FORTHCOMING AND PAST MEETINGS of the UNA-USA/Northern Colorado Chapter.

Last Updated: 9-02-05.

FORTHCOMING MEETINGS OF OUR CHAPTER

Our Board of Directors has been active, meeting monthly.

For other meetings and news see the current or past newsletters.

UPCOMING MEETINGS OF INTEREST TO MEMBERS AND FRIENDS OF UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATION - NORTHERN COLORADO CHAPTER:

FIRST: OUR UNA-NC ACTIVITIES

****APRIL 19, 2005 Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.: Our Program on Model United Nations. SPEAKERS: MARTHA DENNEY, who directed CSU's Model UN recently and TIM KUBIK, new UNA/Colorado Division President. See & hear about how this dynamic program can engage students in learning about the UN, and what our UNA chapter might do to help. PLACE: CSU campus, Laurel Hall (NE corner of Oval) Community Room.

PAST MEETINGS OF OUR CHAPTER

Proposed reforms in the United Nations were the topic of a talk by Dr. Dimitris Stevis of CSU's political science department on Saturday, February 12, 2005. 40 people were in attendance and Stevis gave an excellant summary of the background of the UN and the December 2004 report entitled A More Secure World. The 110-page report includes over a hundred recommendations for reforming the UN. Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel (www.un.org/secureworld/ - 12k). A 9-page EXECUTIVE SUMMARY is available as a .pdf file at: (www.un.org/secureworld/brochure.pdf) NOTE: you can select a text version and copy it to your word processor after hitting 'select all'.

Secretary Annan will make recommendations on the report in March 2005 and the UN should act upon the recommendations in September 2005. Questions from those at our meeting btrought out the point that soverign immunity argument is an issue. Some industrialized nations are concerned about losing soverignty. There are a number of other global organizations such as the World Bank, the Atomic Energy group, the World Trade Organization, etc.

Professor James Roth's talk on January 15, 2005 to the UNA Chapter of Northern Colorado was very well received. The title is The UN and World Trade. He has now posted a copy on his web site so that you can download it easily and print it out is you so desire. The URL or web address for his web page is:

http://academic.regis.edu/jroth

The title of his talk, The UN and World Trade, appears right under his name at the top of his posting. Click on that to get to view his talk. When printed, it is about 8 pages long and well worth reading.

On Tuesday December 7 at 7 PM, Professor Ved Nanda - Director of the International Legal Studies Program at the University of Denver spoke to us about the International Criminal Court, Justice and the United Nations. His talk was well received.

3:00 PM, Saturday Nov. 13, 2004 at the Main Ft. Collins Library, downtown on Peterson Street. The title of her talk was: "Advances in Women's Rights Through the United Nations". Political Science Professor Sue Ellen Charlton from Colorado State University gave an excellant talk. There were about 30 persons in attendance and we had a good question and answer session. Charlton outlined the history of the UN's efforts at merging woman's rights with human rights. Then she summarized the impact of world conferences in Mexico City, Copenhagen and Nairobe. These conferences specified goals and mandates which were brought back home by the attendees and motivated them to lobby their governments to, work toward the goals. Later, representatives from NGO's exchanged stories of their achievements and the internet helped spread the enthusiasm and knowledge aroung the world. She described The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly.

October 23, 2004: A film and discussion on removal of Land Mines. The following provides a bit of background. This meeting celebrated UN-Day, the 59th birthday of the United Nations which is October 24.

The McCartneys (of Beatle fame) helped start the Minefield Program. The name of Colleen Conrad was mentioned as having worked on a minefield project at Lincoln Jr. High. The Rocky Mtn News and Denver Post had a good article 4-24-04 about students at Hinkley High School in Aurora raising $6,000 to help clear minefields in Mozambique. They had an 8-mile walk, a traditional African dinner and slide show, and a learning experience with students at the school to raise the money. Our Northern Colorado Chapter is interested in starting a project to raise funds for an Adopt-A-Minefield project. (Conrad gave a very interesting summary of her work at our Nov. 6 Board meeting.)

Our September 2004 meeting for all members was held at the Plymouth Congregational Church on Prospect, sponsored by the Ft Collins Peace and Justice Team. An all day session of workshops and talks was most informative.

On July 14th, 2004, at 7:30 pm, the United Nations Association-USA of Northern Colorado sponsored Dr. Maury Albertson, Co-founder of the Peace Corps, and President and co-founder of "The Village Earth Model", which addresses global poverty in many countries around the world, including the Pine Ridge Reservation in S. Dakota.

The Village Earth Model emphasizes "participatory practices for sustainable development". Maury was working with the model in India a few months ago. Through Village Earth’s partnership with the HELPO foundation, over 3400 families have economically benefited by the formation of 170 Community Savings Groups (CSG’S). These CSG’s exist in some of the most remote areas of India.

As of July 1, 2004, our ByLaws have been approved by the National UNA and we have elected our list of officers and ten additional Board of Directors. Thus we will become an official chapter of UNA-USA as soon as the National Office completes there paper work.

Our ByLaws are posted at: (www.greeleynet.com/~cnotess/ncbylaws.htm).

OUR OFFICERS ARE:

Margaret Smith (President) Ken Tharp (Vice Predident) Eleanor Dwight (President Elect) Charlie Notess (Secretary) Hugh Sanborn (Treasurer)

Planning Committee members will meet on July 12 at 10 am at the Stringers house in Greeley (2114 42nd Ave.) for a pot luck meeting about a Board Retreat set for Saturday, August 7, and other forcoming meetings.

The Board retreat on August 7 was a great success, held at the Plymouth Congregational Church where Clara Lou Humphrey, a friend of Eleanor Dwight's, conducted training sessions for administering a successful chapter of UNA-USA.

EXCERPTS from Minutes of the Planning Committee Meeting on 5-07-04.

The Planning Committee of the UNA-USA/Northern Colorado Chapter (our new name) met 5-07-04 at Eleanor Dwight's house and completed the following. Getting our bylaws approved, getting enough members to vote for approval, planning forthcoming activities, electing officers, creating an executive committee, and a proposed events calendar.

PRESENT at the meeting were: Maury Albertson, Eleanor Dwight (acting President Elect), Charlie Notess (acting Secretary), Hugh Sanborn (acting Treasurer), Margaret Smith (acting President), Jack Stringer (our Greeley connection), and Ken Tharp (acting Vice President). The Bylaws require four meetings a year and we need to set up regular meeting times for the Board. The Board of Directors needs a minimum of 15 members. The Secretary was asked to e-mail out a current membership and mailing list. Here it is.

We discussed a first Chapter project - Raising funds to help countries clear their minefields. Other UNA-USA Chapters have been successful at this. More details follow below.

We need to have a Program and Membership committee. This will be set up after we become a formal Chapter and elect officers. Hugh mentioned staggering the terms to overlap. The President, President elect and Vice Present will serve initially 2-1/2 year terms. The Secretary and Treasurer will serve initially 1-1/2 year terms. After that the terms will all be two-years in duration as stated in the ByLaws.

Hugh Sanborn requested that the Treasurer and President be cosignees for the bank account that we will open. The committee approved this request unanimously at this 5-7-04 meeting.

Tom Sutherland donated books that he wrote with his wife. We are selling them at $10 each. We have $120 already.

Morrie Albertson volunteered to be on the Program committee, though not as its leader.

On March 27th, 2004, we counted 52 persons who attended a talk by Tom Sutherland on the CSU campus. He spoke about his imprisonment in Beirut Lebanon for over six years from 1983 to 1991. Tom was taken hostage by gunmen from the Islamic Jihad who held him and others in an effort to win the release of one of their leaders. He described how Perez de Cuellar, the Secretary General of the United Nations relied on an Italian, Giandomenico Picco to negotiate the release of Tom and others in the last group of hostages. Today, after bypassing the UN, President Bush has learned that there are some initiatives that the UN can do best. Tom responded to questions for some time.

Our January 24th meeting at the Fort Collins Main Library was a success. Three new members sent in their dues and others are interested. Abir Atma gave a very comprehensive talk entitled "Calling Out for Peace and Justice in Palestine" a talk with power-point slides. There were some good questions. 35 persons attended.

Abir Atma, a displaced Palestinian, focused on the historical background of Jewish immigration to Palestine, the Zionist aspect, impact upon Palestinians who were expelled from their homes, life in the refugee camps and in the West Bank. She included personal stories of what it is like to be living in Palestine and to be a Palestinian.

Ms Atma had several handouts available on a table. These gave book titles and websites that would help Americans learn a more balanced view of the very complex Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Authors included Donald Neff, Ron David, Paul Findley, Israel Shahak& Norton Mezvinsky, Charles D. Smith, Edward Said, and Kathleen Christison. A key web link is

On Saturday, December 13, our Chapter in formation held a meeting, 3-5 pm in the Harmony Rd. Library Conference Room, to outline briefly the mission and status of our Northern Colorado Chapter of UNA-USA with help from the Chapter's website and hear a presentation by Grace Harris celebrating the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Grace Harris was a member of the Spokane Chapter of UNA-USA (the United Nations Association) and is a member of the Local Chapter of the League of Women Voters which reevaluated their position on the United Nations in 2002.

Twenty four persons were in attendance and most of those in attendance took part in the discussions. Grace Harris had persons read portions of the UN Declaration of Human Rights and we discussed some of the 30 articles. Moyna Hudgens, President of the Colorado Division of UNA-USA spoke about what was going on around the State. The Boulder Chapter was about 4 years old and had 60 members. They raised money and helped start two schools in Afghanistan. The state division collected 25,000 pounds of books for refilling the shelves of a library in Kabul. Jerry Bookin-Weiner, CSU's Executive Director of International Programs, facilitated getting local chapter experiences from those in attendance a list of activities of UNA-USA Chapters in Iowa, Spokane, Boulder, Houston, Denver and other places. Model UN's in the schols, seminars, lobbying, speakers, discussions, women for peace, art in the schools, Unicef stores, lunch groups meeting regularly, ethnic meals, Great Decisions groups, and other topics were listed. There is a need to find persons with passion to organize activities and create new ideas. CSU plans a full Model United Nations for high school students from Colorado and Wyoming April 30 to May 2, 2004 - contact Jerry Bookin-Weiner, jbbw@colostate.edu

Mrs. Hudgens told us an interesting about how the State Division raised money to clear land mines.

The last speaker was Cheryl Distaso, who spoke about how the national effort to Federalize or have local police departments help the INS locate undocumented aliens has caused a loss in trust of the police by many non-citizens in Ft. Collins. A balance needs to be found to maintain trust.

RETURN TO THE LIST OF UNA-USA/NC CHAPTER POSTINGS NOW.

As of 9-12-04, the easiest way to access our Northern Colorado-UNA site is to use the URL: http://notess.com/ncuna. That will obviate your typing inthe longer URL which will come up automatically. On many computers all you need type in is: (notess.com/ncuna).

To make corrections, additions and other suggestions for this web site, please contact Charlie Notess, webmaster, at: cnotess@greeleynet.com or 970-613-9967.

To view the national UNA website, click on: UNA-USA web site.

To avoid having to type a long URL or web address into your computer each time you wish to view our postings, follow the detailed directions in the second half of my posting: MISSION OF THE UNA-USA/NC CHAPTER FROM OUR BYLAWS.