Minutes of North-East Irish Social Forum

Below are the minutes of the North East Irish Social Forum held in Belfast on Sept 8th 2003

Minutes of North-East Irish Social Forum
8 September 2003, One World Centre

Present:
Emily Kawano – IPE (note-taker), Desmond Donnelly – retired, Dan Buckley – GR, Gerry Ruddy – IRSP, Peter Emerson – Green Party, Gordon Hewitt - SWP, Alistair - Tools, Hlaleleni Karanda – Zimbabwe Solidarity Campaign, Memory Mbondiah – Zimbabwe Solidarity Campaign

MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING
Approved

ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Reminders about George Monbiot and the Belfast Anti-War Movement meetings as have been circulated on email.
- The Green Party is putting on “Poets for the Planet” October 28, 7:30-8:30 at the John Hewitt.

FINANCE
We have a little over £100. Gerry has the application pack for the Co-operative Bank and will move this forward with Aine and Ann.

BELFAST ISF MEETING
1. Decision making: Decided to put off the discussion of decision making/facilitation for the afternoon discussion until our next meeting. Hopefully will have more info about what the agenda looks like and who is available to facilitate.

2. Workshops: Stephen will chat with Eoin about possibly coming up with some guidelines for workshop facilitators. Eg. What do we hope to come out of the workshops? Should there be common questions that each workshop should address? At the very least we should make sure that there are note-takers (aside from the facilitators) in each workshop.

3. Poster: Dessie and Douglas produced a draft of a poster for the event. We decided that it would help to have some graphics and that the basic design that was used for the first public NE ISF meeting would do.
Alistair will take the draft poster and put it into the original design. He can run off around 20 copies which will be available for people to take at the next NE ISF meeting. We will also circulate the poster via email so that people can pass it on through their networks and people/organisations can print and post themselves.

4. DJ: We have a DJ by the name of Ruth – she’s willing to DJ for free but will need a full PA. Dan will call Crescent Arts Ctr. about whether theirs is fixed yet. Otherwise, we’ll have to hire one. Ruth will DJ for around an hour and a half – people are welcome to bring CDs to play after that. Also Hlaleleni said that she would ask an African drumming group to play which would be wonderful.

5. Communication: there have been some communication glitches with the Dublin folk about the ISF meeting being held in Belfast. Emily will follow up and make sure that things are clarified. Will also highlight the fact that there are workshop slots reserved for them or other regional ISFs.

6. Suggestions for topics for the afternoon discussion: a) improving communication b) how does the ISF relate to the WSF and ESF

7. Banner: Dan brought three designs for a banner. We decided on the one with the slogan “Another World is Possible” as it was the most general and could be used with future events. Dan will let us know when the banner painting will happen – several people were keen to help – more would no doubt be welcome.

8. Hospitality: Emily will send out query to NE ISF folk about whether they can provide lodging for visitors.

9. Creche: Emily will confirm with the manager that it’s ok to have a crèche. It looks like it’ll cost around £112 for two crèche workers. We decided to build this into the cover charge, so that we can offer the crèche for free.

10. Food Not Bombs lunchtime event: We decided to stick to cold food – potluck style. We had volunteers for bringing sandwiches and stuff, but will need more. Alistair can bring a big hot water burka-thing. More details to follow.

11. Cover charge: settled on a £3 cover charge, but will also pass the hat at the end.

12. Introductory info. packet: Alistair volunteered to take a crack at the overview (what is the ISF, WSF, ESF…). Emily will coordinate getting the pieces together (some of you can expect to get nagged from me.)

EUROPEAN SOCIAL FORUM
Travel: There should be a flyer out from the Dublin folk re. travel to the ESF within the next couple of days. They’ve registered as an organisation and will have a place with accommodation for folk from Ireland. Flights to Paris are pretty cheap right now and this looks to be the best option in terms of cost and convenience – albeit the environmentally sound option would be the bus or train. There is a train being organised out of London, which would no doubt be great craic, but it’s around £80 plus whatever it would cost to get. there. Rumor has it that flights can be had for less than that.
Seminar: Dan raised the question of proposing and then organising a seminar. Possibly something like “Activism in Divided Societies” which would include perhaps speakers from NI, Palestine, Basque…and the like. Dan will check on the deadline for registering seminars and we’ll discuss at next meeting.

FUNDRAISING
We revisited the idea of doing some fundraising at the Belfast event to subsidise travel to the ESF. Ideas included t-shirts (Dan will try to do a sample with the banner logo on it), putting together a music CD of local artists, and simply passing the bucket for donation. Given the short lead time we decided to go with the last option and work on the others as longer term projects.

Next Meeting: Tuesday, Sept. 16, 7:00-9:00 – NOTE VENUE CHANGE!! to the ICTU, 3 Crescent Gardens.