Year End Musing, December 31, 2009

 Dear Changers,

On the last day of this decade (depending upon how you count time), I think many of us are taking some time to look back on where we have been and what we have achieved and what we hope to achieve in the next decade.  All the papers are talking about the decade, so we don't have to rehash that.  We had Bush; we had Bush again.  Finally the country saw the light and we had hope.

In this past year, Be The Change Baederwood (BTCB) has developed from a group set up to develop community service plans for the Martin Luther King Day of Service (we had a wildly successful food bank and blood drive); to working for social change through activism for health care reform; to economic change in our job seekers network meeting; to social justice by working on the campaigns of the judges for Montgomery County; to political change by electing two of our own as local commissioners; to local community involvement with our time bank.  Our mission statement tells it all:  "We actively support President Obama's vision for change at the grassroots level by working for economic and social justice, political change, environmental sustainability, international human rights, and issues that improve our community. "

In the new year:

1.  Our plans for the coming year include repeating the food bank for Martin Luther King Day and we hope to have a few more service projects to join.  If you want to go in town to MANNA with me, email.  Let me know if you want to include other projects for that day.

2.  On January 4 we are co-sponsoring the induction of Art Haywood, Kathy Hampton and Mickey Simon to the Cheltenham Township Board of Commissioners.  At 8 PM all are welcome to the Curtis Arboretum for the ceremony and we will have a toast to Art and Kathy and Mickey at the Community Room inElkins Park Square (near Marco Polo) at about 8:30 PM.

3.  January 10th at 2 PM at the auditorium of Abington Friends School we will approach the international human rights portion of our mission statement by discussing A Global Human Rights Crisis: Problems and Solutions.  The flyer is attached and I will be sending it out again.
 
 
 
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4.  Energy and the Environment

One of our members is organizing with Cheltenham Township and Arcadia University a conference on energy issues and global warming. We will be invited and I hope we can support them when the time comes.

5.  Campaigns

I hope many of you will volunteer to work for progressive candidates in your local and state elections this spring.  We will have more information and we will have coordination with other democratic groups who support the progressive candidates.

6.  Ideas
Please, if you have any suggestions for the direction BTCB should take in the future, let me know.  

7.  Leadership
We are in dire need of more people to step up and participate first on the steering committee and then on to leadership positions.  If you have any interest in testing the waters, let me know.

Have a healthy new year.
Meg

Meg Makransky Sheketoff
meg@sheketoff.com
http://www.bethechangebaederwood.com