By Chairs Teresa Castillo (Fresno branch) and Barbara I. Nielsen (San Francisco branch)
Program Committee Chairs

We are seeking a representative from as many branches and groups as possible to join our Program Committee monthly call series. The national Program Committee’s 2018 meeting series is on the first Sunday of each monthat 5 pm pacific / 6 pm mountain / 7 pm central / 8 pm eastern.

In these calls, you will learn firsthand about what our issues committees are doing and how that relates to what branches are doing. We welcome your questions and information on your local activities and actions.

We are hoping to increase our information sharing and coordination with all branches, particularly those with issues committees that parallel our national issues committees. We are also seeking ways to expand our issues committees’ interactions with branches and groups around the national Solidarity Events that are being promoted via the One WILPF calls team.

Many of our issues committees have begun to make connections around the WILPF Poor People’s Campaign days of action that many branches will be engaged in. We would like to facilitate sharing of resources that could be helpful throughout the section. Some examples: Actions in DC on April 4-5, nationwide UNAC Spring Days of Action—No US Military Bases on Foreign Soil and other Anti-War Actions on April 14 – 15, Tax Day (Move the Money), Earth Day, ANA’s DC Days in May, Poor People’s Campaign 40 Days of nonviolent civil disobedience; the Solidarity Events relative to the August Hiroshima and Nagasaki commemorative ceremonies and actions.

We are also seeking information from each branch on the contact person for your Facebook pages. So far, we know of these branches: Boston, Cape Cod, Pittsburgh, Greater Philadelphia, Essex County (NJ), NY Metro, Houston, Rockport Monthly Meeting, St. Louis, Madison, Des Moines, Portland, Sacramento, San Jose, Peninsula/Palo Alto, Santa Cruz, Monterey County, Fresno, East Bay-San Francisco. What branches are we missing? Please let us know!

Our goal is to have all branches represented on our monthly committee meeting calls so we can exchange information and overcome the “silo” phenomenon of working parallel but not in conjunction with each other. Then we can work on outreach to our at-large members to support your activism in your communities. This plan moves us forward in both WILPF membership capacity-building and in promoting effective activism in our communities.

For further info contact the chairs: Teresa Castillo (taca_03@ymail.com); Barbara Nielsen (bln.sf.ca@gmail.com)