 All right. So I'm Kalea, Kalea Livingston. I am the chair of the board of directors here at the peace and justice center. I have been on the board for about a year. So now a little over a year. It's been a lot of fun, definitely a pleasure. We have a very short agenda today. However, I think it'll be filled with lots of good information and updates. We're just going to start with having you all do introductions in the chat. Just give us your name and your pronouns. Maybe something you're excited to hear today or your affiliation to PJC whatever you feel is most pertinent. So from there, we will move into staff updates and introductions, and then we'll move into updates from some of our allied groups who are joining us today. And from there, the board will introduce ourselves and we'll vote on board positions and then we'll end the meeting with some questions and comments from all of you. Hi, I'm Grace Garcia here who will be moderating the chat, which is awesome. Thank you, Aris. Oh, we're already seeing some introductions awesome. Hi, Wendy. Okay, I think we should just get right into staff updates. So we'll start off with Rachel, our executive director. Really nice to see you all. We were all in a room together in snacks, drinking tea. But here we are, and it's nice that people could show up and didn't have to leave their houses every now and then that is nice. I see Kristen's got her tea so nice. We thought that the big news this year was going to be that Wendy, one of our founders and on staff as the operations director for 41 years retired, and that there would be a new ED and that I'd be moving on. Those were going to be the biggest news of the year. Wendy did leave and that is big news. It's been a big adjustment, but I didn't leave because COVID hit as we were starting the transition process and it just wasn't the right time and I said I'll stay and write out this storm and then we were like wait how long is this storm. And they have restarted the process to move toward a transition so it's still happening it's just delayed and I'm happy that I could be here and that it was supportive for people to have me stay and I was glad to have the flexibility to do that. So the beginning of the year it's sometimes hard to remember, but it was a, you know, sort of regular busy time for us where there was lots of work to do lots of people in Vermont, doing different organizing and action work that we were supporting in small ways and in bigger more official ways with fiscal sponsorship and more. We were doing all of our regular educational programs for the public and also by contract for different groups. The activist development work that we do largely with interns and volunteers, and we were running our store. And, you know, we were cruising along sort of bumping along things are not easy doing this work. And then COVID hit, you know, we transitioned. Wendy left which was a huge transition. And then COVID hit, which was, you know, it rocked everyone's world right everybody's got their COVID narrative and hours and the beginning was just that, you know, everything got very quiet we shut the store we canceled all our programs we slowed down. We did lots of sort of internal self education work cleanup projects website cleanup. And then the thought pricings against the police murder of black people started after George Floyd murder. And suddenly our work went from like zero to 100. Over the course of a couple of days, and we were in high demand for support for, for protests that were happening immediately we started getting an unprecedented amount of requests for educational programs on racial justice. We started trying to figure out how to sell things again. So, we've been in fast motion and I have to say that the stress of COVID and of the, of the, you know, the world, and specifically the racism that has become, you know, even more obvious yet again as if it could get more obvious. Had an impact on the staff that we had some hard times and we were really fortunate to be able to work with Catherine Caden and Jesse Wiens who run an organization called Bob Bobetry International. And they did a circle process with us that brought us much closer together and to a new place with agreements about power and relationships so that we can build much more trust and understanding amongst ourselves which is really exciting to think about. Again, as I transition out that were that we've created this really beautiful space to welcome someone into. So, I think that's my update if people have questions later I can share more, but I will share a little bit on Kina's behalf Kina Thorpe is not able to be with us this weekend but she is our programming manager who oversees all of our educational programming. And like I said there's been an unprecedented number of requests for programs by contract and they are from nonprofits like feeding Chittenden and CBOEO businesses for social responsibility and they're from schools like the Waldorf school and I should have written myself a list because of course I can't think of them now but there's like 40 of them in the last three months it's wild. And then also our public programs which have been just filling up an unbelievable rate once we list them publicly. It's really exciting. So, she has also been working really hard Kina to develop new facilitators to work with and has created more systems to hold people accountable and to really fully train people and onboard them and it's great to be a growing group. That's what I'll say on Kina's behalf and you'll hear from her she writes the E news every two weeks so hopefully you get a chance to see that and keep up with us that way it's, it's a labor of love for her and it's just packed with information and we do get a really high open rate and I hope some of you are also checking it out and if you ever have things that you'd like us to put in it please let us know. And that's what I'll say for now. Thanks. Hi everyone. I'm eris I'm the volunteer coordinator and the assistant store manager. And the coven was intense, clearly, but the year for the store and for volunteers was pretty solid. Aside from having to close. Right before coven we had updated the store we were in the process of renovating. We thought new floors installed donated, which was even better. And when coven happened. Amy, who is our store manager and won't be able to join us today. Amy was able to take that time during coven to be able to focus on. Sorry, my cat is trying to try to say hi. Try to focus on managing our inventory in a way that would be sustainable for the organization. We have a lot of products in our store and we're really proud of all the vendors that we support but the things that we have just are not sustainable so we we took the time to be able to go through everything and now because of coven we have kind of shifted gears and decided to launch an e-commerce and online platform store that you'll be able to access come November. Excuse me October 30th next week. It will be launching. So that's really exciting. Rachel did you want me to screen share now. Do you guys want to see the store. I can show you what the store is going to look like you get a sneak peek preview. Nobody else has seen it yet so just give me one second. So you can be the first and if you have any quick feedback or anything pop it in the chat. And I will take that into consideration as we get ready to launch. So anything. If you love it, you hate it. All feedback is good feedback, especially right now before we launch. So you should be able to see our beautiful store. Everybody see the storefront. This is actually these little stones here are soapstone and they're key see stones from one of our vendors. And so what you'll do is you'll be able to go directly to our website. The pjcbt.org and there will be a link that will bring you to this platform. So everything is all in one place so be super easy to start off with we are launching our top 25 SKUs and all of our perishables. We are being really cognizant of making sure that we can support the vendors and artisans who have products that expire. We want to make sure that we continue to be an integrity when we are acting and selling things through and under a fair trade label. And so being able to maintain a sustainable relationship with these vendors is really important to us. So you see divine chocolate here with higher coffee from Pierre Bay. People will also be able to pick up like that matter signs which was a huge deal. In the middle of COVID at the beginning of summer, we did open for a short time in the store to be able to offer those to the community, which was a huge success we brought in over. I think we sold something over 150 signs and people donated in a range from $10 all the way to hundreds of dollars, just for BLM signs which was really quite beautiful. So you'll just see that we have it all set up here and these are all the different things you'll be able to buy right now. And we will be extending our offerings, as soon as we can figure out what is going to be the best for us. So that's pretty exciting. Everyone who is here is going to get a one time 30% off coupon. That's right. So I will be sending you will have a list of everybody who's joined today. So you will get a coupon for the store, which will be like Rachel said 30% off for our launch will only be for a month so you'll definitely want to make sure you use it. As soon as you get it, and you will be open for curbside pickup, or we will be doing some chipping for folks who don't live in the Burlington area, and who need to get their pride flags their BLM signs their coffee, whatever else it may be so it'll be super easy and user friendly. And we're very excited Amy has worked really hard on the background on the back and to be able to put all of these things in here. And this is a huge labor that we are really excited to be able to offer, not only to you as our members, but especially as our community members. And it will allow us to have sustainable relationships which is really the key to all of this. A little bit. That was for Amy, a little bit about volunteers. COVID was really hard but it was also actually really beautiful volunteers gathering started to be done online and I see quite a few faces here who have been coming regular to the gathers and having some beautiful conversations in our gatherings we've been learning about the details because we are all online we have new needs. So being able to have people host zoom meetings for us and be our back end support. Those kind of volunteer needs are new for us. And I really appreciate the volunteers who have stepped up and taken on those extra responsibilities and really been there for us. So a big thank you to you and then also if anybody's interested, go ahead and go to the website and fill out the volunteer form. And I can get you started with a new task, because there's plenty to do from home right now. And if you are feeling comfortable, you can help us with the launch of the store there's things to be done in the center, and we definitely will need help with those things also. Something else that I personally am really proud of that I did this year. We were very lucky to have time donated from a place called Noel Farm, and we hosted our first ever by Poc retreat for all of the folks who are on our board who are by Poc our staff and our racial justice advisory committee. And hopefully we have cultivated an amazing relationship to be able to continue that program every year. So we're already in the talks about how to get one going for this coming year, which is really been amazing having that time to get to know each other in a safe environment that was quarantined was really special, I think to all of us and really re energized us the by Poc that helped run this organization, especially during this time coven and the racial uprisings and we just, it was really nice to have that time to be really excited about to be able to offer and to participate in guide. So thank you for those who were able to come and also thank you to those who are going to support next year's by Poc retreat will be fundraising to make that happen. So definitely look out for that in a future e news from Tina. So, other than that I think that's everything to have on behalf of Amy and myself. I appreciate all of you being here. I'll just pass it along to Josh. My name is Joshua use he him pronouns. The newest member to the CJC is so honored to be here. And it's a pleasure to meet all of you. I've had communications with quite a few of you so, and I wrote in text to others so it's been like nice to put a face to it. And thank you for all your contributions and donations everything really is meaningful and it's like as you've heard already, a lot of it's been going towards really wonderful causes and things that we've been doing this year. Hi, so since I took over, there's been a lot of backlog of information so one of the main things that I've been doing is just making sure that all of our documents, our paper and digital records from last year are just being updated. Aside from that one of the projects that I've been a part of that's been really exciting and engaging for me was, we've been trying to update our server. We currently have a older server in the office and we are trying to decommission this and switch transition into a more online cloud based platform. This would allow us to upgrade our house security and make sure that establish a new firewall and just things like that that'll just make all of our finances and all of our records just be a little bit more private and protected. Another thing that we're kind of working on here would be. A lot of different things and just trying to work on trying to transition things a little bit more efficiently so another item would be the pay data we're working with this new company to start our payroll. So we're just trying to start, you know, tighten up some areas, take some of the, the tasks that I've been in charge of or what Wendy was doing before me. And I just try to streamline some of these things in a way that will make a little more efficient, essentially, but it's been wonderful, and I'm glad to be here. And that's all I have. Thank you. Thanks so much, Josh, and to the rest of staff for those great introductions. Now I'd like to move into updates from allied groups and I really. Sorry, before you do that, since some people came late, maybe reintroduce yourself. So would you do you mind? Sure, I'm Kulia. I'm the chair of the board of directors here at PJC. You'll hear a little more about me when the board introduces ourselves in a few agenda items. So next, I would like to move into updates from allied groups. Ideally, if people could keep their introductions to about a minute or so. That would be awesome. So we have time for everybody to speak. And I cut in again. I'm sorry. Sure. We didn't talk about this when we were setting the agenda that it probably makes sense just to say a sentence or two about what the allied groups are, because it's a huge part of what we do. We offer fiscal sponsorship to other groups all around the state if they're doing work that's mission aligned and the fiscal sponsorships a huge part we do while they're bookkeeping and then there's other infrastructure that we're also able to share and there's more than active groups right now. So you'll hear from a few. Sorry to cut you off again. That's okay. I think that was important. Thank you, Rachel. So to start, let me just make sure Lydia is here. We have Lydia diamond from Brooklyn Strong here to give us some updates and a brief introduction. Lydia, are you here? I see her. I see. So, I'll wait and we'll move to the next group. Kathy Shapiro from Vermonters for justice in Palestine. Hi. Yeah, I'm Kathy Shapiro. Vermonters for justice in Palestine has been a group. I've been around for over 20 years. I've been with them for about 10. Also, Wafiq Fawar is is here from our group and I'd like him to add anything that I forget. We, we support our actions are largely education informing people about Palestinian rights and particularly the right of return and their struggle for human rights and for self determination and and for the right of return and and and and to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, and we work with various other groups to educate some of our current ongoing activities despite COVID are a television program on public TV which can be accessed through Vimeo or your public TV channel called Salam Shalom which Mark Hage does. And as we started that he shows films and interviews people on various aspects of Palestine and their and the Palestinian struggle for rights, and the BDS movement the boycott divestment and sanctions movement. So, which also contributes, and some of us have some others of us have contributed every two weeks to the peace and justice center bi-weekly newsletter. So you should see something in every newsletter, usually by Mark about what's going on with Palestinian rights what's going on right now with Palestine. We have been hampered, obviously, by COVID and things that we normally do on an annual basis. And we have a campaign against Ben and Jerry's the the Ben and Jerry's finest the company in based in Burlington, which is, which is in some ways, it is part of Unilever, but it is a Vermont company. And we are campaign is to get Ben and Jerry's to withdraw the franchise that they have in Israel which sells their ice cream in illegal Jewish settlements in Palestinian occupied territory. And we that campaign is many years old. It's part of, it's part of the BDS campaign and we're very happy to say that I think a couple of years ago, the peace and justice center also endorsed the boycott divestment and sanctions campaign. Other issues were constantly fighting with our legislation against the right of students to organize for Palestinian solidarity and accusations of anti Semitism that any criticism of Israel equals anti Semitism, which it does not. And, and these issues pop up all the time at UVM and elsewhere, and, and we're engaged in letter writing or anyway those those are just not to go on and on a few of the issues that we deal with, and we're not very many people and once again it's, it's, it's hard to do this work in the time of COVID and if it's possible maybe what he can can say something about the work that he does on behalf of VTJP with other organizations. Kathy, we actually have to move on to the next group limit how much time each group. Thank you so much for that introduction. Lydia, I see you're back on the call. Are you ready to give us an introduction and brief updates. We're hoping to keep each introduction to about a minute or a minute and a half or so. She and you. Yeah, we can hear you, we can hear at the park with the people's kitchen we about to serve food, but I'm Lydia diamond. And Brooklyn strong is my organization, or our organization so to speak, Brooklyn strong is named after my granddaughter, she just turned on last Sunday, and she was diagnosed with chronic my leoid leukemia. In the brief time that I've been with you guys. I've been through a lot, and I need more assistance from all of you. I don't know you all, but I would like to get to know you better. And I would like more hands on assistance with certain things like Rachel you mentioned that you guys do our bookkeeping. I didn't know that I need to know that. So I'm, I'm just gonna stop it right there. I really appreciate y'all. And I want this childhood cancer society, Brooklyn strong to be successful, because we have children in our own community that need us. They need our support, they need our love, they need all that they are entitled to. And that's it. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Lydia. Thanks Lydia, I just want to say, I will send you an email and we can kind of set a time to have further conversations about what we can do for you to support the system, so that'd be wonderful to set up. I would greatly appreciate it. What's your name again. I'm Joshua. I'm the operations manager so we could definitely. Joshua. Nice to officially meet you. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Lydia. All right. Moving into hearing from Heather from from to creative community. Yeah, you're here you have there you're unmuted, but you should turn up your phone maybe volume on your phone, or hold it closer to your mouth. A little bit just speak loudly to create a community which is to see for short, and it means to to see to understand the need to design with our planet in mind and teach these techniques to all. We're an arts organization, and we just moved from when you ski, which was our studio to Milton Vermont, where right now we're on 18 acres so hoping to have some artists residency is starting and trying to start a BIPOC artist residency. And, and hopefully you start a sculpture park with performances and markets happening through whenever COVID could allow for things like that but since we have all this acreage right now. It seems like a good thing, rather than being in a building itself. So, thank you so much for being our allied group. We look forward to some more online programming and more arts for everybody. Thank you so much. Thank you, Heather. Next we have coach Christie from the social equity caucus and task force. Hello everybody. Beautiful day in Vermont. I, I'm going to keep this brief. I've, I put a description letter together for, I'm going to, I'll share that with Joshua and he can maybe share it with with everyone. But to very briefly start. The social equity caucus is a very unique entity. It's made up of legislators community members community organizations. And, and I humbly have to say that if it wasn't for the hard work that Rachel and the number of the other board members put in, we probably wouldn't exist. When you get a chance to read the letter I think it'll make a little more, more sense. It's a one pager. I think it is a synopsis of what we do. And this is something that everybody on this call can be proud of the legislation that was passed this session. And that involved racial justice was the result of your involvement with this caucus. And that, you know, is, it's a very proud moment for all of us, you know, was it perfect. No, but what is, but did it make some very serious inroads in the where areas that we needed to. Use of force. Civilian oversight. Training. Mental health services all recovered. So I just want to thank you. Again, so much because I know it was difficult for the board to understand the unique nature of this group. Just to understand and we live with it. But that being said, I really am humbled and honored that you guys decided to, to help us out, because it is helping for monitors around the state. So thank you again so much. Thank you. I appreciate that great description. And we have Maria Rinaldi from the choir for peace and justice. Hi everyone. I'm very pleased to be here today and especially to go after my very good friend coach Christie nice to see you. I'm coming to speak to you today about the chorus I formed. It's a piece in justice chorus where every voice is welcome with a lot of people actively working to divide us up. The goal of the chorus is to provide a safe space for its members and to bring people and audiences together through music. Again, we met. We began in the fall of 2019, which was about the same time I reached out to the peace and justice center to be our fiscal agent. We were doing very good things we were we split rehearsals up between Colchester and Jericho where I live to try to reach as many people as possible to participate and I was very excited when our membership got up to 60 people. We had a lot of fun learning the music together and planning for upcoming performances. And then COVID hit and everything was shut down and eventually canceled. So singing is one of the most high risk activities out there during the pandemic because you aspirate smaller articles from your lungs when you sing. So we had to stop meeting in person in March of 2020, realizing that the shutdown was going to last a while. A couple months into I set up my house so that I could host zoom rehearsals online. But unfortunately, there was a huge reduction in participants. We had problems that stemming from either internet connectivity, parents trying to homeschool their children dealing with that or just folks not liking the zoom experience. But there was still a core 10 to 15 members who really craved the community of meeting each week. So I continue to work with them. It's not the ideal way to rehearse. There's latency in the internet which creates sound delays. So we cannot sing at the same time. Otherwise it results in what I like to call a cacophony of chaos. So sadly, I have to mute everyone and play their parts and sing to them on my end. But all I can see is their mouths moving. And I can't tell if they're singing in tune. But given the fact that COVID is surging surging again. And it looks like we're going to have to stay home longer. Much longer than I was anticipating. I'd like to rebuild the organization and focus on the online community aspect of it as much as possible. Who knows, we might even be able to recruit some people who are feeling isolated at home. So our next steps are to update the website to reflect the new environment we're working in, make virtual recordings. Form a planning committee to come up with ideas, develop initiatives, plan events, fundraising, etc. Create an online Facebook group for members to share what they're doing with each other. And when this is all over, we begin to return to normal activities. I'm hoping your organizations will consider having a sing for your events. We have a repertoire of songs that will work for any event to celebrate women, black lives matter, LGBTQ lives, disability community, etc. And we're happy to learn new music as well to fit your needs. As we begin to make virtual recordings, we would even be happy to work with you. Perhaps with upcoming virtual events, you may be holding. So that's us in a nutshell. Thank you, Maria. I appreciate that. Next we have Morgan from people for peace and security. Thank you. I am also known as Jennifer Decker. Many folks know me that way I just decided to go through a name change. Recently, so I appreciate everyone just making an effort on that. And I am here from people for peace and security and I just want to invite everyone who would like to come to a virtual screening of two short five minute films called get the f 35 out parts one and two. On Tuesday night, we're going to, we have a zoom setup and if you're interested, you can just message me your email and I'll send you the information. Thank you for that Rachel so our group has been working to end the basing of the f 35. And I would say over the last few months that we as a movement have been reckoning more and continuing to reckon with the intersectional nature of the work that we're doing in terms of militarism and the proper emphasis of that work. And in terms of the impact on people's lives in countries where us imperialism and other forms of imperialism are strong, as well as the negative impact in terms of ongoing colonialism, the use of oil on the impact of climate change. And also the influence of different state actors in terms of militarized power so that would include police brutality, and the importance for our group of standing an alliance with immigrant rights and people seeking asylum in this country. And so there's a lot of shifting, I think, and, you know, recently in terms of current local events, the, you know, people for peace and security has been able to ally with groups to make our movement more intersectional. So, right now there's a campaign going on with a letter to the inspector general about the basing, and we're continuing to oppose the environmentally unjust impact in terms of the social justice issues with the communities that are the most affected by the basing of the plane. I don't know about the rest of you, but my ears are ringing. I was trying to record an F 35 over when you ski about three weeks ago and my ears have simply not stopped ringing. And we do know that the planes are harming children's development. Attention spans and all of that and yet the flights continue to take off and we all know now just how horrific it is but the local impacts are nothing compared with what the use the planned use of the planes, including the retrofitting with nuclear weapons being really horrifying. So we have launched a boycott of the Burlington airport, which we invite people to sign on to and it's voluntary because we know not everyone is in a position to be able to avoid flying. And we have a Facebook page which is people for peace and security cancel the F 35. And again I just want to invite everyone to see and if you can't come see the films you can contact us and you can get the YouTube links. If you can't come to the event but please feel free to share the event and you can do that by coming to our Facebook page as well or feel free to message me. Thank you. Thanks Morgan. All right. So thanks again to all of our allied groups. I appreciate those updates and I see people are plugging certain events in the chat which is awesome. I hope everybody who's willing to participate actively does so. So first on our agenda, we have introductions from the board which I will start and introduce myself again my name is Kalia Livingston I've been on the board for a little over a year now. I'm the chairperson. And one thing that I've been involved in recently in regard to the board. I actually just was a juror for the Lawrence debate, sorry, the Lawrence debate union. My apologies. I was a juror for the Lawrence debate union in which this year their topic was in regards to social justice more specifically about police abolition it was a very insightful experience and I think I learned a lot which I will take back to the board and hopefully we can utilize in our future efforts to move forward towards police abolition. I don't want to volunteer to go next or should I start calling names from the board I'm seeing Jen here. So we can start with Jen. Hi, I'm Jennifer Charlo patchlack I she her pronouns. I am an attorney and live in Waterbury Center. I've served on the board for three years. I'm the secretary. I have organized the auction the last couple of years that we usually do at our award ceremony at the end of March and well as we all know unfortunately we weren't able to go forward with that. I'm excited this year but I'm really excited to be again working with some volunteers in the office to launch an online auction with all of the wonderful items that we gathered. We've just you know had stored hoping that at some point we would be able to hold the auction so keep your eyes out for that and we have some great stuff and thank you. Thanks Jen. Next I'm seeing David. I'm David Shiman. He is him. And I've been on the board since seems the beginning of time but I think it's seven years. I'm really interested right now and working in South Burlington on a fair and impartial policing policy and trying to work with the South Burlington chief police to revise their policy to particularly with respect to lack of collaboration with ice. And so we're working on that and it's a slow process. I guess that's it for now. Thanks Jen. Jaina you're up next. Hi everyone I'm Jaina off off I use your pronouns. I've been on the board for about nine months now. We just had this really great monthly volunteer gathering clear and I actually hosted it with Eric. It was a great opportunity for community building, and it reminded me why we do all this. So that was something that I'm really inspired about from being on the board so far. But yeah, thank you. Thanks Jaina. TJ our newest board member is here so let's hear an intro from him. Hi everyone. It's great to see you all. My name is TJ Sengare. I use he him pronouns. I'm a sophomore at St. Michael's College and I've been on the board for about a month now. And despite my short time on the board I really enjoyed being a part of the PJC and contributing to the liberation of all marginalized folk. I've been involved with recently I've been in contact with a woman in Milton Vermont who's been experiencing a lot of really awful and violent racism. So I've been focusing on different ways that we can help get her story out, as well as ways we can help keep her safe. And you know, she's in a horrible situation that no one should be in but I'm glad that I've had the opportunity to join the PJC and offer as much support as possible. And so thank you all for joining us, supporting us and helping build the loving and inclusive world that we all envision. Thanks TJ. And last but not least we have Nathan here. Hi, I'm Nathan Souter I use he him pronouns live in Montpelier. I'm a organizational consultant organizational development consultant, and I've been on the board since 2011, which is a long time. I really love the dynamics of this board in this organization, and most recently participated in a bystander intervention training put on by PJC which had something like, you know, 75 people on a zoom training, which is just so awesome. You know, I had the pleasure of have the pleasure of working, most recently, a bunch with Joshua on some of the financial stuff. I'm the treasure of the board, and really impressed with his work to pull that all together so thank you Joshua. And that's it. Thanks you guys for coming today. It's really cool to see so many people here. Thank you, Nathan. And we have two more members who are absent today, Emma Schoenberg as well as Chuck Brewer. So I just wanted to bring them into the space, even though they're not here. I could speak for a second on what each of them have been working on. I don't know what they would say they're most excited about, but some of the things they're involved with that I'm excited about Emma does a lot of organizing nationally in addition to her work with Peace and Justice Center and she's involved with a whole lot of stuff right now around post election shenanigans. And she's representing the Peace and Justice Center on some of the local groups meeting around that. She also has helped develop and present some of our non violence educational programs. And Chuck Brewer I know is serving on the hiring committee and has been an important voice there. He also has worked as a co facilitator for our people color affinity group that meets monthly. So there's a couple things about them and sorry that you don't get to meet them. There you have it. All right, so now we're going to move into voting for board positions that are up for reelection, which Rachel is going to bring up the polls and kind of describe the voting process via zoom, since this is all new for us. Yeah. So, when we are bylaws state that we do our people serve to your terms, and that we present a slate of board members for people to vote on so you don't vote on individuals you'll just vote on the full slate. And six of our board members are actually up for election right now. And so I'm going to set up a poll that shows you their eight names. Oh sorry there's six names, and you'll get to vote yes no or abstain. Anybody have any questions before I go ahead and open up the poll. If you haven't done a poll on Facebook it's it's very simple it'll pop up on your screen and you just click your answer. Maybe just in case for those who don't know. I mean, abstain means that you're not going to vote. And if you're not on Facebook. Oh, did I say Facebook I meant zoom it's going to pop up on zoom. In this meeting right now. Yeah sorry. And everybody who's here can vote as my understanding that was a question. Everyone who's here can vote in terms of you'll have access to the poll. However, the people according to our bylaws who can vote our members. So, some of you here aren't actually dues paying members so please don't vote. Anybody who volunteers is a member and anybody who pays starting at $15 a year as a member so if you don't fall into one of those categories. Please go to our website and become a member as soon as you can or you can send a check and Joshua will take care of that. But I'll go ahead and open up the poll. And if you're confused about whether or not you're a member. Just send me a note, and I will try to answer you quickly. Kristen did I answer your question. Let's see if this is the first time I've done polls. So, my gosh, I just realized Chuck's not listed there. Lawyer Jen, can you tell me should I make a new poll with Chuck's name or can we just tell people to include Chuck. Is it going to take a long time to make a new poll, maybe 30 seconds. Okay, why don't we just do that so we have an official ballot that does include Chuck. Sorry, let's see. So if we're not a member do we abstain or just stop bother vote. Just don't bother I think are the affiliates members, not unless they're also a member. I got a check. I could say that groups aren't members only individuals. So that's another way to explain it. So if anybody wants to be able to vote next year, and definitely become a member, you can either do monthly donations or monthly payments or you can do a yearly payment, whatever is best for you. And Josh will be the one that helps after you submit your request online. So I have a question so there's like blocks of people to vote for how many times, like how many. I don't understand how it's working. Well here comes the poll again, you can vote for the slate, or you can vote against the slate. It's presented as a slate by the board. So this, this is the only slate. Yes, this is. Sorry, I was thinking something different. Thank you. Oh, sorry, it wasn't more clear. Oh, we can't vote for individuals. That's correct. You vote just for a slate. That's how it's set up in our bylaws. We've actually done it incorrectly previously and allowed people to vote for individuals, but it's supposed to be the full slate. Okay. Give it another 30 seconds in case anybody's having any problems with that and then I will publish the results. Unmute yourself and let me know if you need more time. I'm going to end the poll, and I'm going to share the results. Can you all see the share. Yeah, cool. So there you have it. Our board is confirmed. Yay, thank you. We love our board. So thank you. I'm happy to continue doing the work that I've been doing. Great. So the last agenda item is up to you all to ask your questions and comments. If you would like to. Speak then go ahead and use the raise hand feature. However, feel free to just write questions in the chat and errors will keep up with those. And let me know when questions come up. I'm not seeing any questions so far. Are there any comments? I'll just say that I'm really excited about the store and about the online store and. I'm just really excited and want to get in there and do something to help that process. All right, your name down Leslie. And I guess if people do have comments or questions go ahead and take a moment to say who you are because Leslie is one of our volunteers and a member and it's so wonderful to have your, you know, have you as part of our team. I'm Shelly Bramilia. Am I next or. Yeah, okay, thanks. I don't have time to be a facilitator right this moment, but I've been taking the talking to kids about racism and just did the bystander intervention it's really amazing what we can accomplish on zoom so I'm really grateful to be able to participate in that. I'm facilitating all kinds of other things in my life so I'm with the work, and I'm really grateful to be part of this community. Thank you. Go DJ. I'm raising my hand because I don't know. I haven't had to use the hand raising feature in this zoom stuff I've been doing. I just want to say, I've been helping Joshua and I'm really happy he's there and he's really smart and it's a great addition to the staff and the whole organization. Thank you Joshua and it's so fun to see your whole face now, because we've always been wearing masks so. Susan I see your hand up. Yeah, thanks. Susan Sean father I do some facilitating with the racial justice program. I just have been want to say how much and I have been and how much appreciation I have for everything that the staff has done this year for Rachel for willing around and changing her projected future in order to, you know, to keep things going for everybody on the staff's ability to, you know, take on everything it's meant in their personal lives to be dealing with the pandemic and the economic insecurity and the, you know, racial justice crisis that we don't have been there but it's become, you know, it's like took us and shook us around and threw us on the ground. And I just have been so impressed with everything everybody's done and the good work and the to see you all smiling and bringing us together like this. I just want to thank you and say how much I appreciate it. George, you can go ahead. Yes, thank you. This is George cloak. I'm in Middlebury. And I have been happy to support the peace and justice center for a number of years. My question is about what's happening after the election. There are people in middlebury and of course, everywhere in the country I think ready to stand up and demonstrate a protest. The things may happen right after the election I wonder if the peace and justice center is organizing or attached to any of that effort. Yes, we are definitely involved in some of the efforts helping to connect people who are working in coalition with each other. I've actually been working closely for the last couple of days George with Spence and Dorothy Mammon, who both live in your area you probably know them on the count every boat pledge I think you were on those initial counts that I was on. Well, the three of us have now been working on that there's a pledge that we're trying to get all state legislators to take so that then Vermont could say all of our state legislators have signed on to say that every vote needs to be counted and and that that can then, you know that we can take the lead in this country so that if our current president does any of the things that he's hinted at in terms of not leaving office that that we're in a good position to to have already made the decision and be able to push some of the other legislators around the country. There's also the petition going around specifically just for the governor that is being presented tomorrow and we didn't start that we haven't been a big part of organizing it but we've helped amplify it. So, there's that and then there's the coalition work that we've been part of with be perg and with rights and democracy and then another group that's being spearheaded by 350 Vermont. Richard Ziplinski is on this call from veterans for peace we started meeting a while back about it so there's not any one singular plan but there's lots of groups helping to train people up for nonviolent direct action. And we are involved more as a supporter and as a part of coalitions and less taking the lead on things around this issue. Is that helpful. Yeah, okay. Any last remarks from anyone. Not seeing any updates in the chat or any hands being raised. All right well thank you so much, all of you for coming and participating here at this event. I hope that you've taken some solid information home with you and hopefully we can have you all participating in more PJC events as well as some of the other allied groups shared here today as well. Thank you so much for coming everyone.