Meeting Minutes 10/20/99

Sister Parish Committee meetings are held the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 7 pm. in the school. Newcomers are always welcome. If you have questions, please contact any of the members of the committee.

What follows are the minutes of the Wednesday, Oct. 20, 1999 meeting.

Raul Melina will speak on Nov. 12th. Melina, a candidate for Mayor of Guatemala City and long time peace activist, will speak at Metro State University at 7:30 pm on the topic of the recent elections and progress of the peace accords. We are co-sponsoring the event. Bob and the Guatemalan Solidarity Committee will do the publicity.

Someone in the choir suggested we contact TNII to see if they would be interested in making choir stoles for our choir. Some members of the TNII community were interested. That would be another way to connect our 2 communities. The choir would pay for them. It is hoped St. Joan would advance some money for supplies.

Candle/Card sales are set for Nov. 21st. Alex purchased 180 feet of gold stretch cord. Mary Beth is going to look for the decorations. She will report on their location at the next meeting so all supplies are set for assembly on Nov. 17th. Joel is continuing on the card production. There are 2 designs featuring huipils. He is ordering 3000 blue and 4000 multicolored. Total cost so far is $250 with another $1200 for upcoming for the actual printing. Cards will sell 5 cards per pack for $5.

Joel presented the status of the budget for 1999-2000. Call Joel if interested in the details. Recent expenses include $75 for pizza at the Walter/Jackie meeting, $130 for the Guatemalan T-shirts offered as door prizes at Cabaret, and $114 expenses for Mindy's recent trip to Guatemala. (Mindy, you are a cheap date!)

Translation is still needed. Mindy's recent visit taught us that we need to translate everything. Carol and Sarah have volunteered to translate our minutes into Spanish to send to TNII. Carol and Sarah, would you please contact each other/Louise to set up a schedule as to how you would like to share the load. We would like to get this going with this set of minutes. Volunteers are still needed to translate their minutes into English. Contact Louise if you are interested.

Marge indicated that the tentative dates for our next delegations to SJA could be problematic for our youth. Thanksgiving is a tough time for youth at SJA as many are out of town. TNII has still not responded as to their opinion on a suggested Thanksgiving 2000 delegation, so we will table any decisions until we hear from them.

Dennis Mudderman, the new SP Inc. Director, is going to attend our Nov. 3rd meeting as he passes through the Twin Cities. He plans to thank our committee for its leadership and support.

Anyone wishing to send cards and letters to TNII can send them to Mindy at: 5564 Snelling Ave North, Shoreview, MN 55126 before Nov. 3. Mindy will be hosting Walter and Jackie and the girls for one nite before they return to Guatemala from their vacation in Scotland.

Bob continues to correspond with Laureano Dela Cruz. Bob would like to offer contributions to the AA group in TNII via his AA group. The TNII group has been in existence for about 3 months. Bob would also like to sponsor Laureano and his wife to attend the International AA Convention being held in Mpls next year. Bob would seek contributions from his AA group. Mindy cautioned against showing preference to one individual and suggested instead that a scholarship could be offered to the AA group itself.

Mindy reported that TNII is not interested in hiring a private security force. There is a police station in TNI that makes regular rounds and they are concerned about the message them hiring their own force would make. The community is starting to take responsibility by opening their doors and paying attention.

Sister Parish T-shirts are being held by Louise and sell for $10 apiece. Contact her if you are interested.

Bob reported that the recent vigil at the Holiday Inn Express was successful as there was a lot of publicity. The detainees were released. Deportation may yet be pending. Bob represented our committee. If you are interested in being called for future demonstrations, contact Bob.