Thank Planned Parenthood!
Sunday, Nov. 8 join us on Baltimore in front of Tri-Rivers Planned Parenthood to say thanks and goodbye to a treasured community resource. 1pm-2pm, use our signs or bring your own.
The Women of Juarez Matter!
Tonight at 7pm at the Georgian Room on Truman’s campus, Barbara Martinez speaks about the situation in Juarez, as well as NAFTA and CAFTA. Hosted by Amnesty International, NEMO NOW, and HALO (Hispanic American Leadership Organization.) Don’t turn away! The goods you buy came at a higher rpice than you think.
October is coming…
Three times in the coming month we ask you to join us: on Oct. 4th from 2:30-3:30pm in front of Hy-Vee for our annual Choice Chain; On Oct. 10 at 8:30am for the Truman Homecoming Parade; and in celebration and reflection on Oct 29-31 for the Truman Women’s and Gender Studies Conference.
Women’s Equality Day
Women’s Equality Day did not pass unremarked in Kirksville. A group of about 25 people came to the Kirksville Arts Center to listen and think about the long struggle for women to get the vote. We heard readings from the writings of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, and Sojourner Truth—the classic figures of 19th century American activism. But we also heard the words of Emma Goldman, Faye Wattleton and Hilary Clinton, songs like “Bread and Roses”, and perspectives on early women in osteopathy and microbiology. It felt like a vigil in some ways, the passing of a long, late summer afternoon together, re-reading and re-hearing the old texts and wondering about the new—whose words will guide us into the future?
Celebrate Women’s Equality Day
On August 29 from 3-5 pm at the Kirksville Arts Center, NEMO Now will celebrate Women’s Equality Day. The program will feature music by Laura Gruber, Peter Rolnick, and Heather Turner and the words of feminists well worth remembering. Mayor Martha Rowe will welcome us. Let us know if you’d like to participate. Who knows, there might be drinks afterwards.
NOW Minutes
Northeast Missouri NOW Minutes
May 30, 2009
Present: Hena Ahmad, Monica Barron, Laura Gruber, Jerry Hirsch, Jane Maxwell, Julia Reed, Linda Seidel, Mary Sims.
We anticipated a very short business meeting & then Movie Night, but ended up talking business longer than we’d planned.
Reports to National NOW: Linda has filed the annual report of our activities, and sent a copy of our bylaws (because National NOW couldn’t find them). We talked about whether we needed bylaw revisions, and decided that probably not enough has changed to make this necessary. Julia still needs to file the form for our financial statement.
Women’s Equality Day. It was suggested that we hold some kind of event to celebrate Women’s Equality Day (August 26), which commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920, giving women full rights to vote. After considerable discussion of when, where & what kind of event we want to have, we decided that since Truman’s classes start Thursday, August 27, it would be best to hold our celebration on Saturday, August 29. We’d like to have a program of several people presenting spoken &/or musical selections relating to women’s history. And we would like to see if we could rent the Kirksville Arts Building for their 2-hour meeting rate of $50 (without kitchen privileges), since it’s a nice space and it’s air-conditioned.
A committee consisting of Julia, Monica, Linda & Jane was formed to make further plans. This will begin with investigating the availability of the Arts Building for 3-5 pm, Saturday, August 29. If that works out, the committee will start contacting individuals who might take part in the program (if you have suggestions, contact someone on the committee). We’ll keep everyone informed.
Blog. Monica has created a blog for Northeast Missouri NOW. She’s going to send me a brief description of how she sees this working for us, and I’ll pass it on to everyone on the email list. In the meantime, go ahead and check it out at http://nemonow.wordpress.com/
4th of July Parade – NOT. We talked about briefly about marching & decided: too hot, too few people in Kirksville, don’t want to do it this year. Concentrate on the Women’s Equality Day event instead.
Movie. Finally we got to the movie! We had several possibilities to choose from & since most of us hadn’t yet seen Milk & wanted to, that was what we chose. I think we were all impressed with the film, the acting & of course the story, & enjoyed talking about it after.
Watch your emails for information on the blog & the Equality Day event & our next meeting!
Mary Sims
Secretary, Northeast Missouri NOW
NOW Minutes
Northeast Missouri NOW Minutes
April 11, 2009
Present: Hena Ahmad, Monica Barron, Laura Gruber, Julia Reed, Linda Seidel, Mary Sims, Sarah Trimborn.
Blog. Monica is at work creating a blog for Northeast Missouri NOW. When it’s completed, we will let everyone know what it’s for and how to do it!
Planned Parenthood Action. Monica also reminded us that Tri-Rivers Planned Parenthood is planning a Visibility Event on Saturday, May 2, from 11am-1pm. If this is similar to their Visibility Events for the last couple years, it will consist of standing on Baltimore Street in front of the TRPP Clinic with pro-Planned Parenthood signs. NOW very much wants to support this action and encourages everyone to join in. We’ll get more information out about this later in the month.
Movie Night. We had three DVDs to choose from for our feminist movie night: North Country (a fictionalized account of the successful sexual harassment suit brought by a woman miner in Minnesota),
Frozen River (two women smuggle illegal aliens into the Mohawk reservation in upstate New York from Canada), and
In Good Conscience (documentary on Sister Jeannine Gramick whose ministry to gay and lesbian Catholics prompted a Silencing order from the Vatican—which she hasn’t obeyed).
Since North Country and Frozen River are commercial releases and therefore more easily available, we decided to watch In Good Conscience, which was very well done and provoked some good discussion.
Thanks to Linda for thinking of Movie Night, and for hosting!!
Mary Sims
Secretary, Northeast Missouri NOW
R.I.P Joan Rolnick
Joan Rolnick passed away this week. She had not been a member of our community for long, but in the time she was among us I appreciated her principled voice. She tried to help us get our PFLAG chapter going, and I know she stood for all of NEMO NOW’s core values–including the one’s big NOW hasn’t gotten around to prioritizing, like the health of the biosphere. I thought about Joan yesterday as we were standing out on Baltimore with our signs in front of TriRivers Planned Parenthood, simply advocating leaving the big decisions–like when to reproduce–to the people doing the reproducing. R.I.P. Joan.
Earth Week is funny, people!
Catch the Earth Week keynote speaker, comedian Stacy Prussman at Baldwin Hall Theatre, Wednesday night at 7pm. Her show is called “Cleaning up the world, one mess at a time.” Really, you should go.
Women’s Activism and Feminist Agency tonight
Catch Jennifer Disney, Winthrop University, Women’s Activism and Feminist Agency in Mozambique and Nicaragua at 7pm in Magruder 2001. Part of Truman’s Global Issues Colloquium. Met her last night–she will be a dynamic speaker.
