[Mitai-announce] ELECTIONS MEETING THURSDAY @ 6PM in 4-146

[Shankar Mukherji]

Hello all,

It's that time of year again.  We'll be holding our elections meeting this Thursday in 4-146 at 6pm.
Offices up for election include:

President
Treasurer
Secretary
IT Chair

Besides elections, however, we also have two important agenda items

I.  Death Penalty

    Governor Romney has finally released his commission's report on creating a 'fool-proof'
    death penalty system.  You can read about it:

    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Massachusetts-Death-Penalty.html

    We'd like to prepare whatever response we can before people leave for the summer.  This means
    everything from contacting state legislators (either by e-mail/phone or in person if we can)
    to planning events for the fall (it's never too early to start planning).  In particular 
    Joshua Rubenstein of the Northeast Regional Chapter was interested in hosting an event with us
    involving Murder Victims for Reconciliation; I've been talking with that group's president 
    so that would definitely be a good way to kick-off any sort of campaign

II. Sudan

    A group of people at MIT have formed an organisation that is aiming to raise $2000 to donate 
    to the World Food Programme in response to its call for $98 million of donations needed to 
    finance humanitarian aid workers in Sudan.  Sudan has been ravaged by a brutal civil war and 
    echoes the atrocities of Rwanda that the world simply watched and let happen.  This is an effort
    to see that that does not happen again.  Amnesty International has taken a visible role in 
    raising awareness about the situation in Sudan, calling for the support of House Congressional 
    Resolution 403, which will be the focus of our letter writing this week.  We can also discuss
    ways we can get involved with the MIT group, such as official sponsorship of their planned
    benefit concert to be held in two weeks (!), etc.

Ok that's all for now.  Please come and help with these important tasks before us, this is a busy
time of year, and this sounds cliche, but unfortunately these issues just don't take a break for 
finals.

Thanks and see you all there.

Shankar