Date: 11/15/22

Present: Gary Sandman, Sherman Bamford, Manuel Dotson, Mike Bentley, Roxana Navab, Xan Whitt.  Regrets from Stephen Niamke. 

1. Board-Check-in-We checked in with each other about the pandemic.  Everyone was okay, as far as we knew.

• Infrastructure Committees

1. Finance Committee
2. Balance-Plowshare has $8,846 in our checking and saving accounts, with all bills paid.
3. Stewardship-No new ideas for cutting costs or bringing in more revenue were suggested.

• Outreach Committee
• Newsletter-Our quarterly newsletter will go out in December.
• Social media-Email list has about 540 people; Facebook page has about 620 people; Facebook group has about 100; and website continues to receive visitors.  Facebook has banned the monthly calendars and the Action Alerts.  Gary is trying to find out why.  George Hunter and Gary have been working on getting the Pastors for Peace program on the Plowshare YouTube channel.  Gary is working with Ben Bristoll on getting the website and the Plowshare email transferred to Gary’s providers.
• Parades & Festivals- We were banned from the Latino Festival as we were considered a political group.  We are looking at alternatives.  Roxana is looking into the Persian Festival.  We will march in the Grandin Road Thanksgiving Day Parade. 

4.       Next Meeting-Committee will gather on December 28 at 7 PM, through Zoom.

•  Volunteers Committee-Gary has begun to email and post on Facebook an invitation to attend the board meetings for people interested in exploring joining the Plowshare board or are interested in Plowshare generally.  Board members were encouraged to share contact information about prospective members. 

• Action Committees & Coordinators

1. Vigil Committee-Nine people attended the October peace vigil. 
2. Program Committee
3. Progressive Potlucks-We will try holding a Progressives Potluck on December 4 at 7 PM, through Zoom.  There won’t actually be a potluck, but we will have a 15 minute main speaker and five minutes slots for other speakers.  If we have enough attendees, we will use break-out rooms.  This is an experiment to see if we can hold the PPs online until the pandemic is over.
4. Kingian Nonviolence Program & Meta Peace Teams-The Kingian Nonviolence program and the Meta Peace Teams program have been postponed.
5. Ukraine War Timeline-This program will not be occurring.
6. Next Year-We are looking at offering these programs: Youth & Lobbying, perhaps in February or March; Voices from the Holy Land films; Nathan Richardson; Arab-American Month in April; Transgender in June; and Open House in fall.  A movie company named Picturemotion also provides free films about activism, and we are looking into this.  Other programs might be a tree-sitter film and Red Terry.  

5.       Next Meeting-Committee will gather on December 28 at 7 PM through Zoom.

•  Death Penalty Committee-Nothing new.

• Carpooling Coordinator-Nothing new.

• Lobbying Committee
• Action Alerts-Action Alerts #45 and #46 have been sent out. 
• Meetings-Mike attended another Zoom meeting through a Fairfax activist group.
• Move the Money Resolution-We weren’t sure if the Move the Money resolution had been presented to the Roanoke City Council as Stephen couldn’t attend the board meeting.

• Public Information Committee-Mike attended the Friends Council on November 15.  The Council is trying to be more diverse, but we have concerns that the council is still composed of the usual group of people.  It was stated at the meeting that no bylaws were required, but this is not true.

•  Other
• Experiential Peace Organizing Committee-Some Plowshare supporters attended the demonstration against nuclear war held on October 14 by the Experiential Peace Organizing Committee. 
• Youth Projects-Saleem Ahmed has volunteered to work on youth projects for Plowshare.  This could be various things, but we are looking at the Teen Peace Jam, the Rotary Club peace project and peace essays in local schools.

•  Next Meeting-Next meeting is on December 13 at 8 PM.