Minutes of May 8th BUF BLM Business Meeting

BUF Black Lives Matter Ministry Action Team

Minutes of May 8, 2023, 7pm

In attendance: David Curley, Mike Betz, Claire Lending, Murray Bennett, Rupert Ayton

1. We lit a chalice and gave a land acknowledgement

2. ARAOMC moments and a summer BLM service

a. with the potential upcoming vote on a new jail, we decided we would try to reorient our work to focus on educating the congregation on incarceration in Whatcom County, with the ARAOMC moments as one vehicle

b. we decided we would put together a service (Aug 13 is the date offered) and will try to bring in a variety of voices and perspectives; David has volunteered to get this started

3. Canceling 4th Monday standing meeting

a. we agreed to cancel the 4th Monday standing meeting as it gets poor attendance and unfortunately not everyone seems to want to discuss the prior week’s guest speaker

4. SEJC/Beloved Community/BLM overlap and integration discussion

a. We discussed Beloved Community and decided we would try a bottom up approach to reorganizing and coming up with a vision for 2023; Murray will check to see if this is being taken up elsewhere at BUF

b. We discussed what SEJC does and where or how BLM may intersect with it

5. Projects

a. Speaker Series

i. We discussed Friendship Diversion Services set for May 15th and questions for them; also discussed doing a better job of getting the word out to the congregation

ii. We discussed Kendi, and Rupert will reach out; we also discussed reaching out to Walt for his POV

iii. Overall, for the short term, we would like to reorient our guest speaker selection to the topic of incarceration; a judge would be great

b. Education

i. We discussed coordination with Genia and our interest in educating the congregation on incarceration

6. Planned Events

a. May 25 George Floyd/Juneteenth video event

i. Will need volunteers to distribute flyers