In brief, lots of plans for recruitment and campaigning throughout freshers week that cannot be achieved without lots of bodies. Therefore the main message of the meeting was any time you can spare and anyone you can willingly drag along will be greatly appreciated, friends, flat mates, partners, people off the street? If they’re willing we want them!

An overview of what’s going on with times and places:

Freshers stall, East Quadrangle, Tuesday 15th and Wednesday 16th Sept, 10am – 4pm. Anyone around to help set up meet at 9am in the East Quadrangle on Tuesday morning.

Campaigning around Freshers week, The Arms Trade Treaty photo campaign which is getting as many people as possible to have a photo taken holding a sign saying they support the ATT, uploading these photos onto a seperate page on the website and seding the link out to all the top dogs, government,
Stamp out Torture Campaign, Coloured feet with harrowing facts to be scattered around the university, stamping out torture as people walk along them.
Justice for Individuals, Banner to be hung where the John Smith bookshop used to be in the SRC building.

More ideas:
Torture of jellybabies, asking people to torture a jelly baby symbolising the horrors. Is this PC though?
Freshers pack on it’s way with extra arms trade treaty information so a big push to be made on that.

Clothing stall, Ruth managed to gather two rails and there are plenty of clothes left from the fashion show so if man power is plentiful having a stall outside the QM on Tuesday, Wednesday and also Thursday to try and get some money raised right away!

Film screening, Thursday 17th Sept. Pending affiliation with the SRC then a showing of Persepolis (a film about womens rights in Iran) to be shown in the Williams room, attract any interested folk and get us all motivated for a year of campaigning.
Cultural carnival stall, Wednesday 16th Sept, 6pm – 9.30pm. A freshers event involving food from around the globe which we are being encooperated into by holding an Amnestea and cakes. As well as people to man the stall we need people to get baking, any ingredients bought can be reimbursed, also a possibility of a cake making party. Ideas needed for the tea, if anyone has any ideas how we can provide hot water? Or using ice tea was suggested? Thoughts please..!

Freshers Social, Tuesday 22nd September, 8pm, The Halt bar. A gathering of sorts at our trusty Halt bar to welcome new members to the social side of our society. The night is to be held in conjunction with STAR. Our fantastic publicity officer has already designed some amazing posters so it’s just a case of finalising details and asking STAR what they would like for the posters.

Our first meeting also to be held on the 22nd of September, pending a meeting the QM board are having on the 21st to decide room bookings etc. (Pretty sure we should be ok though!)

Protect the human week, 17th – 25th of October. Lewis has organised a gig night in the Captains Rest in conjuction with the band society. It is a function hire we were owed due to a mix up last year. We are also thinking of having the overnight munro challenge either weekend of that week to encooperate it with PTH week. Further information on that soon.

First fundraiser of the year, The Big Fun Run on Sunday 4th of October. A 5K sponsored run that I hope you all want to get involved in! We’ll be getting dressed up and running for the Demand Dignity campaign, anyone who doesn’t want to run then moral support is always appreciated!

Secret Policemans Ball, 5th December. Billy Kirkwood has voiced that he would be happy to compare again. He has a gig at the stand that night but is happy to cancel. Interest also from Susan Coleman to compare. Wasasa comedy group to be involved and perhaps the med student who has been nominated for a big award to sing if we can wangle it!

A new idea for this year is to try and get some media attention for every event we have so Lea is going to learn how to write press releases and get the ball rolling on that one!

ALGERIA

Rabah Kadri (m), Algerian national

(This was a recent action that took place, so I thought I would post it on the Blog for everyone to see that these actions are a very important source of activism. Keep up the good work guys!)

Rabah Kadri was released without charge on 27 April, at about 1pm.
He had been held incommunicado for 12 days. He was able to go to
his parents, who live in Algiers, and is staying with them. He is
no longer at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.

He was detained by plainclothes security officers on 16 April,
when he arrived in Algiers after being deported from France.. He
did not know where he was held; he is believed to have been in the
custody of the intelligence agency Department for Information and
Security (Departement du renseignement et de la securite, DRS) in
one of the unofficial detention centres they operate in Algiers.

Rabah Kadri told Amnesty International that he was treated
humanely. He was interrogated about the activities which had led
to his conviction and prison sentence in France. He also said that
he was asked to sign a statement saying that he had been treated
well before he was released. People who have just been released by
the DRS are very cautious when speaking about how they have been
treated, in case any criticism of the authorities leads to
repercussions.

Fantastic news that he is free, and that Amnesty can investigate his treatment whilst being detained.

President: Rachel Laming
Vice-President: Claire Rooney
Secretary: Emma Gay
Treasurer: Jonathan Grant
Publicity Officer: Sinead Sheridan
Website Convenor: Robert Hallam
Fundraising Co-ordinator: Megan Bailey
Social Convenor: Catriona Gribbin
Ordinary Board Members: Jonny Beirne and Callum Taylor.

Contact details can be found as usual on the website at http://www.guamnesty.org.uk/contact.php.

Congratulations to all.

Minutes

- Report of previous AGM and two EGMs given by Emma, and financial report given by Helen.
- Amendments to constitution re: new positions and committee meetings proposed and accepted.
- Elections took place and new committee (detailed above) was elected.
- Ideas for improvement of the society were suggested and discussed as follows:
– plan for Fresher’s week sooner
– try to get members more involved in meetings, planning and leading
– more promotion of weekly meetings
– more use of university publications (guardian, qmunicate etc) for promotion
– blog – change usage, relate more to meetings
– find some more ‘public eye’ speakers
- A committee meeting will be held soon to handover and go through materials.

Pound appeal
– email round
– box in QM etc
– banner?

Raise Off
– ceilidh money?
– need to send off cheque

Int Soc Film Night

Committee meal out

Big social after Easter

AGM
– 22nd April
– amendments
– events and social convenor
– fundraising convenor?
– running
– rotating chair

Collecting boxes
– where are they?
– amnesty website

Film night
– problem with Boyd Orr?
– Rachel to srot out

Speakers
– SVAW plus one other
– SVAW for valentines?

Ethical investments
– Speaker?
– public declaration of interest?

Raise off – Helen to look at Raise off financing stuff.

Website – Robert to change members

New Internationalist – ?promotion

GUU – possibility of affiliation

- MP/MSP action letter
- Sinead will look up MSPs for Glasgow
- Sinead also will look up anti-terrorist legislation
- Dawn will bring camera

Star

- Jonny will go to meeting to contact them.

Radio Show

- Dawn, Jonny and Sinead to go.

Raise off

- Rachel to coordinate project
- Sleepout (sell sandwiches out of bins?)
- QM – hijack Cheesy Pop on 11th Jan for Guantànamo
- Glaswegian celebrity?

Greetings cards

- Saturday afternoon in Qudos?

Dawn is stepping down as president. Sinead will take over until we can hold an EGM in January.

- stall on Wednesday 5th.
- setup – Helen H, Dawn, Sinead
- Sandwich boards for photos
- Dawn to find out what we do with the photos afterwards
- sweets/food?
- Unsubscribe workshop for next week’s meeting.

Ceilidh

- Helen H to contact Star
- Venue – union? bar money? talk to QMU.
- Band – Dawn to email Andrew. Everyone to ask around.

Speakers

- Emma to contact Falun Gong lady – get details from Helen S
- China exhibition, irrepressible.

Publicity

- “breaking news” on gla.ac.uk
- Subcity radio – Dawn to find out.

Other

- discussion about responsible campaigning next week or week after.

- Word AIDS day – GUCU event.

- School group

o Anyone interested in starting it up?

o EMMA to find email and contact them.

- Human Rights Day – what shall we do?

- Comedy night

o Who’s coming?

o EMMA to send out via mailing list

Website

- ROBERT to look at options for improved mailing list and possibly a committee blog

- EMMA to email SRC about server information.

JONNY to email mailing list about new Amnesty report

HELEN to update Google Calendar with World AIDS day, Human Rights Day, etc.

Student conference:

- Tickets to be booked by individuals asap

- How many are going?

DAWN to find diamond trade leaflets

Events:

- RACHEL to speak to QMU about open mic night at end of Nov/early Dec. Possibility of having an actual band at the end?

- Comedy night – numbers

- Reclaim the Night march

- Speakers – Burma? Email and ask.

- Social or events convenor? – does this involve a change to the constitution?

Meeting:

- EMMA to talk about ethical investment

- Campaigns in a hat – conflict diamond trade, control arms, child soldiers

- Discussion in groups and an idea for an awareness event

- Discuss possible unsubscribe stall outside QMU.

Guardian article

- DAWN to find stats about petitions etc

- EMMA to email Guardian.