Monday, December 13, 2004

Download as .PDf >>
Download as .DOC >>

Meeting Minutes
Monday, 13 December 2004
7:30 pm

Facilitator: Tony Lee, Coordinator
Notes: Nicholas DiBlasio, Assistant
Present: Amy (GW Promo), Brant (T Issues), Dyresha, Byron, Siedeh, Mike C. (Website), Mike G. (Secretary), Randy, Several others showed up later

Introduction
The group briefly met each other and told a little about his/her self. Tony briefly talked about what Amnesty International and OUTfront are. Several people have not done things with Amnesty so it was important to talk about the way Amnesty traditionally is.

JFLAG tour
Tony described what the JFLAG tour was, and mentioned that the tour will be stopping in DC and possibly Philadelphia in the Mid-Atlantic (MA) Region.

Possible venues for JFLAG and other DC OUTfront events were discussed:

· GWU (Amy can get a room, $150 for sound system, no outside food)

· HRC HQ (Large equality center that can comfortably hold a group from 20-200)

· Churches/Hotels

· Venues in the Capital Hill area, possibly including the Regional Office

We briefly discussed how many people we should set as a goal for our first event (100), and spoke about the objective of the event which is to educate people of the grave abuses in Jamaica and to attract new OUTfront members. Some ideas about promotion were bounced back in forth including reaching the church community and other possibly alienated groups as well as having other groups co-sponsor the event.

Tony will be on a conference call Friday (probably moved to Thursday now) that will explain more and set some more definite. Until then the group can’t really move forward. Questions that were raised included:

· Will there be a National Action for the tour?

· What format do the Speakers prefer if any?

DC OUTfront
We discussed what we wanted to do as a group. The common consensus was that we wanted to be action oriented, doing vigils, protests, and educational events as much as possible. A specific example is the idea of a monthly “Movie/Speaker and write-in” where we would show a film and/or have a speaker(s) and have an action ready also. It was suggested to have the monthly meeting at HRC because of the high status of the group and the excellent facilities. We also decided that, at least as a group, we should celebrate good things as well as opposing things that need changed.

Who is doing what?
Assistant: Nick

Secretary: Mike G.

OUTreach: Amy (GWU), Siedeh (AU), Francesca (MD Inner Suburbs), Tony and Nick (Dupont/Downtown) – We need as many people as possible to take an area and do some OUTreach when need.

Transgender: Brant will keep up on transgender issues and educate the group

Events: a solid core group is interested in working on the logistics of future events

Website Development/Maintenance: Mike and Tony are working on getting a website started and Andre’ has volunteered to help as well