and Counsel, PSC members and others brought to Meeting for Business a concern for our Muslim neighbors who have suffered harassment that eventually resulted in a statement sent to the Gazette (January 4) as well as formation of an ad hoc group looking into ways to better understand and support Muslims.

We recommended that Peggy be named as the Mount Toby representative to the Amherst Environmental Coalition, and she was.

Several of us sent cards and many more followed the story of the incarceration of Nancy Smith, for her trespass on the grounds of the school of the Americas.

We continued collection of food for local shelters, with donations going to both the Amherst Survival Center and Franklin County Survival Center.

Peace and Social Concerns sponsored a 2010-11 film series focusing on films offering positive news or events.  Discussions followed the showings. Attendance probably averaged around 15. The showings were:

12/9/10: The Singing Revolution - the nonviolent Revolution in Estonia
1/13/11: Icyizere - reconciliation in Rwanda
2/10/11: A Farm for the Future - agriculture's future, and permaculture
3/10/11: South of the Border - social and political movements there
4/14/11: Amazing Grace and Chuck - 12 year old boy changes the world
5/12/11: No Impact Man - New York family tries to minimize environmental impact

Most recently we sponsored an 11:40 hour in June, led by Alan Eccleston, inviting Friends to consider our relation to the earth in this time of climate change. Three working groups came out of the hour, focusing on witness, learning more ourselves, and exploring carbon footprint issues and solutions. We look forward to learning how these groups flourish.

Two things we are planning for the future:

To host the NEYM-YAF Climate Working Group, that has proposed an intervisitation. They suggested that they might bring a one-hour worship/sharing event here, which we are exploring as a possible 11:40 hour sometime in July .

Involvement in the proposed September 350.org event.