January 27 2009 Planning Committee Minutes

CSW 53 Planning Committee
January 27, 2009
Bahá’í International Community Offices
1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Minutes

Co-chairs: Loretta James and Catherine Ferguson
Present: Adwoa Aidoo, Alliny Attenello, Amber Baker, Deanna Chitayat, Carolyn Donovan, Victoria Edmonds, Martha Gardner, Emily Goldman, Weishan Huang, Catherine E. Moore, Krissy Moore, Carl Murrell, Laily Musboth, Mariam Nigosian, Vivian Pender, Joy Peterson, Eva Richter, MaryAnn Strain, Mary V. Toumayan, Fulya Vekiloglu, Joan Woods, Polly Woodward,

I. Loretta James, co-chair opened the meeting at 1:05 p.m. She asked who wold like to tour the NYU Medical Center, where the event will be held. Several people signed up to visit the center and the date of the visit was tentatively set for February 10, 2009 at 11 am.

II. Eleanor Solo, DAW Liaison, informed the group that there are:
5199 people registered from 455 organizations
59 parallel events for missions and UN entities
218 parallel events for NGOs

For the event, the schedule of parallel events should note that Conference Room B is UN
Conference Room B (not the Church Center.

The CSW itself will be in Conference Room 2.

Documents in all six UN languages will be delivered to Conference Room B for our use on the first day of the CSW – Monday, 2 March 2009. The Division will make sure that the number needed in each room will be there.

Student interpreters from Pace may be able to come in on Friday afternoon to register for
their passes. Eleanor will confirm this

Flyers for side events may be distributed at the morning briefings on the day of your event. They must be removed after the briefing and cannot be left on the delegates’ desks.

III. Handbook Subcommittee, Weishan

First meeting of the committee was last week. The copy is being submitted and reviewed for the content pages. So far, $4,000 for ads has been received with one more week to go. Due date is Friday, January 30 for advertising. She believes that we have enough in ad revenue now to cover the cost of the printing of the book. In the last week she has received several more designs for the cover. The committee will made the decision about the cover design soon.

IV. If money is needed for reimbursements, please give receipts to Weishan as the treasurer.

V. Breakout Sessions Updates
a. Groups
i. Women, Care-Giving and HIV/AIDS
ii. Women, Education and Training
iii. Violence Against Women
iv. Older Women – no one here for this one
v. Women and Climate Change
vi. Review Theme: Equal participation of women and men in decision-making at all levels
vii. Emerging Theme: Women and the global financial crisis
viii. Women and Poverty
b. Everyone is working with their groups and things are going well.

VI. Details of the girls orientation will be finalized next week. This is an opportunity to meet with all the girls participating with side events or UN events. It will create a space and time for them to build their own network and be prepared for the conference.
If you have girls who may be interested, let the Working Group on Girls know. They hope to use the “youth” check box for the registration.
Contact: will send contact info to Catherine Ferguson fergcf@earthlink.net and she will circulate the information.

VII. Consultation Day

List of registration day helpers is in progress. If people would like to volunteer but are not here today they should email Catherine Ferguson at the address above.

Deadlines for Packet preparation:
Material for the registration day packets should be camera ready by February 10. Judy Lear has given Loretta a list of these items and Loretta will ensure that materials that are the same as last year will be ready. Those who are responsible for the flyers for this year’s reception and other new items should have them to Loretta by 10 February.

Feb 16-19: Volunteers get camera ready documents and make 600 copies in color and take them to the NGO CSW between 16 and 19 February

Last year’s documents:
Flyer for Monday orientation – pink
Flyer on the Morning Briefings – yellow
Flyer for Reception – blue
UN Map and list of places where food is available – white,
Thank You list – yellow
NYU Map – white
Round Table 1 Summary – white
Program, Work Plan, green
Rule for NGO participation – lilac
Flyer for Craft Fair – goldenrod
Notice of fundraising items – notebooks and bags – pink UN Focal Points – white
Round Table 2 Summary – white
600 copies will be needed of each item

Feb 26-27: stuffing folders at CSW 11:00 a.m.
It may be possible for DAW to provide SG report and the outcome documents for the packets, Eleanor will make that request

VIII. Fundraising

Options of the bag for fundraising were displayed. The group chose the black bag and Loretta will work with Vivian to make the final determination of the design.
Bags hey will be sold for $10. They will be sold on Consultation Day at the Craft Fair and afterward at the Church Center. They will also be selling the notebooks at the same time.

IX. Round Tables Updates
a. February 3, 1:15 p.m. – 2:45 p.m., Priority Theme Round Table, Conference Room 3 – Soon Yung Yoon
b. February 17, 1:15- 2:45, Review Theme Round Table– Eva Richter
Roundtable groups met briefly following the meeting.

X. If there are specific requests for whisper translation please let Catherine or Loretta know and they will contact Linda Stillman to see if students from Pace University can help.

XI. Next Meeting: Because of the Roundtable that will be held at next week’s meeting time and the Civil Society Forum for the Commission on Social development, the next priority theme meeting will be on 10 February.

The next planning committee meeting will be held on Monday, 2 February at 11 am at the Bahá’í International Community Offices.

Minutes drafted by Amber Baker

Minutes Planning Committee – 13 January 2009

NGO CSW NY
Planning Committee for CSW 53
Minutes
January 13, 2009
Bahá’í International Community Offices
1- 2 pm

Co-chairs: Loretta James and Catherine Ferguson
Present: Lois Beilin, Madeleine Brecher, Keiko Chevray, Winifred Doherty, Carolyn Donovan, Victoria Edmonds, Cathey Falvo, Rosa G. Lizarde, Laily Mesbah, Catherine Moore, Krisy Moore, Padmini Murthy, Mariam Nigosian, Susan O’Malley,Vivian Pender, Katherine Ronberg, Mary Ann Strain, Eva Richter, Sorosh Roshan, Jackie Shapiro, Caroline Themm, Fulya Vekiloglu, Susan Weissert, Anita Wenden, Joan Woods, Polly Woodard, Soon-Young Yoon

1. Information from Eleanor Solo of the Division of Advancement of Women
• Current registration for CSW 53 : 5026 representatives from 424 organizations
• Current requests for parallel events: 216 from NGOs and 48 from Missions. An Ngo Committee will be scheduling the NGO events and they will be posted on the DAW website as soon as they are available…
• The Round Tables being prepared on the priority theme for 3 February and on the review theme for 17 February will be held in Conference Room 3. Chairs of those event should be sure to get the titles of the events to Eleanor as soon as possible. She also will need the fliers in order to get the invitations to the government representatives at least a week ahead of the event.
• If there are participants or attendees who are coming and need a grounds pass, this information should be given to Eleanor no later than a week ahead of the event.
• Documents now available on the DAW website include: the Secretary General’s report on the working group on communication, his report on assistance to Palestinian women, the discussion guide for the high level roundtable on the priority theme, the joint work plan for the Division of the Advancement of Women and the Office of the Special Advisor to the Secretary General on Gender Issues.
• NGO Statements have been submitted and are being translated prior to being posted and also made available to the delegates to CSW 53.
• DAW will have an information table in the Neck area of the UN building as they have had in past years.
• It is hoped that the report from the Expert Group Meeting will be available in about a week.
• Confirmation letters for registration to the CSW are available on the DAW website using the user name and pass code for the organization that requested the pass.
• Communicate with DAW at csw53@un.org; Even though registration for CSW is now closed, that email address is still active.
• Now that registration for parallel events has been closed, the committee working on the scheduling of these events will begin working. It is hoped to have the scheduling done as soon as possible so that this information can be sent to participants.

2. Weishan reported on the progress for the handbook. All of the articles are now written and ready to go to the printer. Some ad copy is now in. Those planning on purchasing ads are encouraged to do so on the NGO CSW website. The deadlne for ads is January 30. There are currently 35 pages of articles and 21 ads.
Two samples of cover designs have been received and decision will be made as to which to use soon.

3. Fund-Raising. It was decided not to have a business card holder for a fund-raiser. There will be a bag and the suggestion was made to look into a bag design that zipped on the top, had a shoulder strap, and had space for a water bottle and a cell phone. The design uses the male and female international symbols and also includes the NGO CSW logo.

4. The Turkish Mission has been secured by Vivian Pender for the reception during the CSW. Vivian has also made arrangements for a jazz musician to provide background music during the event.

5. Catherine handed out a second draft version of guidelines for the breakout sessions. There is an error on this version. Instead of saying that each group should submit one talking point, they should say that each group should submit no more than two talking points. This draft also includes the names of the breakout sessions and those responsible for running the sessions. Rosa Lizarde of ENLACE and the Feminist Task Force of GCAP will be responsible for the session on the emerging theme.

6. Loretta asked if any of the breakout session participants wanted to have a walk through of the NYU facilities for consultation day. The following indicated they would like to do this: Mariam Nigosian, Mary Ann Strain, Polly Woodard and Lois Beilin.

6. Loretta asked if anyone could volunteer to assist with registration on consultation day. She also the breakout session or participants wanted to have a walk through of the NYU facilities for consultation day. The following indicated they would like to do this: Mariam Nigosian, Mary Ann Strain, Polly Woodard and Lois Beilin among others. A date will be found probably earlier before a Tuesday noon meeting. A date is to be confirmed.

Next meeting will not be on 20 January because of inauguration day. It will be on 27 January and will be preceded by the priority theme meeting as usual.
Priority Theme meeting 12 -1:00 pm
Planning Committee 1:00 – 2:00 pm
Bahaí’í International Community Offices

Subcommittee chairs for CSW53 Planning Committee

-CSW53 Sub – Committee Chairs From January 6, meeting

Registration (overseers)
Vivian Pendar
Catherine Ferguson
Loretta James

Summary Reports
Each Round Table will appoint a member to write these

Regional & Coordinating Caucuses
aka Coordinating & Linkage Caucuses

Networking Coffee/Tea
Caroline Themm
Katherine Mayer

Packets
Judy Lear
Nadia Schmigel

Interpretation & Translation
Andrea Fernandez (associate of Linda Stillman)

Morning Briefings
Jackie Shapiro
Indira Patel
Vivian Pendar

Registration Material
To be handled by CSW interns

Handbook
Weishan Huang

Round Table – Feb 3 – Priority Theme
Soon-Young -Yoon

Round Table –Feb 17 – Review Theme
Eva Richter

Reception
Victoria Edmonds
Joy Peterson

Fundraising
Loretta James

Media Committee
Vivian Pendar to write up a post event news brief

Briefing for New NGO’s
Bani Dugal

Documentation Room Order
Joan M Woods
NGO CSW-NY Interns

Minutes planning committee 6 January 2009

NGO CSW NY
Planning Committee for CSW 53
Minutes
January 6, 2009
Bahá’í International Community Offices
1- 2 pm

Co-chairs: Loretta James and Catherine Ferguson
Present: Lois Beilin, Joey Bose, Madeleine Brecher, Deanna Chitayat, Winifred Doherty, Carolyn Donovan, Victoria Edmonds, Claire Fulcher, Gretta Gibson, Laily Mesbah, Krisy Moore, Padmini Murthy, Mariam Nagosian, Mary Ann Strain, Eva Richter, Jackie Shapiro, Janet Stovin. Caroline Themm, Fulya Vekiloglu, Susan Weissert, Anita Wenden, Joan Woods

1. Information from Tsu-wei Chang of the Division of Advancement of Women
• Mildred Fernandes, the previous NGO focal point at the Division for the Advancement of Women is no longer working at the Division. Tsu-wei, who formerly held that position, is currently replacing her.
• Current registration for CSW 53 : 2590 representatives from305 organizations
• Current requests for parallel events: 108 from NGOs and 34 from Missions
• Space allocation problems continue because of the renovations at the UN. The Dag Hammaskjold Auditorum is scheduled to be closed in February and so will not be available to us.
• Expect the Secretary General’s report in 2-3 weeks time
• Expect a proposed multi-year program of work for 2009- 2014 soon
• For those having difficulty with registration for CSW 53, please write to csw53@un.org; Deadline is Jan 9, 2009. Because of the new data base the user names and passwords for registration may be different than what was used in previous years.
• Eight Yvonne Hebert Fellowship candidates have been selected. There has been difficulty contacting two of them – one from Cameroon and one from Guinea-Bissau. Alternatives will be contacted if DAW is unable to reach them. As of the meeting, the sponsoring organizations hadn’t received the information. 8 women and 2 alternates were chosen from an applicant pool of 32 applicants with 2 applications having been disqualified because candidates did not fit the guidelines.
• Scheduled events during CSW – all of the events are scheduled for Conference Room 2
2 March High level round table – 3-6 pm
5 March Round Table on the emerging theme: How the Financial Crisis affects women and men differently (not the exact wording) – 3-6 pm
6 March Round Table on the review theme – 10 am -1 pm
12 March Panel Discussion of Gender Perspective of Global Health and the MDGs – 10 am – 1 pm
International Women’s Day will be celebrated 5 March in the morning session.

2. Action Needed: Catherine handed out a sheet of draft guidelines for the breakout sessions and asked for comments, corrections, suggestions, deletions to be sent to her so they can be revised and sent to all who are responsible for a breakout session.

3. Madeleine Brecher gave Weishan’s report on the handbook committee:
Status Report:

1. We have received most of documents back this week. (Thanks for Madeleine, Anita, Laily, Joan, Fulya, & Victoria.) I will have the layout ready this weekend. Our first proofreading meeting is scheduled on Jan 13.
2. We had sold out our back cover and insides pages of front and back covers before holidays. Online application is available now. We received about 8 applications since Dec, 08.
3. Still calling for cover design. It’s a tough year for cover design.
4. Jan is also the month for printer bids. Still waiting for the registration number from DAW.

4. Updates regarding Roundtable 2 on the review theme Committee: Eva Richter is the new chair for the committee. They met immediately following the planning committee meeting.
Mariam Nagosian has replaced Linda Stillman as the chair for the Review Theme breakout session subcommittee.

The committee extends its sympathy to Linda Stillman who broke her knee and is not able to attend meetings at the present time.
Linda will continue to oversee getting Pace Students for translation at the morning briefings

4. Consultation Day registration – if there is difficulty filling out the form for the Consultation Day registration on the web (primarily happens if you are missing required information), you can print out the form and send it in.
At a later date persons registered for the Consultation Day will be able to print their badges directly.

Closer to the consultation day those who will be assisting with registration and others who are interested will be encouraged to have a walk through of the facilities at NYU in order to be able to provide assistance to those attending the session.

A map will be made available of the facility on consultation day to assist participants in finding breakout rooms.
Other Committee updates: Judy Lear and Nadia Schmigel will chair the committee to prepare the packets
Jackie Shapiro and the group responsible for scheduling the parallel events will begin their work early next week so that information can be given to the sponsoring organizations about the date and time of events as soon as possible.

A very important concern expressed by the Church Center personnel is that the sponsoring organizations adhere strictly to the fire codes and not allow more persons into their events than the room allows.

Next meeting: 13 January at the Bahá’í International Community Offices
1- 2 pm. There will be no meeting on 20 January because it is inauguration day. However, it is possible that a meeting may be scheduled for another day that week.