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Meeting on Tuesday 5th November: Women’s Rights and Upcoming Events!

October 31, 2013 in events, information, main, news, newsletter by Ruth

BOO!!

Happy Hallowe’en everyone.

This one’s early because it is indeed the Student Conference this weekend and then the next time we meet it will be November! Talk about scary.

If you missed our meeting this week, Dominyka has written the blog, so check it out. I can now report that we have photos from the GUU, SRC and GUSA to add to our LGBT photo action. You can find them all on our website thanks to our Website Manager Rob who does a lot of hard work with that camera.

Next meeting: Tuesday 5th November, Committee Room 1, QMU

We are moving onto our next campaign – women’s rights with a focus on India. Dom is putting together a presentation that looks at the recent gang rape case in India and the subsequent changes in law with regards to reinstating the death penalty for certain forms of sexual violence. However, it has been largely overlooked that there are certain forms of rape that are still considered legal. This meeting will be a good opportunity to discuss what really ought to have been changed in India in terms of legal protections for women.

The first plenary at the Student Conference is ‘Women in Afghanistan – in the news for the wrong reasons’. Those of us who are attending will hopefully have lots to talk about after listening to the various speakers. This was in fact Amnesty UK’s October campaign for student groups, so we will cover this on Tuesday as well.

We are hoping to end the meeting at 6pm for mobdro free download those of you who have plans for bonfire night. If you don’t have plans and wish you did, you can join those of us who are heading to Glasgow Green after the meeting for the fireworks. Remember warm clothes!

Film Event: Wednesday 6th November, 12-2pm 217A Gillmorehill Centre

Screen Seminars at Glasgow – Women making documentaries in the Arab world

One of our members pointed this very well timed event taking place next Wednesday, right after the beginning of our women’s rights campaign. And it’s on campus, even better.

‘Filmmaking in the Middle East is often a matter of idealism and activism, especially in the case of women documentary makers. In spite of harsh censorship, conservative morals and a lack of investment, women have found ways of subtly negotiating dissidence in their films, something that is coming to light very clearly since the ‘Arab Revolutions’. In this talk I will introduce the aesthetic and ethic practices by the very first women making documentaries in the Middle East.

‘A historical overview of the struggles by women making documentaries will be supported by images and clips taken from documentaries by the pioneering women of Arab documentary making, e.g. Jocelyne Saab (Lebanon), Ateyyat El Abnoudy (Egypt), Selma Baccar (Tunisia) and Assia Djebar (Algeria).’

Tuesday 19th November: Guest Speaker – Scottish Transgender Alliance

I know we had our last meeting on LGBT rights this week but there is actually still more to come, yay! Nathan Gale from the Scottish Transgender Alliance (part of the Equality Network) will be coming to talk to us and we can take part in their postcard campaign. We are delighted that he can make it and after that we will have achieved everything that members suggested we do in terms of events for LGBT rights this semester. So that’s something to celebrate!

Wednesday 20th November: Day of Silence and Jamnesty!

Day of Silence – All day on campus/at home/in your bed/at work/wherever you are in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community

Jamnesty: Halt 2, Woodlands Road, doors open 7.30pm, tickets ÂŁ3/ÂŁ4 on the door

We have begun looking into t-shirts for our Day of Silence and Maisie is emailing Mobdro Online TV the SRC to make sure that a message is sent to every student telling them about our plans. We thought of buying white t-shirts so that we can decorate them with our GU Amnesty stamp and solidarity messages. We’ll let you know next week how much this will be and see if you want to go ahead with ordering the t-shirts. Whatever we decide, we need something visible for those taking the pledge to be silent and those who are supporting – everyone is welcome to take part so encourage friends outwith the society to join in too.

Ali has been busy finding the best deals for printing the LGBT campaign photos for decorating the Halt 2 and also for creating a poster collage. We are hoping to have big posters in the QMU, GUU and SRC to publicise our solidarity action on that day.

Of course we have Jamnesty in the evening, which we are all super excited for! Please remember to get your tickets in advance as we are almost through our first batch of 30. You can get tickets at the meetings, and you can take tickets away for friends that you know are coming. You don’t need to pay for these at the time, I’ll make a note of who is taking away tickets and can collect money the week after.

Spook to you soon,

Ruth

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Meeting on Tuesday 29th October and our Pub Quiz Today (Sunday)!

October 26, 2013 in cfci, events, information, main, meetings, news, newsletter, spb by Ruth


Hi everyone,

Welcome to our new members! It’s lovely to still have people joining the society. If you missed the meeting, you can read Ali’s blog on what happened.

I hope you are all remembering our PUB QUIZ TODAY!! Looking forward to seeing you then! We will be starting at 7.30pm in Jim’s Bar, QMU and those of you who are bringing home-baking, thank you in advance, we will add them to the stall with our tote bags.

Conflict-Free Campus Initiative

If you didn’t make this meeting (2 weeks ago), you can read the blog to see what this is all about. Some people who were there said that they would ask certain lecturers if they would support the campaign – please do this is you haven’t already. I will also remind folk on Tuesday!

Next meeting – Tuesday 29th 5pm, QMU

We have been unsuccessful in finding another meeting room for Tuesday so will still be in Committee Room 1.

Unfortunately the Equality Network and Scottish Transgender Alliance do not have anyone who can come and talk to us on Tuesday, but there is a small chance of getting a speaker towards the end of term leaving us with the opportunity to show a recent documentary featuring Stephen Fry who has travelled to various countries where the gay community face persecution, violence and potentially the death penalty.

As this is officially our final LGBT rights meeting, we were hoping to finish with a quick letter writing action to the International Olympic Committee to send with our photos.

Debbie will be bringing along our previous Secret Policeman’s Ball posters so that we can think about the design for this year, and for those of you who want to enter the competition, this is an opportunity to get started!

November Campaign – Women’s Rights with a focus on India

For those of you who have just joined us, we voted this as our 2nd campaign of the year. At Tuesday’s meeting we will have a discussion about what particular topics to cover in our meetings in November and possible campaign actions we want to do.

Day of Silence

Wednesday 20th November – Day of Silence

‘The National Day of Silence is a day of action in which students across the country vow to take a form of silence to call attention to the silencing effect of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools.’

Although the date for this is in April and focuses on schools in the USA, we thought this was a brilliant solidarity action and even better when we can end our Day of Silence with our Jamnesty gig.  We will invite the LGBTQ+ Society to take part with us and anyone else who wants to join in is welcome to, so spread the word!

Love is a Human Right Jamnesty

Wednesday 20th November, The Halt 2 (Woodlands Road), 7.30pm

Well the banners are looking amazing! Thank you to everyone last week who helped make them J Ali is printing off all of our LGBT campaign photos as well so that we can stick these up all over the venue.

We are going to start selling tickets for this event because the Halt 2 need to know numbers in advance in order to organise staffing for the night. For this reason we decided to make tickets ÂŁ3 in advance and ÂŁ4 on the door- so remember to get yours on Sunday at the Pub Quiz, or at our next meeting.

See you later on!

Ruth

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Tuesday 22nd October: LGBT Rights with Pizza and a Trip to The Arches

October 20, 2013 in information, main, newsletter by Ruth

Hey everyone,

We are back in Committee Room 1 in the QMU on Tuesday at 5pm.

Read the blog of what happened in last week’s meeting on our conflict minerals campaign. If you missed this then you can still take action in writing to David Newall – all of the details are in the presentation which is now on our website.

Attached is a list of events happening at the CCA which are all related to human rights and some of our chosen campaigns. Scroll down to see what’s coming up.

Student Conference

We have filled our places for the London Student Conference in November BUT are on stand-by for an update of spare places that may be passed on to larger groups like ours. If you wanted to come but didn’t book your place, then let us know and there is a chance that you can still come with us! More information on the conference itself can be found here.

Next meeting

We are continuing our LGBT photo campaign on Tuesday as well as starting our banners and posters for our ‘Love is a Human Right’ Jamnesty gig on Wednesday 20th November. Ali and Dom and are going to take the meeting giving a short presentation on the persecution of the LGBT community in Russia as is the focus of our current campaign.

After the meeting, we are heading to see ‘Stef Smith: Cured’ at The Arches 7.30pm. You can buy your ticket in advance from here but there is an additional £1.50 charge, otherwise you can hopefully get one on the door.  During the meeting we will organise some pizzas for those who want or you can head early and get food from somewhere and meet us at The Arches, it is entirely up to you. If you’re sticking with us though, we’ll be leaving at 6.45pm to get the subway into town.

Tuesday 29th – Guest speakers

Our campaigns officer Dom is STILL working very hard to get someone from Equality Network/the Scottish Transgender Alliance/Patrick Harvie MSP (or all of them!) to come and talk to us about LGBT rights and UK based campaigns.  We’ll keep you posted, but fingers crossed.

Pub Quiz THIS SUNDAY

Jana and Duncan have been writing the rounds, and if anyone wants to bring home-baking for the cake stall then that would be lovely. We’ll also have our tote bags that members worked hard to make a couple of weeks ago, so come along on Sunday and bring friends. We are making it £3 entry per person, of which £2 will go to us and £1 will be added to the winning pot.

‘Love is a Human Right’ Jamnesty

We have had a date and venue change for our fundraiser gig and that has been due to capacity issues. We are now having it at The Halt 2 on Woodlands Road on Wednesday 20th November. This venue is a much better size and still has a stage area for performers as well as a separate bar.

See you Tuesday in the QMU!

Ruth

Our promotional partner, the CCA, has put together a list of relevant events happening from now till December:

Download Upcoming-Events-at-the-CCA-Sauchiehall-Street.doc (DOC, 33KB)

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Meeting on Tuesday 15th October- Conflict Minerals, The Student Conference and our Pub Quiz!

October 14, 2013 in information, main, news, newsletter by Ruth

Hello everyone, sorry this is so late.

**IMPORTANT: there has been a double booking for our usual slot in Committee Room 1 so we are moving to the ST ANDREWS BUILDING ROOM 443A at the bottom of Gibson Street, opposite The Old Schoolhouse. There will be someone inside to show you where to go.**

First things first, congratulations bakers and crusaders – what a success on Thursday! We certainly marked International Day Against the Death Penalty, raising ÂŁ121.30 and collecting over 60 signatures for Reggie Clemons: a great start to the year. Thanks again to those of you who stood in the beautiful sunshine/freezing shade to help out.

In summary:

Tomorrow’s meeting – Conflict minerals and the crisis in the DRC

We shall be taking a break from LGBT rights for this week and looking at our conflict minerals campaign. We need to get this back up and running before David Newall (our Secretary of Court) starts thinking that we have disappeared.  I will take you through the Conflict Free Campus Initiative’s mission and give an overview of the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo and how we as consumers are linked to this deadly conflict through the technology that we use every day.

Tuesday 22nd – LGBT rights continued, pizza and ‘Cured’ at The Arches

Presentation on LGBT persecution in Russia. This is when we will take a closer look at the situation in Russia decide how best to use our photos and publicise our ‘Day of Silence’ solidarity action.

I know that some of you didn’t make last week’s meeting and therefore haven’t participated in our LGBT photo campaign, but don’t worry, because we will continue with this the week after. In the meantime, we shall be adding photos of the SRC, GUSA and hopefully the QMU and GUU to the bundle.Also at this meeting we will need to make our visual props for our ‘Love is a Human Right’ Jamnesty in November so we’ll have the paints out again.

This is the day that we were hoping to go and see ‘Stef Smith: Cured’ at The Arches in town. Since it starts at 7.30pm, a brilliant suggestion was put forward for us to grab some Dominos ‘Two for Tuesday’ action during the meeting so that we can head into town together after the meeting. I am currently waiting for a reply about getting a group discount for the play, so will get back to you with that – without discount, tickets are £8.

Tuesday 29th – Guest speakers

Our campaigns officer Dom is working very hard to get someone from Equality Network/the Scottish Transgender Alliance/Patrick Harvie MSP (or all of them!) to come and talk to us about LGBT rights and UK based campaigns.  We’ll keep you posted, but fingers crossed.

Student Conference – book your place!

We will be finalising numbers on Tuesday so that we can book our travel so let us know by then if you are coming!

Dates: 2nd-3rd November 2013

Location: Amnesty International UK HQ – London

Cost: ÂŁ20 + travel

Fun to be had: Are you kidding? 250 students in the same place at the same time, I guarantee it will be one of your most memorable experiences at university.

There have been several people interested in heading down to London for the Student Conference, which is great. We have 8 places to fill so get cracking and book your place here. Also let us know if you are planning to come and we can all arrange our travel together.

These Amnesty weekends are truly inspirational and empowering.

This year’s agenda includes:

  • Syria: ‘I can still see hope’
  • Afghanistan: Violence against women
  • Sri Lanka: Torture and impunity
  • Northern Ireland: Failure to deal with the legacy of past human rights abuses
  • Looking to Amnesty’s future

As well as this, there will be workshops and campaign actions to get involved with, not forgetting a social event on Saturday night. We shall also be collecting our award for our Secret Policeman’s Ball 2013!

[If you are unable to attend the Student Conference in November, remember that Action for Change happens in March. This is a similar weekend in terms of structure and workshops, but will have different speakers and talks and campaign actions. ]

PUB QUIZ – Sunday 27th in Jim’s Bar

We are all set for our pub quiz – all we need is for you to bring friends. We are making it £3 entry per person, of which £2 will go to us and £1 will be added to the winning pot.

Game on.

See you (somewhere) tomorrow,

Ruth

 

 

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Meeting Tuesday 8th October: Let’s Get Down To Business

October 5, 2013 in death penalty, events, information, main, news, newsletter by Ruth

Hope you’re all having a good weekend!

If you missed my update earlier this week, our chosen campaign for October is LGBT rights with a focus on Russia. You can check the website for our full list of campaigns for 2013-2014, as well as all the campaign action ideas put forward last week.

I am trying hard to keep the newsletters brief, but there are just so many exciting things I don’t want to leave out. For those of you who are too busy to read it all, I’ve written a summary just for you.

  • At Tuesday’s meeting we are splitting the committee rooms according to upcoming events
  • The elections are taking place at 6pm with drinks afterwards at the Old Schoolhouse on Woodlands
  • LGBT events (scroll down)

Here’s the plan for Tuesday:

Committee Room 1 – Campaigns

‘End the Death Penalty’ demo preparation

Our first demo will be next Thursday 10th October, which is of course International Day Against the Death Penalty.  We have some banners made in previous years and some AK-47s (of the cardboard variety) that we can put to good use so we need everyone who is free on Thursday to contribute ideas for an effective demonstration on library hill. We will be bringing along paints, sheets and cardboard to continue from past creative efforts.

LGBT Rights in Russia

We will begin our first campaign with a photo action as suggested by someone last week. We will have Robert (our website manager) along with his super expensive camera to take photos of us sending messages of solidarity to LGBT students on our campus and in the wider community.  We can also use this photo action to send a message to the Olympic Committee which has ignored Principle 6 of the Olympic Charter which states:

‘Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement’.

Our third photo action shall be focused on Vladimir Putin’s violent persecution of the LGBT community in Russia which we discussed on Tuesday which, believe it or not, is the same day that it was announced that he has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.  A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE!!! Oh dear.

Committee Room 2 – Fundraisers

This room shall be finalising our list of events for the year and planning our first semester fundraisers:

Bake sale alongside Thursday’s demo

We still have GU Amnesty tote bags that we can have on the stall as well and hopefully more will arrive by Tuesday for us to paint.

Pub quiz in October

We need to finalise our date for this and delegate responsibilities for running the quiz.

‘Love is a Human Right’ gig night in November, for which I am pleased to say that we have already recruited some acoustic talent!

Nikola will be looking for help with poster designs for our pub quiz and gig night.

Elections for Ordinary Board Members

The elections will take place at 6pm. Anyone who wants to stand for OBM but can’t make 6pm, please get in touch either via email or Facebook and we will try to make some arrangements.

Afterwards we shall head to the Old Schoolhouse for some more socialising.

LGBT Events

The Glasgay festival has officially begun and there are a whole lot of events taking place between now and 9th November.

In particular:

Tuesday 22nd October – ‘Cured’ 7.30pm @ The Arches

‘Inspired by real accounts of conversion therapy, two performers, Julie Hale and Mary Gapinski, uncover the stories of four women in a brand new play about love, identity and The Golden Girls.’

I think this event looks really good and happens to take place on a Tuesday after our meeting – if people are keen then we can go as a group. Tickets are £8.

Equality Network and Scottish Transgender Alliance event:

Thursday 17th October – ‘Including Intersectional Identities Film and Discussion Event’ 2pm Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

‘The films focus on Minority Ethnic LGBT and Disabled LGBT intersectional people and include their ideas on how services can better include them. A discussion about including intersectional identities in services will follow the screening.’

This event is free but places are limited. If you don’t have classes on Thursday at 2pm then give this a look.

 

Well done for making it to the bottom,

Ruth

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This Year’s Events, Tibet Meeting and a Reminder About the Elections!

September 28, 2013 in main, news, newsletter by Ruth

Hi everyone,

I hope you all survived the first week!

I am thrilled that so many people have joined Amnesty this year and it was great to meet most of you at our social on Tuesday. For those of you who didn’t make it, don’t worry, there will be another one soon enough.

Next meeting: Tuesday 1st October 5pm QMU

This Tuesday we will be voting for our campaigns and fundraisers for the year. Some of you made some really good suggestions, so we will be discussing all the ideas in more detail at the meeting. Whichever campaign and fundraising event we decide to do first, we will start planning and organising.

See photos of past events on our Facebook page and find more information on our website.

I know there are people who cannot make our meetings at 5pm but there will still be plenty to get involved with outside our usual slot. Psychology students – see note at the end*.

A Sacrifice Poster
Tibet meeting: Wednesday 2nd October

A Sacrifice

Don’t forget we have our joint event with STAR next Wednesday, 6-8pm.

https://www.facebook.com/events/597440403650551/

Theo Hessing is coming to Glasgow to promote his documentary ‘A Sacrifice’, which will be shown in Boyd Orr 412 (Lecture Theatre B). The Students for a Free Tibet society will introduce the meeting and then we will show Theo’s film. The documentary lasts 30 minutes and will be followed by a Q&A and discussion with Theo.

“A Sacrifice” follows the journey of Lhamo Kyab, a Tibetan nomad living in India, as he secretly returns to Tibet to highlight suffering of the Tibetan people. Meanwhile, 100 Tibetans set themselves on fire. “A Sacrifice” considers the implications of the sacrifices being committed by Tibetans in the name of freedom.

More information can be found on the film’s website: http://asacrificefilm.com/

ELECTIONS: Tuesday 8th October

As we mentioned at our first meeting, there will be elections in two week’s time for 2 x Ordinary Board members.

These elections are open to all members of the society, whether you have just joined or not. If you are interested in standing for the position of Ordinary Board member, please come and chat to me or anyone else on the committee on Tuesday and we’ll tell you why you should J.

I should also mention that we will be forming a Secret Policeman’s Ball sub-committee. The Secret Policeman’s Ball is our huge annual comedy fundraiser and will be held in February next year. As it’s such a big event to organise, we have decided to form a sub-committee consisting of both current committee and non-committee members. So, this is something else to bear in mind. Again, come and chat to us if you are interested and want to know more about getting involved with that.

I can’t wait to get cracking with our events! This year is going to be awesome, I can tell.

See you Tuesday,

Ruth

[*Note for 1st year Psychology students:  I had an informal chat with Jason Bohan, who is in charge of Level 1, about those of you who can’t make our meetings on Tuesdays. He said that in the coming weeks, attendance will naturally drop and if you are free at 9am, then you should be fine to attend this lecture instead. Keep me posted though and let me know if any problems arise. I know some of you have other classes at this time, in which case, I hope you can still come to our events outwith our Tuesday meetings.]

 

 

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