Thanks again to everyone for their contributions to our meeting in January in Phoenix. At that meeting, we set March 4th in Tucson as a time to reconvene. Our agenda has only two items.
-- a plan of action on death penalty work in Arizona, and
-- coordination among student groups for action on the women's convention and on child soldiers.
I first want to check that everyone is still interested in having this meeting. If so, I will suggest that we have
10:00 - Death Penalty Work
1:00 - CEDAW and Child Soldiers
I think that 2 hours devoted to each topic should suffice, especially if we do some strategy work ahead of time.
We discussed an action plan that has education using Martinez-Villalreal as a basis to do our work. If that is an attractive idea, I can contact his lawyer and talk with him before we meet or invite him to our meeting on March 4th.
The UofA student group is working on materials for CEDAW and we are in the early stages of making curriculum on Child Soldiers.
A lot has happened since we last met - the Illinois moritorium and the corresponding Arizona Republic editorial, an execution and a scheduled execution in Arizona, the slated executions in Texas and the appearance of Betty Lou Beets on Good Morning America, Barbara Boxer's push on the women's convention and front page news articles on child soldiers, especially in Indonesia.
Holly Roach, the northern Arizona student area coordinator is receiving training from AISUA on legislative work and we can make use of her skills when the time comes.
Best regards,
Joe Watkins