Below is the e-mail received Sunday evening, May 25, 2008, from Sandra Lawson concerning the 2 Steering Committee (SC) meetings held on May 3, and May 17, 2008. And below that e-mail is the attached Word Doc that was in the e-mail, BUT is NOT saved at the "Atlanta Interfaith Alliance" "AIA" Yahoo! Groups (e-mail/message service of AFBA). Yahoo! Groups does NOT save attatchments on their servers any longer, so viewers of messages can NOT download attachments anymore to view them. Read the Word Doc attachment here! [formatted, edited, by Bernard Wotton]
E-mail from Sandra Lawson sent from the atlantainterfaithalliance Yahoo! Groups
Subject: [atlantainterfaithalliance] Atlanta Interfaith Based Alliance First focus - Transgender Rights!" plus May 17 minutes
Date: 5/25/2008 7:25:10 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: lawsonsj@gmail.com
Repl;y To: atlantainterfaithalliance@yahoogroups.com
To: atlantainterfaithalliance@yahoogroups.com
Greetings All
As most of you know the Steering Committee has been working diligently to move our newly formed organization into the right direction. All of this hard work has finally paid off and we have made some hard decisions. The Steering Committee met on Saturday May 17th, and we realized that what was holding us back was a lack of focus; and if we were ever going [to] grow into an organization we really needed a focus, something that people could get behind and work on and more importantly work together to accomplish. We decided that the focus should be trans-gender issues, or more importantly we should work as a community to ensure that the trans-community [transgender community] has the same fair treatment that the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual community have. And since the trans-community has always been there with us and for us we need to now help to make sure that we do not leave them behind.
The Steering Committee does realize that Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals have not reached any level of fair treatment when compared with the larger society. But we need to realize that as Lesbians Gays and Bisexuals we do have privilege, when compared to our Trans-gendered brothers and sisters, or any one with an ambiguous gender identity. We hope, that by making this our very first priority that we can start to have some hard conversations around this issue and one of the ways that we can help and allow us to move forward is to first realize the privilege we do have as Lesbians Gays Bisexuals.
Word doc attachment to above e-mail
Atlanta Faith-Based Alliance
Steering Committee Meeting
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Attendees: Dionne Bates, Sandra Lawson, Lorraine Fontana, Paul Turner, Louis Hinton
Paul presented to a draft of a proposed mission statement. It was tentatively but favorably received at that time with only three members present.
Lorraine gave a review of the external goals captured in the general meeting held back in November. (See minutes for detail.) Various reactions and ideas were generated in regards to these summaries.
Dionne stated her concern regarding the lack of focus she perceived from the group in the form of a question. Why was this alliance started? There were various responses but none of them got us any closer to formulating a focus.
Conversations lead to a suggestion of joining forces with the Faith Alliance of Metro Atlanta (FAMA). However, subsequent explanation about what FAMA does by Sandra help the group to draw several conclusions namely: FAMA didn’t have a subgroup or identified focus group re LGBT issues, or a policy around dealing with a progressive religious view of sexual orientation and gender identity. That could mean that AFBA would be positioned to advocate for such a part of FAMA to exist.
As we continued bantering ideas and visions, Sandra proposed that we take on the transgender issue as our focus. The proposal met with resounding approval. Louis commented that focus was a perfect fit with the proposed mission statement drafted by Paul.
Sandra was tasked with drafting a news release for the general membership capturing the Steering Committee’s proposal for moving forward.
As most of you know the Steering Committee has been working diligently to move our newly formed organization into the right direction. All of this hard work has finally paid off and we have made some hard decisions.
We met this past Saturday and we realized that what was holding us back was a lack of focus and if we were ever going grow into an organization we really needed a focus, something that people could get behind and work on and more importantly work together to accomplish. We decided that the focus should be transgender issues, or more importantly we should work as a community to ensure that the trans-community has the same fair treatment that the Lesbian, Gay and bisexual community have. And since the trans community has always been there with us and for us we need to now help to make sure that we do not leave them behind.
Transgender struggles involve and touch many of the issue areas that all of us want to address: e.g. ENDA and workplace discrimination, rejection by the church/synagogue/mosque and organized religious institutions, homelessness, housing and poverty, marriage recognition, discrimination because of gender nonconformity.
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Deciding to champion the cause of the transgender community opened the door for all the work we had done so far to fall into place namely:
- We agreed to go with the name Atlanta Faith-Based Alliance until such time as we move forward with incorporation.
- We agreed to propose the following mission statement at our next general meeting, scheduled for June 14, 2008.
- Atlanta Faith-Based Alliance (AFBA) promotes the spiritual health and well-being of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons through spiritual support to cope with an adverse society. We propose to provide education and advocacy to end discrimination and to secure ones sacred and equal civil rights. AFBA will provide opportunity for dialogue about sexual orientation and gender identity and to foster acts to create a society that is healthy and respectful of the sacred worth of human diversity.
- We agreed to present the proposed organizational changes and to present to the group the officers-elect of the Steering Committee.
We agreed to convene the next general meeting, June 14, 2008 at 1st Christian Church of Decatur/GSCC, 601 W. Ponce de Leon Ave., Decatur, GA 30030 at 1:30 pm – 4:30 pm to present the above-mentioned items as the agenda. The decision was to announce with enthusiasm our plans to move forward and to encourage the buy-in from the general membership.
For your review and inclusion in the June 14th agenda items from the May 3rd Steering Committee meeting needing approval by the general membership.
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Atlanta Faith-Based Alliance Steering Committee Meeting Minutes
May 3, 2008 at First Christian Church of Decatur
1:30 to 4:00 pm
Present: Louis Hinton, Tessie Mandeville, Paul Turner, Lorraine Fontana
The original plan for this SC meeting was to formulate our Vision and Mission statements using the detailed summary of the November, 2007 General Meeting, input from the last General Meeting (April 12 at the Radial Cafe), survey responses received (two so far) and on-the-spot input from SC members. However we decided to postpone that discussion until the SC could gather as a full group on Saturday, May 17th at First Christian Church, at 1:30 to 4:30.
We did discuss and decide on a proposed structure for the SC and the Alliance as we go forward (see below) but we ask each SC member to make this next meeting a priority and to prepare in advance to by re-reading the attached Nov 2007 minutes [where is it? -did not come through; for "Nov 2007 minutes" online click here > Minutes/Notes from 2nd Meeting: Nov 3, 2007 click "Open" to read this doc {if your browser blocks this file, click on the "...options..." bar and click "Download File...", then click "Open" again to read the doc.}; press "Back" button to return back here.], the surveys responses so far received (both attached [where are the two? -did not come through; the survey response from Lorraine is click here > Lorraine Fontana, scroll down to read her responses, press "Back" button to return back here, and the survey response by Bernard is click here > Bernard Wotton, scroll down to read his responses, press "Back" button to return back here.]), and any other materials you need to formulate your own thoughts/ideas. Be ready to share them with everyone else, be open to hearing others views, and be willing to work toward an agreeable final version to present to the larger community. [Are the above links to the online wiki pages the items you also meant to attach to the above e-mail?] [Wow, see how convinent the wiki site can be... it can hold all the information in one place with easy access through links.]
Here’s what we did decide on:
- Re-structuring roles within the SC:
- Facilitator (akin to a Chair or President in other settings) – this person will:
1. gather items for and organize an agenda
2. facilitate the meetings
1. secure time and place for each meeting
2. back-up the Facilitator re 1& 2 above if needed
- Communications person (akin to a Secretary+)
1. take minutes at meetings
2. finalize with input from others present and distribute minutes
3. email communication with general membership
4. communication with/to the public
- Communications Assistant – who will back up/assist the main communications person as needed
We agreed that those present would indicate their willingness to volunteer for any of these positions, and would ask that each absent SC member to do the same via email BEFORE the next SC meeting. At the next SC meeting we will finalize/select a person for each position, when all potential candidates have indicated their interest and availability. Louis is a candidate for the Communications position; Paul for the Assistant Facilitator position, and Lorraine for the Assistant Communications position (all are willing to step aside if the group feels another person would work better). We all hoped that Maressa might agree to continue her role as agenda preparer and take on the additional duties of the Facilitator role – but we are open to another SC member stepping into this, or any of these roles.
- Size of the Steering Committee – we feel that no more than nine members should be on the SC to allow it to operate well…seven might be an ideal number.
- As SC members we agreed to continue to demonstrate our commitment in our attendance and/or our continued communication when we won’t make a called or scheduled meeting due to an emergency or unavoidable event. In that event the SC member should communicate with Louis (our current email communicator) at 404-272-8609 (cell) or via email lchinton@bellsouth.net .
- Suggested Organizational Structure – each of these areas would have a lead person/chair and each would formulate internal structure, specific goals and actions based on AFBA’s overall Vision & Mission.
- Gathering/Growing – continue outreach to “missing” voices on the SC and growing our membership re diversity [INTERNAL FOCUS]
- Education – both within the AFBA and in the larger community [BOTH INTERNAL & EXTERNAL FOCUS]
- Action/Advocacy - both within the AFBA and in the larger community [BOTH INTERNAL & EXTERNAL FOCUS]
- Coalition-Building – developing ways to be in coalition with already existing interfaith groups, LGBTQQI community groups, social-justice networks, etc.
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