AC Politics 2nd Meeting 12th March,2014

AC Politics 2nd Meeting Minutes Date: 12th March,2014 Time: 21:00-22:00 Venue: Language Room 3 Present: Avia, Irene, Charlotte, Jeremie, Mira, Shu, Yuko, Sankalp, Tim, Lucy, Mile, Marion, Catrin, Miina, Claire, Omar, Carl, Noam, Chris, Thulith, Andy, Suzanne, Alexas 1. Structure Proposed by Avia & Irene The meeting started with Avia & Irenes proposal of the Peace Council(PEACO) 4 categories forming PEACO (read ppt for details): i. ii. iii. iv. Headline Crew : making sure these things are happening (Igniting a Spark) Campaigns for AC community: Informational Campaigns (Spark that ignites a flame) External ACtion: Informational Campaigns (Spark that ignites a flame) Internal ACtion: (by AC for AC)

The 4 main committees should meet all together weekly at 21:00(Wednesday except the week of Staff-student council) to report progress, or gather ideas. Other meetings after the PEACO would be expected.

2. Discussions about the Proposed Structure Concern[Timing]: The PEACO should be a facilitation to allow discussion around the school instead of having discussion during the council itself. The suggested discussion time about world issues as the start of PEACO should be cancelled. Suggestion[Timing]: The start of PEACO should address world issues or any campaign from the campaign committee but not as a valuable use of time to discuss politics issues concerning the time constraints. Suggestion[Timing]: The 20Minutes discussion should be cut down as it complements newsflash Concern[Timing]: The council should find alternative for an open space for students to discuss about politics Suggestion[Structure]: One or two regular members / leaders should consistently lead each committee to allow interested students to contribute in organizing campaigns or focus week Suggestion[Structure]: Members of each committee should be consistent, yet interested students should form groups in proposing activities or campaign irregularly as well Suggestion [Headline Crew]: may adopt the format of ACNN but should bring out more current ideas Concern[Headline Crew]: Structure like ACNN would be overlapping Suggestion [Headline Crew]: The crew can assign each member a date for headlines and the members could work respectively for the date. Concern[Headline Crew]: The crew should focus not on global caf and newsflash but work as an umbrella over them like SLACC, to facilitate new initiatives and ideas for AC Suggestion [Headline Crew]: The crew could feed ideas to global caf & newsflash to have school-wide focused discussion in different platforms, and as well to make sure the initiatives are known and happening Suggestion [Headline Crew]: The crew could develop on the idea of thematic discussion or politics gathering instead. (Sankalp would send the related documents of thematic discussion to Irene & Avia to develop the idea) Suggestion [Headline Crew]: The crew might implement questions to be sent to students on somemain controversial issue as a way to bring the sparkle and get students to react about it like the AiU

AC Politics 2nd Meeting 12th March,2014

Suggestion [Structure]: To merge the Headline Crew with Internal ACtion as both teams are working for the internal activities for the AC students. The Headline Crew would focus in brining news to AC community in a regular basis by a consistent flow of news sharing & making sure platform like the global caf and newsflash happening for discussion. While Internal Action has to come up with activities irregularly like focus week and diploma period. Merging the two would slow down the progress hence it should remain as proposed to for time and to keep the groups focused. Reminder [Internal ACtions]: The Internal ACtion should make sure discussion is balance and open in the focus week or diploma period. Suggestion [External ACtions]: A set group of people should engage students to participate in the External ACtions instead of different individual groups organizing activities separately. Suggestion [External ACtions]: They should make connections with political groups or local organizations Suggestion [External ACtions]: Different groups of students could take rota communicating with different external orgs and the committees should make sure a number of on-going events happening. Concern [External ACtions]: The idea sounds vague without a certain structure. It might be dominated by the organizations without a certain extent of AC ideas and involvements Suggestion [External ACtions]: The committee should not purely work with organizations but work together with Internal ACtion following the focused theme while bringing external impacts by signing petitions, organizing trips or writing letters. Suggestion [External ACtions]: The committee should as well work as the umbrella to facilitate initiatives of the council and the link with local organizations. Concern: No clear distinction between Campaign for AC community and Internal Action Suggestion[Structure]: To merge Campaigns for AC community and Internal Action Clarification: Campaign for AC community: a group of students focus on one issue at a time to hold debate and to have ideas coming out from AC Internal ACtion: Irregular activities for AC community Suggestion: The 4 categories should work as the filter which whenever idea being raised should go through the 4 categories to make sure the students initiatives to have all-rounded impacts Suggestion: To make the AC community out of the AC bubble, the council should place largest extent of importance to External ACtion and to bring changes instead of purely discussions.

3. PEACO being one of the Main Council like StuCo & SusCo Peace is one of the major element in the mission so it should be the major council echoing the mission, and only being official the council could gain the staffs recognition which seen essential in the council. Suggestion: Few campaigns should be done by the end of this term and to establish an official council the next term with house representatives bound by their role . It should be a channel for AC to connect with other UWCs through political concerns & participations Concern[Election of Reps]: The position of house reps might label certain students, yet everyone should be offered equal opportunities to involve in peace discussion. Concern[Election of Reps]: Consistent students involvement is essential to the establishment of PEACO, house reps would regulate certain participation and reps would be bound by role to commit in the council.

AC Politics 2nd Meeting 12th March,2014

Suggestion[Election of Reps]: The head of each committee should be elected instead of house reps as there s no necessity for house involvement or stance. The reps should not limit students involvement but to maintain consistency and 4. Suggestions being passed as the end of the meeting Headlinecrew: raising news headlines in AC community and make sure the initiatives are known and happening Internal ACtion: Split up into short term and long term actions for better organization 5. Others: Anyone interested in helping the Peace & Conflicts Focus Week should send an email to Noam Irene would create a proposal to be summited to the school [External Action]: Carl has spoken to a Scandinavian organization which is interested in working with AC in organizing activities or local actions, theres a possibility to work with them next term 6. Details of the Next Meeting Date: 19th March,2014 [Wednesday] Time: 20:00 Venue: Languages