This Week’s News (27/11/11)

November 27, 2011 in news by guamnesty

Hello Amnestiers!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend! It’s exam and essay time for all of us, but there’s no better way to spend an hour’s break from the library than at Amnesty!

This week’s meeting

This week we’re in Qudos at 5pm on Tuesday. We’ll be continuing the greetings card campaign- there will be Christmassy snacks and music!
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=10673.

We’re also making a “Love is a Human Right” banner to coincide with the campaigners who are planning action on marriage discrimination (see below), as well as starting to plan next year’s events before we all disappear for the Christmas hols.

Coming up

– Reclaim the Night, TOMORROW: November is upon us again and once again this year, Rape Crisis is marking the 16 Days of Action for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. We have a group of people joining the Reclaim the Night march tomorrow (complete with Amnesty banner we made last week). We’re meeting outside the QMU at 6pm; please join us!

– Protect the Human club night at Stereo, Thurs December 1st: This Thursday! Look out for the fab posters, and bring yourself and friends along for a boogie. Check out the Facebook page for more info: http://www.facebook.com/events/188669591217860/.

– Same sex marriage consultation in Scotland: Action before the 9th Dec: The Scottish Government is currently seeking views on the introduction of religious ceremonies for civil partnerships, and the possible introduction of same sex marriage. Amnesty strongly supports the Scottish Government’s proposal which seeks to create a balanced relationship between same sex and mixed sex couples when it comes to civil partnerships and marriage. Our group is organising an awareness-raising event on campus. We’ll discuss it some more on Tuesday, but as ever the more people and the more ideas the merrier! Follow this link for more information about the consultation: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=325

– Christmas caroling: The Amnesty choir is practising this Wednesday! More info to follow- but if you can’t make it, come along to sing anyway- whether you can sing or not! We’re planning on caroling at 12pm on Sunday 11th and Monday 12th December, from 12pm for an hour or so, starting on Byres Rd then moving to town; hopefully raising lots of money.

-Write for Rights Day, Sat December 10th: The anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is Amnesty’s biggest letter writing date. Check out this link for more info http://www.amnesty.ca/writeathon/. We’re still to confirm whether we’ll arrange anything for this with Glasgow’s Daytime Amnesty group.

– Pub quiz with Mary’s Meals, Sun 15th January, Jim’s Bar, QMU, 7pm: A lovely way to spend a Sunday evening; a quiz with prizes worth competing for! This is a joint event with GU’s Mary’s Meals group: if you want to learn more about the charity, here’s the link to its website: http://www.marysmeals.org.uk/
We’ll need a group of volunteers to help arrange this closer to the time; let me know if you’re particularly interested in helping out.

– The Secret Policeman’s Ball is confirmed for Saturday 4th February in Qudos- very exciting! Billy Kirkwood is confirmed as our compere. The posters are almost designed so we’ll start on a massive PR drive soon. There’s masses to organise so we need everyone to get involved. This annual night of comedy has been more and more successful over the last couple of years, raising thousands of pounds for Amnesty, and we want to make this one the biggest yet!

– If you have any fundraising/campaigning ideas, please share them!

If you’ve not been to meetings so far, please come along- newcomers are always welcome. Our next meeting is on Tuesday, 5pm in Qudos in the QMU.

See you on Tuesday at the meeting!

Catherine

Website: http://www.guamnesty.org.uk/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/guamnesty
Please join our Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/guamnesty/

This Week’s News (14/11/2011)

November 14, 2011 in news by Catherine

Hello Amnesty people!

I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend! This is a roundup of the coming meeting and events, but please scroll down further to check out what our brilliant sister society, STAR (Student Action For Refugees) have coming up, too.

This week’s meeting

We’re in Committee Room 1 in the QMU, Tuesday at 5pm.

This week’s meeting is an exciting one as we have a guest speaker, Alieu Ceesay, coming to speak to us about the human rights situation in Gambia. He’s our first speaker of the year so be sure to come along! Along with Alieu there’ll be some members of the Glasgow-based Gambia group who will be more than happy to answer any questions we may have. After the talk we’ll do some actions, as well as continuing to make plans for the carol singing and PRing for the club night at Stereo.

Coming up

– Protect the Human club night at Stereo, Thurs December 1st: This is creeping up on us! The flyers have been printed so we’ll get together a PR team to distribute them everywhere! As well as PRing we need people to come and have a drink and a dance all in aid of Amnesty.

– Christmas caroling: We have a good amount of names down for this, as well as singers from the Choral Society (thank goodness). So Elena and Jessie will make some announcements on Tuesday about what happens next!

-Write for Rights Day, Sat December 10th: The anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is Amnesty’s biggest letter writing date. Check out this link for more info http://www.amnesty.ca/writeathon/. A couple of us are going to the Glasgow Daytime Amnesty Group to brainstorm some ideas for a bigger event we could hold on this date. Throw any ideas this way!

– The Secret Policeman’s Ball is confirmed for Saturday 4th February in Qudos- very exciting! Billy Kirkwood is confirmed as our compere and in the next month we’ll get going on a big publicity drive- there’s lot’s to do! Our posters are being prepared right now. This annual night of comedy has been more and more successful over the last couple of years, raising thousands of pounds for Amnesty, and we want to make this one the biggest yet!

– If you have any fundraising/campaigning ideas, please share them!

If you’ve not been to meetings so far, please come along- newcomers are always welcome. Our next meeting is on Tuesday, 5pm in Qudos in the QMU.

See you on Tuesday at the meeting!

Catherine

Website: http://www.guamnesty.org.uk/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/guamnesty
Please join our Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/guamnesty/

A wee bit of information from STAR (Student Action for Refugees) Glasgow

Recent changes in legislation have meant that the UK Border Agency is now able to forcibly remove families from their homes in order to deport them. This led to the dawn raiding of two families last week and then the detaining of a mother and her 5 year old son who. Dawn raiding was stopped a few years ago and the coalition promised when they took power to stop child detention, shortly before opening a ‘family removals centre’ however both of these things appear to be with us again. These actions breach human rights and are likely to be more frequent unless something is changed so a mass protest is being held next Monday (the 21st of November) at the Glasgow Home Office on Brand Street, 2 minutes from Cessnock Underground to call for them to be stopped.

Also coming up: A ceilidh this Thursday at 8pm in Qudos to raise money for John Oguchukwu, a student of our university who was deported and a Sleep Out this Friday to raise awareness for destitute asylum seekers in Glasgow.

More information on all of these events at www.starglasgow.wordpress.com

More News!

November 8, 2011 in news by Catherine

Hello Amnestiers!

Stop Stoning

Firstly, a biiiig well done to all the campaigners who stood on library hill last Wednesday for our End Stoning campaign. We were there for just over two hours and collected an amazing 458 names! Thanks to everyone for your time and enthusiasm!


(End Stoning: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=12139)

This week’s meeting

We’re in Qudos in the QMU on Tuesday at 5pm and we’ll be focusing on human rights in Burma, as well as planning publicity for upcoming fundraising events (see below!).

Coming up

– Protect the Human club night at Stereo, Thurs December 1st: In the coming weeks we need to people to PR for this, but the most important thing to is to come and have a drink and a dance with all proceeds going towards Amnesty!

– Christmas caroling: This week we’ll start organising this properly and get an Amnesty choir together in preparation for caroling in December. Join in whether you can sing or not!

– The Secret Policeman’s Ball is confirmed for Saturday 4th February in Qudos- very exciting! Billy Kirkwood is confirmed as our compere and in the next month we’ll get going on a big publicity drive- there’s lot’s to do! Our posters are being prepared right now. This annual night of comedy has been more and more successful over the last couple of years, raising thousands of pounds for Amnesty, and we want to make this one the biggest yet!

– If you have any fundraising/campaigning ideas, please share them!

If you’ve not been to meetings so far, please come along- newcomers are always welcome. Our next meeting is on Tuesday, 5pm in Qudos in the QMU.

See you on Tuesday at the meeting!

Catherine

Website: http://www.guamnesty.org.uk/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/guamnesty
Please join our Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/guamnesty/