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 19^th 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/

 4^th 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