AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION

of Champaign County

Steering Committee Meeting of Thursday, June 1, 2006
 

Present: Rachael Dietkus, Ward Henson, Allan Levy, Esther Patt, Stephen Portnoy, Carol
Spindel, Marsha Woodbury, Paul Wisovoty, Richard Schnuer, Gary Peters, Bill Brown

Absent with notice: Kristen Solberg, Roger Clark, Stan Levy, Shirley Stillinger, Jay Rosenstein,
Colin Bishop, Andrea Rundell, Josh Rohrscheib, Elaine Gerhmann, Susan Cohen

Absent without notice: Harvey Welch

The chair, Rachael Dietkus, called the meeting to order at 7:40 p.m. The minutes of April and May
were approved with corrections.

Due to many date conflicts, the next meeting will be on Sept. 14, 2006, at 7:30 p.m.

Announcements:

The Campaign for Comprehensive Sex Education is having a dinner at the Fiesta Café at 6:30 p.m.
on Tuesday, June 20, to celebrate their success in Urbana.

There is going to be an advisory referendum in Illinois, and some people circulating petitions
for having on the ballot an amendment that bans gay marriage. Esther Patt asked for helpers to
examine and challenge petition signatures. The next meeting is Tuesday, June 6, at 5:30 p.m. at
the McKinley Center.

Reports:

a) Student Chapter: Colin Bishop could not attend. Rachael reported for him that there would
be a brainstorming meeting in August to see how we can boost student membership and involvement.
Rachael is going to check to see if an ACLU table has been reserved for Quad Day.

b) Law School Chapter: Josh Rohrscheib could not attend but sent an email prior to the meeting.
Discussion on these topics will be the focus of  the Sept. 14 meeting. The email will be attached
to these minutes.

c) ACLU of Illinois: Stan Levy sent an email with additions to his last report. The email will be
attached to these minutes

d) Treasurer's Report: As noted above, Ward Henson corrected the minutes and noted that our
finances are slowly ebbing. Several suggestions for raising revenue came forward, including
mailing lapsed members, putting up a table at the Urbana Farmer's Market, sending speakers to
address hot current topics and at the same time explain the ACLU, and having a table with
membership materials at events that we co-sponsor. Memberships will the focus of the
October meeting. Bill Brown will take over as treasurer while Ward is absent for 6 months.

New Business

a) July 4 Parade: If we can gather 20 people we will march/ride in the parade. We are trying to
borrow a red convertible VW Bug to add interest to our group.

b) University regulation of offensive speech was deferred to the Sept. 14 meeting.

c) Books in Schools. Rachael asked for suggestions for books that the Urbana Human
Relations Commission could donate to libraries.

d) Inspired by the above discussion, the steering committee voted to spend up to $300 for three
sets of the ACLU's DVD collection "The ACLU Freedom Files." The chapter will donate these
sets to the three local high schools in the name of Geoffrey Stone, who generously returned his
speaker's stipend to the local organization.


The meeting adjourned at 8:45 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Marsha Woodbury for Shirley Stillinger

The next meeting is Thursday, Sept. 14 at 7:30 p.m.

Please note: We do not meeting in July or August.