We were fortunate to start our meeting with Mehdi and his friend Matthew. The musical poetry was fantastic. A special thank you starting us "on the peace frequency."

Mary Wind facilitated the meeting. She started by reviewing the agenda and meeting objectives. Mary reinforced that we are a service organization for organizations working for teach peace. She further clarified that our organization, teach peace, is focused on more than the current wars that are being fought. The four freedoms are freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. While Teach Peace materials will sometimes focus on one of the four freedoms, it is noteworthy that the American Hiroshima book stresses being a good global citizen by caring for the poor around the world, taking care of the environment to benefit current and future generations, and why we must strengthen America's democracy. Mary cited the example that a person may be concerned about global warming and this is an example of a problem that left unsolved, creates both fear and ultimately catastrophe.

Dave Dionisi asked Mary Anne K. , Karen B. , Steve R. , Dwayne H. , Nadia M. , Victor C. and Jim W. to come forward to recognize them for their fantastic contributions since our last meeting. Mary Anne and Karen helped the poor in Honduras as part of their Teach Peace effort to promote goodwill and peace. Dave showed a picture of Mary Anne teaching children and a picture of Karen working at a dental clinic. Steve announced that he is starting a Teach Peace chapter in Sacramento. He also has arranged for 1320 AM to co-sponsor the Week of Peace. On behalf of the Teach Peace organization, a huge thank you to Steve! Dwayne shared with us his focus efforts to promote the World Service Corps. Nadia reviewed the events that led to her national coverage in June. Nadia also shared with us that she met with Barbara Boxer and has promoted Teach Peace on radio and TV shows both in the US and in Canada. Dave noted that on August 6 Nadia received a peace award. Dave announced that Victor is a new member of the Teach Peace senior staff. Victor is the Student Outreach Coordinator. The Teach Peace leadership has been impressed by Victor's FAST program and constant dedication to make our world a better one. During this portion of the meeting, Dave acknowledged Jim's leadership for the Hiroshima Memorial that was co-sponsored by Teach Peace. This interfaith event in Stockton was top-notch in every respect and Jim thanked John M. for his partnership to make the program a success.

An overview of the new Teach Peace website was given along with the fact that we are reaching people near and far. One statistic that was noted is over 3,000 people have viewed War Is Not A Game. This heart-felt video by Dr. Bill Durston was played during the meeting. If you missed it or want to watch it again, simply access it from the Teach Peace video section.  Dave noted that a new convenient, safe and secure online store has recently been added. You can view it by going to the Gift of Hope tab. All Teach Peace members and readers of this information are encouraged to explore the Teach Peace website to discover the feature rich information that is available.

As part of the project update, the new Teach Peace Brochures and Gift of Hope Catalogues were distributed. The Week of Peace Passport was shown on the computer screen. A recommendation that the Week of Peace events be printable was offered and this is now available at the bottom of http://www.teachpeace.com/weekofpeace.htm. Dave's We Need An Angel of Reason August 6 newspaper article was also distributed.

Dave updated the team on the exciting developments with the movie The Happy Cricket. We are now reactivating the people who signed up to bring The Happy Cricket to local schools. We expect to receive the final version of the DVD soon and the people on The Happy Cricket team will be notified of a time when they can view and discuss the film (click here to see who is on this team and if you want to join the team, please send an e-mail to ddionisi@sbcglobal.net).

To provide additional background on the mechanics of how we function, Mary Wind reviewed our Methodology. Dave encouraged all members to review this web page after the meeting as it a picture worth a thousand words. If you have questions about our Methodology, please contact Mary at windml@gmail.com.

Laura S. asked a very good question about Gift of Hope Catalogue quantities. The online version of the Gift of Hope Catalogue offers the benefit of more flexibility. Therefore, please note that an item like the Better World Stickers can be purchased in any quantity via our online store.

Almerindo O. gave a presentation on the UC Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas. He let us know about a film that his organization is showing on October 9, 2006 at 7 p.m. This will be exactly one week after our Beyond Treason film which is also at the Varsity Theater (7 p.m. on October 2). We will make an all out effort to let people know about Almerindo's work and maximize the attendance at The Road to Guantanamo film. The ticket price is $10 and the address of the Varsity Theater is 616 Second Street. In addition to informing us about the human rights situation at the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities, he invited us to learn more about his work by visiting http://humanrights.ucdavis.edu.

Nadia and Dwayne gave a joint presentation on their efforts to help returning soldiers and ultimately prevent wars with a force of a million international volunteers. Nadia has raised awareness for the fact that returning soldiers need more support than what is currently available. We risk seeing domestic and other forms of violence skyrocket without a safe place or retreat center for returning veterans. People sometimes forget that more Vietnam Vets died from suicide after the war than from combat during the war. The Powerpoint presentation they delivered was superb because it drives home how that we are working for peace on a number of levels to include helping soldiers.

We had a number of member announcements and this is a good thing. However, we can benefit from some structure and as a result we will have yellow and red cards in the future (although later in these notes you will see how Kalmran and Jim are helping us use technology to capture announcement prior to the meeting). This change in process will save time during the meeting and when we do have an announcements yellow means time is almost up and red means your time is up. Dave extends his apologies on not doing this sooner as Laura Sandage performed an amazing song and many people were unable to appreciate it because the meeting ran over by 10 minutes.

Next up was an explanation of the Week of Peace. Dave informed the group that both board members Ruben Arvizu and Richard Lees would attend the Evening of Peace Dinner, Beyond Treason Movie and Annual Teach Peace Meeting (on October 1, 2, and 3 respectively).

Following this overview, Dave distributed the Passports. Each Passport is individually numbered. Teach Peace members signed for specific Passports and agreed to help promote the event. The distribution list of the Passports will be used to distinguish between a paid/activated Passport and one that was never sold.

After the Passports were distributed a list of local peace organizations was displayed. Teach Peace members signed up to contact local organizations and the sign up sheet is available for your review. Additional Passports were distributed and make contact with the organizations by September 8 (as we have our next meeting on September 9 you will be asked if you have made contact during the meeting). If you have any questions about how to go about this, please contact Mary Wind at windml@gmail.com.

Please note - teach peace requires that the physical Passport be returned with a "donations instruction form" by November 7, 2006 in order to have a $50 donation sent to a peace organization other than teach peace. The rules help us keep the process of donating funds secure and convenient to manage.

To further illustrate how the process works, think about the best practices of a "manufacturer's rebate" process. Specifically the original bar code (in our situation the Passport) is returned to a centralized processing address (for us this is 3409 Tanager Avenue, Davis, CA 95616), with a form which is available online and at each event (so that we can build a list of people associated with other peace organizations and have the exact address of where we need to send donations) and all of this must be done within a specific period of time (again in our situation this is by November 7, 2006). The rebate (in our case the rebate is a donation from teach peace) is mailed to the organization within 60 days from the postmarked date of the received activated Passport.

teach peace will pay for the expenses (e.g., dinner, facility rentals, event insurance, cost of Passports, etc.) and we only ask that anyone purchasing a Passport that wants the $50 to go to an organization other than Teach Peace to send their Passport and donation instructions form to teach peace, 3409 Tanager Avenue, Davis, CA 95616. This process greatly simplifies the process. Our address is also in the teach peace brochure which every Passport purchaser should receive as well as our website.

In situations that are unclear, if the donation information is incomplete, we will not process the donation. It may help to remember that we are currently a team of volunteers and we don't have the luxury of a staff that can spend hours researching the address of an organization. A complete and readable donation instructions form is important.

We cannot send donations to organizations that are not a valid peace organization. Teach Peace reserves the right to make this determination. In general, if a group is recognized by the US government as a non-profit entity, they are a valid peace organization. Many will be 501(c)(3) organizations. It is important that everything we do promote non-violent change. Therefore, should a group advocating violence be listed, the donation will default to Teach Peace.

From the Teach Peace standpoint, the organizations we prefer to reach out to are the ones that have a direct connection to one of the four freedoms. Please remember to mention that Passport buyers may want to leave the back of the Passport blank to help the Teach Peace organization. We are spending over $5,000 on the various Week of Peace events and the purchaser may be inclined to help us cover the expenses of the dinner and other events we are sponsoring. This means we need at least 100 of the Passports distributed to have funds directed back to Teach Peace (the default selection if the back side of the Passport is empty is Teach Peace). As a reminder, our Teach Peace Week of Peace will only become a national movement if we prove it is finally self-sufficient.

Passport do not need to be returned if the $50 is going to help teach peace pay for the expenses we are incurring to run the Week of Peace.

The bottom line on the rules for our Week of Peace donations is this. We will do our best to help organizations receive the funds when the Passport is returned along with the donation instruction form. We reserve the right to handle situations where incomplete information exists or the process has not been followed using common sense.

Kalmran and Jim explained the benefits of a Listserve and the fact that Teach Peace has one. To begin using the Listserve, go to http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/freedomfromwar. The Listserve is also now on the Teach Peace Join page. Members that signed the "Meeting Sign In Sheet" will be automatically added to the Listserve. If you want to unsubscribe from the Listserve, you will also be able to easily do this.

The Listserve is the way we will manage most announcements going forward. We are growing at a fast rate and it is no longer practical to have announcements presented by members. If we continue this we will quickly find ourselves with a full meeting of announcements. Therefore, when you add an announcement to the Listserve, you will have a more convenient and effective way to connect with Teach Peace members. In addition, Teach Peace members will have a written record which will facilitate participation in the event that you are announcing. We will do our best to facilitate special announcements but the Teach Peace leadership is committed to not exceeding 15 minutes on this subject going forward.

Laura S. ended the meeting with a beautiful song. Perhaps this was the best part of the entire meeting. She is amazing and we are fortunate to have her on the team. Dave is hoping she will sing the same song to close the September 9 meeting. Let's keep our fingers crossed that she is available that day!

Please send additions and corrections to these notes to ddionisi@sbcglobal.net.

Thank you to everyone! When you work for peace you win when all is said and done!

Peace, Dave Dionisi