2024
Thursday, August 10
4:00 pm - Check-in
Friday, August 11
2:00 pm - Discussion: the Oppenheimer film. Have you seen it? Here is an interesting article for background :
3:00 pm - Marguerite Adelman: We Need to Ban PFAS and Toxins Now.
5:00 pm - Rickey Gard Diamond: Mother Nature and YOU Need an Economy of Our Own!
6:30 pm - dinner
7:30 pm - Political updates with Paki Weiland & Nancy Price and roundtable discussion.
Saturday, August 12
11:00 am - 3:00 pm - Voices for Peace: US, Ukraine, Yemen and Beyond. Speakers at Pierce Hall in Rochester, a light lunch will be provided.
6:00 pm - dinner
7:30 pm - Roundtable discussion: What media do you consume? Where do you get your information? This talk is motivated by Robin who recently received the latest good looking issue of Jacobin magazine, published by Bhaskar Sunkara who has written The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality. Who is Bhaskar, and is he more radical than Bernie?
Participants are invited to share their opinion on the latest good book they’ve read on politics and social change.
Sunday, August 13
10:00 am - BY ZOOM - Theresa El-Amin, WILPF Columbus GA Fannie Lou Hamer Branch Organizer and Founder of Southern Anti-Racism Network (SARN) will speak about the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent and the movement for Reparations for descendants of enslaved Africans.
The UN Decade began on January 1, 2015 and runs to December 31, 2024. Theresa is on a tour that began in DC on August 8 with stops in Philadelphia, New York and final stops in Providence and Boston on August 14 and August 15. Rochester VT is a stop added to the tour at the invitation of Robin Lloyd of the WILPF Burlington VT Branch.
10:30 am - FreeHer Vermont. Jayna Ahsaf will present the FreeHer Campaign goal of ending incarceration of women and girls and closing women’s jails and prisons, especially in Vermont.
This is part of a nationwide effort headed by The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls.
11:30 am - Nicaragua: Jill Clark-Gollub is a WILPF member and a translator. Her family has deep roots in Nicaragua. She will speak about recent events there, and that reconcilliation does not mean forgetting.
12:30 pm - lunch
2:00 pm - Charlotte Dennett will lead a discussion on where we are now: hopes and fears.
Notes from The WILPF Gathering, July 20-24, 2022
Wednesday, July 20
Thursday, July 21
Friday, July 22
Saturday, July 23
Sunday, July 24
The Gathering is timed to overlap with the WILPF Intl Congress https://app.canapii.com/e/wilpf-congress-2022/home (7/16-24) organized by the Australian Section of WILPF. Go to the Canapii website above and register ($15) to view events on your own: or join us at Wing Farm for the second half of the Congress. We will also have locally generated events.
Wednesday, July 20:
6 am EST: online: Robin will be on a webinar as part of the Congress, talking and showing parts of Peace Train to Beijing 1995, with other participants remembering that extraordinary adventure.
4 pm EST: Online - Building Equity and Inclusion, Section by Section. In this workshop, WILPF US and WILPF UK members will investigate how we can build equity and include Section by Section challenging practices that have excluded members of colour and low-income women.
Thursday, July 21:
11 am: Greg Guma will talk about his book Restless Spirits and Popular Movements: A Vermont History at Sandy’s Books and Bakery on Main St., Rochester, outside on the porch, or inside.
1:30 pm: Eric Agnero will discuss movements for change in francophone Africa, back at Wing Farm.
4 pm: Paki Weiland and Mike Van Dusen: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization: Pros and Cons. How is NATO enlarging itself since the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Hear the discussion at the Gazebo, Rochester Town Square. Chairs will be provided.
Friday, July 22:
10 am: Appreciation of latest Peace and Freedom newsletter, (Robin) and recent WILPF US board activities.with Eileen Kurkoski.
11 am: drones, artificial intelligence, and how the next war will be fought with WILPF US board member Eileen Kurkowski.
1:30 pm: The Disempowerment and Disappearance of Women and Girls, with lawyer and activist Sandy Baird
4 pm: hybrid (on zoom) - Ukraine: oil and oligarchs with Charlotte Dennett and Gloria McMillan.
Saturday, July 23:
Afternoon: a discussion with John Moody. His partner and wife, Donna Moody, died this spring. Her obituary can be viewed here. Two paragraphs from it describe her lifelong commitment to the Abenaki Nation:
Donna worked tirelessly for 20 years with local, State, and Federal entities as the Repatriation Coordinator for the Abenaki Nation. Those efforts culminated in the return and reburial of over 200 Abenaki Ancestors along with facilitating the return of Ancestral remains to the Chickasaw Nation, Seneca Nation, Penobscot Nation, and Dakota Nation.
Always keeping an eye to serving the less privileged of society, along with her husband John, Donna created the non-profit organization Winter Center for Indigenous Traditions. Winter Center works to connect youth and elders, ensuring traditional ways continue, language revitalization, medical counseling, and providing for ways in which elders and young families can be assured of food security and basic human needs.
We will talk about her legacy and many gifts as well as how rare it is for Abenaki and other Indigenous Women to speak for themselves even in these days.