INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER

INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2009



Dear Peace-loving Women,

Seasons’ Greetings to you all! We hope you will have a very happy and peaceful winter holiday. I hope that you are having better weather than we are having in the UK. It seems to rain day after day but we are not letting it get us down. We are feeling full of hope and excitement as we plan for celebrating our thirty years as a peace organization.

We met in Manchester on November 7th for our AGM and made some important decisions. Ruth has retired as Hub-Chair and Wilma has been appointed in her place. We are so much looking forward to hosting some of you in August 2011. The probable date is August 15th – 25th. Some of you have already indicated an interest in coming and we would be pleased if you would let us know as soon as possible if you are to definitely planning to come. I know that it is difficult to make a commitment so far ahead but please let us know if you are seriously considering it so that we can send you an official invitation which you may need if you have to obtain a visa. As we have already mentioned you would need you to pay your own fare to get here but while you are here all your necessary and reasonable expenses will be taken care of.

Needlework by women is going to be a significant feature of the travelling exhibition. We are hoping to show some of the beautiful needlework produced by Palestinian women. The Merseyside Group is busy making a quilt entitled ‘The
Tree of Life’. If you have any needlework or art that you would like to exhibit please let us know.

Also if you have any suggestions that you think might enhance the exhibition please do let us know. We hope also that you are encouraging your young people to produce some pictures with a theme of peace. If any of you have contact details for Svetlana Pomiljalko, Tamara Savvakeva or Nadja Dejinka we’d be very pleased if you could let us know. We have been using their design square for the quilt as a postcard and it is very popular. We would like them to know about it.

We’d really love to have responses from you about the newsletter and about our organization in general. Do you have any suggestions as to how we may celebrate our thirty years and perhaps raise our profile?

Glennis would like to thank the people who have already written submissions or sent photographs for our Memories Book. But it is not too late for anyone who would still like to contribute. The more we have the more interesting it will be. After Christmas, Glennis will be visiting Mary, in Wales, who is archiving our documents. It is so important we do not lose our history and some of it will also go in the book.

Here in Brighton we are trying to build bridges with our Muslim and Jewish members of the local community. We are lucky to have Polly who is working hard on the exhibition for 2011 and Magda. As most of you will know Magda is a longstanding member and is experienced in Interfaith working. She spoke about us on local radio at a Peace Picnic that was held here in the summer so those of you that visit us in 2011 hopefully will be pleased at our progress.

We are also delighted to have some teenage members. It is so important and
re-assuring that the work can be continued in the future. We would be so pleased if you could encourage more young women to become members.

As we are spending most of our energy and resources on the 2011 celebration we are not planning to visit or host in 2010, but we are certainly looking forward to meeting some of you in the following years. We had hoped to host some women from Iran this year but unfortunately that did not prove to be possible, but we shall keep on trying.

In the meantime we send you all our loving greetings.

In love and peace,
Glennis & Magda

INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER AUGUST 2009

Dear Peace-loving Women,

May we introduce ourselves as the new co-editors of the International Newsletter? I am Magda Cross, an elderly woman who has been a member of the organisation from the beginning and I’m assisted by Glennis Cane, a much younger woman who has more recently joined the organisation but is very keen and hard working. We are very much looking forward to keeping in touch with you and hope that you will feel encouraged to respond.

We are all getting very excited about celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the birth of our organisation which will take place in 2011. We are planning a travelling exhibition which will start in Bristol in April, travel to South Wales in May and Merseyside in June. In September it will go to Yorkshire and finish in Brighton on the south coast in October. The exhibition will consist of our wonderful international bridge quilt and other hangings, some Palestinian embroidery and art work from members young and old on the theme of peace. There will also be some memoirs from our archives. We would love to have some words from you as to how you feel about your contact with us.

Some of us will also be going into schools to run courses on conflict resolution. Another project is to encourage pupils to write some poetry on different aspects of peace. These will be made into a booklet illustrated perhaps by some children’s art work. We hope very much that you will encourage any young people you know to take part. The poems can of course be written in their own language. We are also planning on making a calendar, so if you have pictures or photographs that you think may be suitable please let us know. We really need you to be involved.

Another exciting project is that we plan to invite thirty women to come to Britain as our guests. The women who come will stay for a short time in the homes of members and will then spend a few days at a conference centre with some of us. This may be in London but the plans are not finalised yet. We hope that some of you who come will be women who have been here before but of course we shall warmly welcome women for whom this will be their first visit. You will need to pay your own travel expenses to come to Britain but all your necessary expenses while you are here will be paid by the organisation. This visit will probably take place in July 2011. Please let us know as soon as possible if you would be interested in taking part in such a visit.

Most of us are working for peace in other areas. We are very keen that TRIDENT, our nuclear submarine, will not be renewed. We are also working to try to bring about peace in Israel and Palestine. What can we say, however, about Iraq and Afghanistan? We feel helpless.

Please let us hear from you. We’d love to know how you would like us to involve you more. We’re sure you are brimming over with ideas that could eventually help to bring about a more peaceful world which is what we all long for.

In loving friendship,

Glennis and Magda