The Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica

Peace & Civil Liberties Committee

On October 1, 2002, 18 people met to form a new Peace Task Force. Discussion centered on the impending war in Iraq and its implications, but the group's focus has since widened to include many peace-related and civil liberties issues. In November, 2002, we drafted a Statement of Conscience that was ratified by the church congreation. Currently, we sponsor frequent guest lectures and small group discussions, and we coordinated a large peace rally at the Los Angeles federal building in West L.A. We also have a very active e-mail discussion list. The Peace and Civil Liberties Committee meets on the first Wednesday of each month in Forbes Hall, from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. Committee membership is open to any church member or friend of the church interested in working for peace; our events are open to all church members and friends. Arvid Knudsen is the interim chair for the committee through December, 2006. Diana Spears will be the interim chair for January and February, 2007.

Meeting Minutes - September 6, 2006

Present: Charles & Christine Haskell (co-chairs), Marguerite & Diana Spears, Cathie Gentile, Tom Hamilton, Arvid Knudsen and Rima Snyder

1. Charles & Christine Haskell will not be serving as co-chairs after this meeting. It was decided that we should rotate being chair of the committee. Arvid Knudsen agreed to be chair for October-December and Diana Spears will become the chair in January. The details of the rotation schedule will be resolved at a future meeting.

2. We agreed to invite a Shia muslim to speak under the auspices of the Faith in Action Speaker Series. Arvid Knudsen agreed to invite a speaker, once we have identified some possible dates.

3. Rima Snyder proposed that we provide a screening of a DVD movie entitled "Peacekeepers." It involves the role of the UN and peacekeeping in Africa from a group known as the Stanley Foundation (for info see their web site at stanleyfoundation.org). We agreed to do this at the next meeting of the committee, which will be Wednesday, October 4, 6:30-8:00 p.m. in Forbes Hall. Arvid will prepare a poster for t he event using material supplied by the Stanley Foundation. Diana will arrange for Newsletter and Order of Service publicity. Marguerite and Cathie will bring cookies. Charles will deal with the AV production issues. Committee members will arrive at or before 6 PM to make sure everything is ready for the program to start promptly at 6:30.

4. We agreed to co-sponsor (with the Sustainability Committee) a showing of An Inconvenient Truth in Forbes Hall at the time of our November meeting, namely November 1. Details will be negotiated with the Sustainability Committee leadership (Leslie Reuter and Sandra Trutt).

5. We tentatively plan to discuss the new UUA Study/Action Issue entitled "Peacemaking" at the December meeting.

6. We agreed to recommend to the FIA Commission that the Peace & Civil Liberties committee be confirmed as an ongoing commitment of our FIA program for the coming year. If the FIAC agrees, this renewal will be placed before the congregation at the Annual Issues Election on September 24.

Minutes prepared by Charles Haskell