Sunday, June 5, 2016

June 1st meeting, OKC Peace Walk



To the Planning Team for
International Day of Peace
September, 2016 -- Metro OKC

Please join our next planning session. It will be:

Wednesday, June 22nd -- 6pm
Raindrop Turkish House
4444 N. Classen Blvd
Oklahoma City, OK   73118
In Oklahoma City, the International Day of Peace will be celebrated on Saturday, September 24th, in collaboration with the TURKISH FESTIVAL at the Myriad Gardens.

At our last planning meeting, we developed our idea: For our celebration of the International Day of Peace, we envision a peace march taking place as part of the festival. The peace march will feature international groups, youth groups, faith groups, advocates for peace and sustainable development, etc. We will ask Mayor Cornett to issue a proclamation. There may be a short time for a speaker or speakers -- we would like to hear from young people who support the culture of peace that is growing in our world.

At our meeting on June 1st were: Ersin Demirci, Priya Desai, Noel Jacobs, Joan Korenblit, Moses Mast, Sadie Mast, Bill Bryant.

We recognize that our planning group is small, and it ought to be more representative of the community that we serve. We want to invite more people to join us -- people with connections to Hispanic groups, Asian, university groups, international students, the Peace House, interfaith groups, the Ralph Ellison Foundation, etc.

Ersin Demirci is the prime organizer for the Turkish Festival. He assured us that our peace marchers will be welcome at the festival, and he offered to make a time slot available to recognize the International Day of Peace. He suggested that the march should be designed to conclude about 2pm. Then, we could design a short program (less than 30 minutes) which might include a song and a speaker or two or three.

(Ersin needs to get an "OK" from the people at the Myriad Gardens; the Raindrop Turkish House holds the permit for the use of the Myriad Gardens on September 24th, but it doesn't include the march that we envision; the permit needs to be amended).

Current thinking is that the march might attract several hundred marchers -- maybe 1,000 or more. At a minimum, we will circle the block with a procession that culminates on the Great Lawn. (All of this is in downtown OKC).

We brainstormed the names of some people who we think would be good speakers:

Sam Presti (Oklahoma City Thunder)
Steven Charleston (St. Paul's Cathedral, OKC)
Steven Charles (Ignite OKC)
Aamr Hasanjee (Muslim Student Association, UCO) UPDATE: I'm very honored that my name arose among the talk of potential speakers; If you all choose, I would be more than to happy to speak! hasanjee.aamr@gmail.com

(The list is not exclusive).

We also think we would like to ask Mayor Cornett to issue a proclamation. Steve Hill is the mayor's chief of staff.

There are still lots of details to be worked out. We'll need to develop guidelines for marchers. We need a plan for recruiting participants. Will there be music, drums, flags, and banners? Pinwheels? We need someone to design a flyer / email announcement. So many things to think about. 

Please join us on Wednesday, June 22nd, to take the next steps forward.

See you at the Raindrop Turkish House!

--Bill

Bill Bryant
Communications Director
Oklahoma City Chapter
United Nations Association of the USA

As we go forward, news about our planning efforts will be posted at Carmen's Casady Peace Week blog ...The minutes of the first meeting can be found at
http://casadypeaceweek.blogspot.com/2016/05/united-nations-international-day-of.html

UPDATES
E-mail from Prya

Does anyone have the contact information for Steve Hill. I will be happy to submit a request via email withsample proclamation language.  Last year I submitted it to mayor@okc.gov but never got a response. Maybe someone with a good existing relationship with the Mayor's office would have better luck.

I think creating a facebook event and a flyer to share and circulate would be great. Once we have more information it should be rather easy to do both of these things. I can assist where needed. 

 Emails from Rhena
Rhena made a fabebook page
I just wanted to get something up on the calendar, save the date more or less. I found out there's a UNA OKC FB page, so it's probably more appropriate to have it listed under that. When you get something up, I'll take mine down, or adjust it to just note CCA's activities within the larger event. 

Rena
aka Serena Blaiz 
Program Director, Center for Conscience in Action
Oklahoma State Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator of Amnesty International
Activist, Organizer, Editor, Web Developer, Media Producer and Digital Communications Consultant  Phone: 405.598.RENA | "peacearena" on Facebook, Twitter et. al.
Emails from Carmen Carmen contacted Sam Presti's press person and Bill will reply the commitment question.
Carmen also gave the idea of a t-shirt for the walk.  The design has to be done by the end of June to write a letter to Coca Cola to explore the possibility of a t-shirt sponsorship.  Her personal favorite design is a peace sign made of 240 flags which can be found at http://worldpeacesign.org/index.htm
Carmen wrote the following e-mail to the artist who is from Sweden,
Dear Mr. Ulf Enhörning   ue@summerclouds.com

My name is Carmen Clay and I am a member of a volunteer group trying to organize a peace walk in Oklahoma City on September 24, 2016 to celebrate the International Day of Peace (9/21 which is on a Wednesday this year) for the first time in our city.  

As I look for ideas for a t-shirt for the walk, which we hope to find sponsors to give away free to anyone who participates in the walk, I found your website from a google search.

Respectfully, I submit the following questions to you:

1.  Will you be interested in designing an original logo for our peace walk?  How much will that cost?

2. Do you grant permissions to use your amazing flags peace sign design?  What is the cost?  If you were to grant us permission, could we add OKC Peace Walk 2016.  

I help with the citywide activities to celebrate the International Day of Peace, but in my school, my students and I have been trying to raise awareness of the 11 Days of Global Unity (9/11-9/21) since 2007.  To see what we have done in the past and the brainstorming we began in May, please visit http://casadypeaceweek.blogspot.com/

Looking forward to your reply,

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