Jubilee 2011-05 meeting notes

Jubilee Oregon General Meeting Notes

May 4, 2011

Attended: Roberta Badger-Cain, Leonard Cain (First Presbyterian Church), Nancy Hatch (Ainsworth UCC), Kara Kluver (PSU), Doug Speers (St John the Baptist Episcopal), Bob Brown (Havurah Shalom)

1000 Faith Leaders Campaign and Voices of Esther

• More than 1000 faith leaders have signed up so far
• Those attending were asked to meet with their faith leaders in their congregations to discuss the letter and hopefully get sign-ons.
• There is some confusion in our role in getting faith leaders to sign up
  • Spread sheet populated by Jubilee USA has 26 contacts, some of whom are not faith leaders but identified as members or lay leaders
  • The process that Brooke outlined seems backwards to us. We are supposed to contact leaders that Jubilee USA identifies for us. We thought we should be doing outreach ourselves.
  • Our thought is that we should be doing outreach to faith leaders from our congregations contact list.
  • We don’t know what to do when we have someone who has signed
• ACTION: Bob will schedule a conference call with Brooke to get our questions answered. Nancy and Roberta agreed to participate in that call. Bob will send out a meeting wizard and contact Brooke to see if we can use their conference call number.
• ACTION: Bob will send to Kara the background information for this campaign so she can take it to her faith leaders.

Linking our Voices Update

• Bob reported that a research project about responsible lending and borrowing is being discussed and defined with participation from Kathryn and Melinda at the Jubilee USA office. This was discussed with Geoffrey Chongo (JCTR/Zambia) who is excited about working on this paper jointly. Next steps are for Jubilee USA to develop an outline and for JCTR to start collecting examples.
• We purchased a headset and microphone for Phoebe, the Jubilee Zambia staff person in Monze. We received a very nice thank you from Phoebe.
• Regular Skype calls: it was agreed that if would be beneficial for us to have regularly scheduled Skype calls with Geoffrey and Phoebe. We came up with some possible discussion topics for these calls:
  • Personal examples of irresponsible and responsible lending and borrowing
  • Background and status of the Zambian constitutional amendment
  • Background on the Zambian election and positions of candidates on economic justice issues
  • China: is China and their economic influence on Zambia creating a neo-colonial player?
  • ACTION: Bob will contact Geoffrey and Phoebe about schedule calls

“Keeping our Promises” campaign getting started

• Bob discussed the “Keeping our Promises” campaign and handed out. Summary: The US promised to provide money for debt cancellation but that money has not been allocated. So the US is in “arrears” with money promised but not provided.
• There was agreement that this campaign may be compelling to members but that we needed the key messages to be developed a bit more so that the issue is clear and easy to explain. We also didn’t know what the Action or Ask would be if we were not from a state with Members of Congress on the relevant finance committees.

Jubilee Website: team formed

• A new website development team will be forming. Kara and Michael Colvin will be the leaders and Bob will participate as he can. Let Bob know if you are interested in participating.
• First task is to develop a plan to expand the current LOV website into a more complete Jubilee Oregon website. We have to think about content, capability and organization.
• ACTION: Bob will talk with Michael about getting this going.

Book Groups

• Doug and Bob reported on the success of our first Book Group discussing Stan Duncan’s The Greatest Story Oversold: Understanding Economic Globalization. The first meeting was very compelling and interesting. The suggestion is that everyone should read this book to get a good foundation of the global economic justice issues.
• The book group meets on Thursdays, with two more meetings planned: May 12^th at Pat Rumer’s house (7 PM) and May 19^th at Nancy John’s house at 6 PM. Even if did not attend the first two meetings, you can attend the future meetings. Contact Pat Rumer at activista@yahoo.com
• The book’s author, Stan Duncan, will be available for a conference call at the group’s last session, May 19^th. We are very fortunate to have Pat Rumer involved with all her connections.
• Ann Pickar may be forming a new book group at First Unitarian to read and discuss The Greatest Story Oversold.
• We have other books on our list for book groups. Forming a book group is easy and you may not have to drive anywhere if you do.  The two books at the top of our list are Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa  (Mar 2, 2010) and When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without Hurting the Poor. . .and Ourselves (2010)

Fund Raiser In the Fall

• Susi Paul and Michael Colvin will form a research committee.
• ACTION: Bob will set up a meeting to get this going.

NEXT Meeting: June 1, 7 PM at Westminster Presbyterian Church

Bob will bring snacks

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Bob Brown
Telephone: (503) 244-3304 (H); (503) 267-9346 (C)
Email: rebrown47@gmail.com