February Update

The quiz

• we discussed the Quiz that Jen and Keith are kindly organising for 20th April.  We agreed that Woking group would lead the organisation and invite all the neighbouring groups to support us in coming along with their friends/family, promoting and publicising the event in their comms.  
• Please see the separate post for further details and the booking link

Finances

• Lynda gave an update on finances, indicating that £500 had been transferred to AI as agreed.  Plus we had sufficient funds in our account to manage any operational costs/postage, etc that we need it for.  We may decide that we'd like to transfer more at some point, but for now we have a decent amount in our account.

Street Collection Day

• We plan to do a street collection on 21 September.

Write for Rights Stall

• December is fully booked,, so we need to agree on a different date.  I'm thinking the last weekend in November - Saturday 30th?  What does the group think?  Let me know so I can book the stall.

Gaza/Israel Campaign

• Jen has kindly written a great personal letter to David Cameron principally about UK's decision to withdraw from supporting UNWRA aid into Gaza.  I attach the letter for you to also use to send to your MP if you wish.

• We listened to Keith's PSC contact, Patrick Lonergan's reflection on the situation.  The graveness of the situation is that in the week following the ICJ decision on Israel, and the revealing of the alleged UNWRA Hamas employees (which they have removed), tragically there have been 824 deaths, 1490 injured, 3 people executed, 19,000 children orphaned. The situation is dire.

• In terms of what we can do as individuals is attend marches but also we can boycott Israel produce in Supermarkets and lobby our MP.

• A few of us signed up to be on the West Surrey PSC mailing list.

• I also brought an Amnesty Letter for us to sign ( using the format from the Global Amnesty Website) to  Military Advocate General Brig. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi - in regard to two reporters missing in Gaza and who Amnesty fear may be detained, possibly tortured.  We demand their immediate release. I attach a copy of this letter for you to sign as well.

Thanks to Keith, Ruth, Lynda for attending in person, plus Sabine and Peter who joined us online.

Hoping you have a good month ahead, we shall meet up on Monday, 4 March, either online or at Trinity where the topic will be Iran.  Monica will be organising an Amnesty speaker, plus Keith knows someone who could provide a personal update.

Best wishes

Steph, Keith and Monica (Co-Chairs Amnesty).