In attendance

Patrick Furey, Wayne Smith (chair), Patricia Grenier, Andy Buxton, Bridgette Clark, Elena Dumitru, Wendy Phillips, Marilyn McKim, Aubrey Harris, Genevieve Tran, Jimmy Pimentel, Karen Eaton, Iris Nowell

General discussion

Wayne outlined the various workshop proposals received to date, and suggested we need to focus on several specific areas: theme, specific named volunteers for specific tasks, date, timing, tentative agenda, and venue. General discussion followed, during which the following points were made:

· We are targeting to attract ~100 people (and hopefully more, perhaps as many as 200), ‘including people who do not, for one reason or another, attend AI’s AGMs’

· We may wish to tie the meeting to the overall AI theme of growth ($, members, capacity)

· Workshop themes should be keyed to the new AI branch plan

· Each workshop could attempt to tie in to the Stop Violence Against Women campaign

· We may wish to invite other NGOs (to attend or to deliver workshops)

· We should try to attract a well known keynote speaker (eg, Shirin Ebadi will be in Toronto with Alex Neve on Oct 22, so Oct 23^rd (during AI week) is our first choice for a date – Elena will pursue this possibility)

· We should ask several EC members to attend

Specific task assignments/volunteers

· Arrange the venue Bridgette, Iris

· Liaise with AI national (Alex Neve to be invited) Elena

· Workshop co-ordination Karen, Elena, Iris

· Develop an action for the meeting Andy, Aubrey, Jimmy

· Arrange food Bridgette, Iris

· Registration/sign in Patricia, Wendy Phillips

· Financial Patricia (as AITO treasurer)

· Merchandise table Patricia

· Publicity Yulia Prodaniuk, Patrick, Wayne

· Arrange participation of other NGOs unassigned

Tentative workshops

· Women’s rights to be confirmed

· Death Penalty Iris, group 63, Aubrey

· Art workshop April Viczko

· Public speaking Michael Craig, Bahi Krishnakhanthan

· Business and human rights Maria Amuchastegui

· Land Mines/war children Kevin Keane

· Economic, social, political rights Marilyn, Wayne

· Refugees Sasha Baglay

· Colombia/CREDHOS Wilf Ruland

· Theme TBA Wendy Belcher/group 75

· ‘how to deliver an effective workshop’ Karen

Tentative schedule (very rough for now – we will be very flexible)

9-10 Registration and plenary

10-11 workshop A workshop B

11-11:30 break

11:30-12:30 workshop C workshop D

12:30-1:30 lunch and keynote speaker

1:30-2:30 workshop E workshop F

2:30-3 break

3-4 workshop G workshop H

4-5 Plenary and complete action

(if we proceed with all the proposed workshops we may need to run three at a time…)

Some other notes and discussion points

· We need to think about other potential keynote speakers and/or workshop panelists (eg, Sally Armstrong, Margaret Atwood, Ruben Carter, Eddie Greenspan) – send ideas to Elena or Iris

· We should try to enable the conference with AV equipment (laptop projector)

· We should try to incorporate ‘learning, skill building, action’ into each workshop

· We would like each workshop team to have a tentative outline by the next meeting

Next meeting

Tuesday June 8^th, 7PM at the AI Toronto office. If at all possible, workshop teams should be represented at this meeting. People involved in working on various tasks should try to keep each other informed by email.