Palestine Regional Conference

by Bob Kosuth
Regional Coordinator, MN Break the Bonds Campaign

This is to inform you that some folks from the Twin Cities group of MN Break the Bonds Coalition are available to come up to Duluth on Sunday afternoon, August 23rd 1-3 p.m. (location to be decided) in order to plan for a fall regional conference on Palestine issues and the goals of MN BBC. The fall conference would probably take place sometime in October or early November. Ours would be the first of a series of regional meetings to take place around the state.

Besides planning for the fall conference, the 8/23 meeting will be an opportunity for local people to meet some of the folks in the Cities responsible for getting the state organization off the ground and discuss any questions you might have about the goals and methods of the Campaign.

I plan to get information about this meeting to the wider NAWC (Northland Anti-War Coalition) group as well, but for purposes of planning for fall it's especially important to have in attendance those most interested in and committed to the issue. Thus, I am writing to you first. (Advance apologies for any later duplications!)

The following is a tentative agenda for the organizational meeting:

1. agenda/content for regional meeting--What is most important to cover in the time we have?
2. venue--What would a good location be? Will we need space for concurrent workshops? What would be a good "neutral" location?
3. target audience--who should we most try to reach?
4. date--What time/date would be most convenient?
5. how to publicize the event--how wide a net should we try to cast?
6. how much time should be allocated--e.g. a Saturday/a Friday night-Saturday a.m., a Sunday p.m., etc.
7. a list of tentative presenters--local, state, etc.--we certainly have some good local resources that we should capitalize on
8. refreshments/fundraising as needed
9. a plan for implementing the above--subcommittees

(Obviously, some of these items are less important and could be taken care of later, but given their experience with the issue the folks from the Cities might have some ideas about how to approach them.)

Please let me know of any other ideas or suggestions you might have.

Please let me know if you expect to be able to attend. I'll be sending a follow up message along with information about a location. If you have a suggestion for a location, please let me know. Finally, please note that this is an organizational meeting, not an informational meeting. Our purpose is to plan for a conference that will educate and stimulate the general public, but we will not be focusing on details of the issue itself at this planning meeting.

Thank you and I hope to hear from you at your earliest convenience.