Organizations:)

I found some organizations that we can potentially donate to.

1) Darfur Peace and Development: We can donate money to the specific cause of building a school in Darfur (http://www.darfurpeace.org/fundraising/build-a-high-school-in-darfur ), or we can make a general donation (http://www.darfurpeace.org/fundraising/help-the-people-of-darfur). But they also have other causes like building a center for women, and solar cookers. They're listed under the "programs" tab on the left side of the page. 5.1% of profits goes to administration, 2.4% goes to fundraising, and 92.5% goes to the programs.

2) Aid Darfur (http://www.aiddarfur.org/site/c.ntJ2IeMTLuG/b.2257329/k.BF09/Home.htm) I couldn't find any information about their administrative costs and their mission seems general.

Previously, we have donated to Save Darfur.

I hope everyone has a nice holiday break:)

- Sharon

Here is a summary of what we went over in our meeting today (December 18th, 2009)

- We reflected on the Comedy Hypnosis Show that we just held and went over the positives and negatives of what happened. Overall, it was extremely successful! We raised over $1,000 dollars and are considering hosting a spring show.

- Also, we planned out the events we will be hosting for the rest of the year which include:
* A spring time scavenger hunt in the school.
* Creating new Darfur door posters that have educating facts to be displayed in F tower around the time that Holocaust remembrance day takes place.
* Showing the film Darfur Now, which is an activist film, to motivate and educate students. The students may also write letters to representatives. We are thinking about holding a pizza sale before we show the movie as well.

- The club is also deciding where to donate the money we raised. Club members can post links to the organizations they would like to donate to so we can take them into consideration.

Our next meeting is January 8th. The meeting after that is schedules for January 15th.

Meeting Summary for November 13, 2009

Here is a summary of today's meeting:

-The Comedy Hypnosis Show is next friday (11/20/09). Emily will be sending out a facebook event message so send it to your friends! Make sure to spread the word around the school and also outside of school. Children, teens, and adults are all welcome. Sharon already sent out an announcement to E so one will be made next week about the show. We also need people to bring refreshments so make sure you go to either Mr. Cone or Mrs. Cone to sign up to bring something. There is also a sign up for working the show.

-Set-up for the show begins at 5:30 so all members must report to the auditorium at this time. We will set up two tables: one will be for refreshments and the other will be to sell tickets. Remember to keep the money from the refreshments and the tickets seperate! If you have not signed up to help out please go to Mrs. Cone's room and ask for the sign-up sheet. We must also set-up about 40 chairs on the stage for the hypnotist.

-The show begins at 7:00. We will have a 50:50 raffle and sell tickets. All members of the committee do not have to pay since they will be running/working the show. This means that no members may get hypnotized so do not go up on stage! During the show, we will rotate shifts for who will watch the door so that kids do not sneak in. Please see Mrs. Cone or Mr. Cone to sign up for this.

-After the show please do not leave since we must do a quick clean up. We will make sure the auditorium is clean, and we will clean up the refreshments and tables.

-Lastly, we need to figure out where we want to donate the money. Feel free to research different organizations. Past organizations include DarfurNow and the solar cookers. Once you find an organization, post it on the blog. Once we have our next meeting after the show, we will decide on an organization.

-Also, there will be a quick meeting next Friday, the day of the show. It will go no later than 2:30 so be sure to show up!

A Devastating Report on Darfur

Mr. McCabe found an interesting site/article on the genocide in Darfur. It is reflecting on the latest UN report about the situation. Check it out.

http://genocide.change.org/blog/view/a_devastating_report_on_darfur

DARFUR MEETING UPDATE

No one posted a summary from our last two meetings. That's sad. We'll talk about this more at our next meeting which will be on November 13th.

The Comedy Hypnosis show is soon - November 20th. We will need to get flyers up next week, choose jobs, talk about concession sales, etc. Lots to do!!!

Again, next meeting is Friday - November 13th. Please show up!!!!!!

(Oh, and thanks to everyone who helped on Safe Halloween...it went really well!)

October 16th Meeting

Here's a summary of what we discussed:

- The date of the Comedy Hypnosis Show has been set for November 20th. The event starts at 7p.m. and tickets will be sold at the door for $7. If anyone would like to make additional fliers for the event, please hand them to Mrs. or Mr. Cone. Volunteers will be needed to hang up fliers during their lunch period.

- For Safe Halloween we will be creating Halloween themed puppets out of brown bags. A sign up sheet was passed around, members are welcome to sign up for a time slot to help out. Candy donations are appreciated since we will be handing candy out in addition to making puppets. Donations of art supplies, such as pipe cleaners or construction paper, are also helpful:) We also decided to hand out an informational pamphlet to the adults at Safe Halloween. A request was put in to have our station in the library.

- The environmental website, bulletin board, and presentation was collectively vetoed, as we have a lot of other events to coordinate.

- The next edition of the Bulls Eye will feature our Comedy Hypnosis show in the 'featured club events' section. This is a great way to get the word out there. There may also be an article written about our club.

See you all next week!

Meeting Summary - October 9, 2009

We held our first meeting of the 2009-2010 school year on Friday, October 9th. We welcome everyone back and we also extend our welcome to the sea of new faces who have joined us! We look forward to working with everyone this year and doing our best to make a difference. Here's what we discussed:

- Overview of the club. Our mission is to educate ourselves, our school, and the community about the genocide in Darfur as well as fundraise to help the victims. We discussed actions and events that we have taken in the past and quickly mentioned some potential ideas for this year.

- We discussed our blog and that it can be an important tool to communicate with each other. New members look out for an email inviting you to "join" the blog and follow the steps in the email. By doing so, you will get permission to post/contribute to the blog rather than just read it.

- First event - Safe Halloween scheduled for Friday, October 30th after school. Think of ideas we could do and post them on the blog and/or come prepared next Friday to discuss. We would definitely like to have a presence, help provide an outlet for kids, and educate the community.

- Next event - Comedy Hypnosis fundraiser show with Dr. Mike. Possible dates are November 13th or November 20th. We need to figure this out next week.

- Spread the word about our club and make flyers. Flyers should say Darfur Action Committee, Fridays, room F206, all are welcome, etc. If you have one, bring it to Mrs. Cone (F206) or Mr. Cone (F203)so that we can get copies made.

Next meeting is Friday, October 16th.

I don't know if anyone reads this blog but...

I just want to thank everyone for a great 2.5 years in the Darfur Action Committee. The time went by so fast, and I can't believe that part of my life is over now. I hope you guys keep the club going in years to come- I'll be sure to visit and I'll even try to attend some of the events next year. Keep up the good work, I'm going to stop writing before I get too sentimental now. Peace out everyone!

Love,

Ginny

Year-End Summary

1.) Safe Halloween [October 31st]
2.) Hypnosis [November 14th]
-Raised $1,305
-Bake Sale at the show
3.) Pizza Sale [November 12th/December 10th]
4.) Bake Sale [February 12th/13th]
5.) Darfur Doors
6.) Scavenger Hunt [April 21st]
7.) Movie Showing: On Our Watch [May 28th]
8.) Petition to Obama [April]
9.) Made a $1500 donation to the Darfur Peace and Development organization for the purchase of solar cookers.

Also...
Made really nice poster
Transferred bulletin board
Display case

We donated money to...
Genocide Intervention Network
-$1,000

LAST MEETING OF THE YEAR

This Friday, June 5th. Bring food.

Meeting Summary - May 1, 2009

Here's what we did:

- Took down the Darfur Doors. Last year, we left them up so long they started to get destroyed. Even now, some of these are in bad shape.

- Restaurant fundraiser? The student who made calls to restaurants was not at the meeting. We'll hopefully have more info. soon.

- The next event will be a Darfur movie showing for club members and as extra credit for PIG students. Please note: We said we'd do this Friday, May 29th. However, Mr. Cone and I will NOT be here on that date. Plus, we don't think a lot of seniors would choose to stay after on a Friday. So, we would like to do this on Thursday, May 28th instead. We hope that this works for many of you. What we need to do is change the building use request for the pizza sale to Thursday, May 28th. We also need to hang up flyers. Please come to F206 to get the flyers to hang up.

- There will be no meetings May 8, 15, or 22nd. Our next meeting will be Thursday, May 28th.

Meeting Summary - April 24th

Welcome to all of the new members that joined us! As a result of Holocaust Remembrance and Genocide Awareness Day, many students felt motivated to take action and we certainly commend everyone for stepping up!

Here's what we discussed:
- We recapped the Scavenger Hunt. It was a fantastic event that was a lot of fun all-around. While participation was small, it was a great start and got the word out so when we do another one in the Fall people should be more interested in signing up. We did raise $90.

- We are cancelling the Dine-Around for this year. Even though it was a great success last year, it was a lot of work and we are pressed for time this year. We really only have one more meeting before May 29th, which was the scheduled date. We talked about perhaps doing this at a different time of the year, when there are no AP Exams looming, AP History Conference for us to plan, and so forth.

- We did want to try to do a bit more though between now and the end of the year. A member suggested holding a fund-raiser through a local restaurant, where a portion of the proceeds go to our cause. Danielle was going to try to to talk to Buona Sera and/or Roadside Grill to see if we could get a committment from either of those establishments.

- The other activity we would like to do before the end of the year is a movie showing. We had wanted to show a film for club members in the winter but early release due to snow messed that up. So, to educate club members as well as the school community, we would like to show a dvd on Friday, May 29th. Students in PIG classes could attend for extra credit. We would have students watch the movie and perhaps sign a petition or write a letter to their representative. We would coordinate a pizza sale at the same time. We need to fill out paperwork for the pizza sale and make flyers. Due to member suggestion, the dvd we would like to show is a PBS Frontline documentary called "On Our Watch."

- There will be no meetings May 8, 15, or 22nd due to AP review sessions and exams, and Memorial Day. So, we have this coming Friday and then the movie on May 29th. We also suggested wrapping up on Friday June 5th with a party and also recapping our year and our financial accounts.

IMPORTANT

TALK UP THE SCAVENGER HUNT - Get People to Register. Tell them to Smithtown West's homepage, click on "Vote" to sign up a team.

TUESDAY - The day we return from break - We NEED to meet after school. Please come!

Thanks.

Meeting Summary - March 20th

Today was a Scavenger Hunt focus day. The event is scheduled for Tuesday, April 21st. We discussed the online sign-up, and revised the rules. People were assigned different trivia sheets to work on, all of which should be dropped off in Ms. Donohue's room sometime next week, since we will not be meeting. The Scavenger Hunt is about a month away, so start to hype it up!

Our next meeting, on Friday, April 3rd, will focus more on the Dine Around, because the Scavenger Hunt seems to be going pretty smoothly.

Darfur Meeting Summary - March 13, 2009

Small turnout today...where's our 30 plus committee members? We miss you. Please come next week!

Here's what we discussed:
- news update about Omar al Bashir's arrest (see Ginny's previous post)
- Holocaust Remembrance and Genocide Awareness Day is set for April 16th. We will be showing the movie The Devil Came On Horseback again.
- We have THREE major events to focus on for the rest of the year. 1) Scavenger Hunt - set for April 21st. 2) Dine Around - set for May 29th. 3) Darfur Doors - to be up by April 16th.

We MUST get prepared for these events!

Good News!

The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for the President of Sudan based on his actions against the people of Darfur. Let us hope that he does not react violently before he is detained!

You can sign a petition to President Obama urging that he assigns someone to the Darfur crisis by following this link.

Bake Sales Next Week - We Need Help

We are unable to meet this Friday, so we called a brief meeting for today, Wednesday. Thanks to all who stopped by.

We are having a bake sale NEXT Thursday, February 13th. We need people to bake and to sign up to sell at the table. We need people periods 4-8. (Periods 4 and 8 right now we have no one slated to do..)

Also, we will continue the sale on Friday if we have enough leftovers. We will need people to sell on Friday too. Please post if you can commit to sell on any of these periods on either day.

Also, please bake stuff! You can drop your baked goods off in F206 on Thursday morning.

Lastly, we will need people to hang up flyers on Tuesday. Please come to F206 to get the flyers.

Thanks!

Meeting Overveiw for 1/9/09

• We were not able to do the DVD sale this week and have to cancel it.
• At next Friday's meeting, we will be watching the documentary Sand and Sorrow about the genocide in Darfur. Try to encourage new members to come and learn about our cause! Fliers will be going out at the beginning of the week- please stop by the room to get some to hang up.
• We decided to donate money raised from the comedy hypnosis show to STAND, an organization that provides alternatives for women who have to leave the camps in search of firewood, often being met with danger. Money goes to alternative-fuel stoves, hiring patrols, and paying for firewood.
• Our major upcoming fundraisers are the Scavenger Hunt and the Dine-Around. Does anyone have any additional ideas?
• We are trying to get the big display case near the library, and we already have a nice banner to hang in it, but we may have to take down our other display case in exchange.

See everyone next week!