Meeting Recap

At today's meeting we drafted and sent an email off to Mr. Wexler to indicate Amnesty International's interest in contributing to or heading Springbrook fundraising efforts for the community service project he is running in Ecuador. (More details to come.)

Ms. Kelly also noted the advocacy group assignment that all of Springbrook's 10th graders will be undertaking in October or November: students are expected to research a specific sociopolitical issue, examine the US government and advocacy groups' respective stances on it, and write a letter to an official involved in addressing said issue. As Amnesty International has definitive views on a number of such issues, we are hoping to find some way to use this assignment to our advantage, i.e., recruit more members or increase our visibility in the school.

In that vein, Mr. Mann's plans for more dynamic morning announcements gives us the opportunity to put out psa-type media on darfur, poverty, the death penalty, etc. Please look through the list of issues Amnesty has prioritized and pick one on which you would like to create a powerpoint or other informational piece.

Weekly Meeting

Our first meeting of the year was held yesterday, Wednesday September 2. We will continue to meet on Wednesdays this year in Ms. Kelley's room, G311. All are welcome.

On a quick technical note, please subscribe to the RSS feed located on the right-hand side of the page so that our blog posts will be sent to you. Additionally, we will be posting information about upcoming events both on the wall in Ms. Kelley's room and on our (now functional! yay!) Google calendar.

We discussed the following at the meeting:

• maintenance of the blog/ the creation of a website on the school server
• morning announcements
• potential project in which we donate $1000 to build a well for a village in rural Africa
• potential project in which we donate money to Mr. Wexler's school in Ecuador that the students can use for local poverty relief
• drafting an email to Wexler on said subject
• human rights seminar project- contacting clubs, organizing, getting permission, etc.
• clubs include: African/Haitian Club, German Club, Asian-American Club, Art Club, Desi Club, French Club, Students Against Landmines, Spanish Honor Society, French Honor Society, Gay Straight Alliance, IB students (CAS project), Model UN, Forensics Club, Green Team, Muslim Student Association, interested individuals, possibly professional speakers
  

Action points for next meeting include making a banner for Ms. Kelley's room, drafting an email for Wexler, researching potential projects, getting a head start on morning announcements, and setting up informational pages for bulletin board in Ms. Kelley's room.

Please comment with any comments, questions, or concerns. Have a great week, everyone!

Update: Banner-y type thing!
It is not actually all that big (12 x 18"), but maybe we could center it on the board?

Meeting on September 16

We will meet on September 16 (the Tuesday after next) at 7:30 pm at Savory Cafe in Takoma Park for the meeting organized by the Takoma Park chapter of Amnesty International. All are welcome. If anybody would like to carpool, please email shsamnestyinternational@yahoo.com or contact one of us and we will arrange it.

Savory is located at 7071 Carroll Avenue, Takoma Park, MD 20912.

The Takoma Park Amnesty International website is located here: http://www.amnesty-volunteer.org/usa/group297/

Here is Savory's website, which has directions and other information: http://www.savorycafe.com/