We continue to meet at 7 p.m. on the first Monday of each month at 1^st United Church of Oak Park (chosen because of its central location within the metro area).  We have had numerous speakers in the course of the year, including representatives of Christian Peacemakers Team and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.  In November we were honored to host a visit by Johannes Schot, executive director of the International FOR, and former FOR Chicago Treasurer Mark Johnson, now the executive director of FOR/USA.

If you are on our email list, you should be up to date on our activities, broadcast monthly.  (If you want to be on the list, send us your address.)  If you don’t have email, we apologize for not communicating more often; we can’t afford the postage.  But you can be assured that we are hard at work representing you in the Chicago area peace movement.

 

• The first is to join us in calling on President-elect Obama to fulfill his
  campaign pledge to oppose the use and spread of nuclear weapons.   Please go to www.nuclearweaponsfree.org and sign the petition calling on the President “to make a world free of nuclear weapons an urgent priority and to assure U.S. leadership to realize this goal.”

• The second is to renew your financial support to our chapter.  We hope
  you also donate to FOR/USA, but their funds are separate from ours. 
  Please consider sending us a check.  Your donations are vital to
  the viability of the chapter.

Sam Smith        
Ed McManus           
JoAnn Meadows-Matejczyk





Rev. Sam Smith
Frank & Nina Thorp
Tom & Claudia Thomas
West Suburban Faith-Based Peace Coalition
Quentin & Ruth Young

• For
  the fourth consecutive year, our chapter maintained a major presence at
  the Cornerstone Music Festival in western Illinois.  Cornerstone is a
  six-day Christian event that attracts more than 20,000 youth in their
  teens and 20s.  Sam Smith, Dave Karcher and others operated a booth
  that introduced them to FOR’s “I Will Not Kill” campaign, which affirms
  the right of conscientious objection and provides support to young people
  being targeted by military recruiters. 

• We have been very active at DePaul University. Dave Karcher has taken the lead in forming a student chapter there and has been working with “service learners” in two classes, where students get credit for working on peace-related projects.  Gilberto Villasenor has agreed to become the staff advisor to the chapter.  We hope to expand the effort to other universities.

• Our chapter in August was chief sponsor of the annual commemoration of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The event, chaired by Ed
  McManus, took place on the University of Chicago campus.

• FOR Chicago has become an active member of the U.S. Campai
  gn for a Nuclear Weapons Free World (www.nuclearweaponsfree.org).
   
  

• We are organizational members of United for Peace and Justice (www.unitedforpeace.org), the leading national anti-war coalition, and the Illinois Coalition for Justice, Peace and the Environment (www..icjpe.org).
    Sam Smith and Bill Scheurer represented Chicago at the UFPJ national conference held in Rosemont in December.

• Chicago hosted a visit in November of FOR’s Drop Beats Not Bombs project, touring the country to assist youth in resisting militarism.

• Seminary Action (www.seminaryaction.org ), a group of students at six seminaries in Hyde Park concerned with peace and justice issues, headed by LeAnne Clausen, has become an affiliate of FOR.

• This month we are participating with other organizations in Camp Hope:
  Countdown to Change, www.camphope2009.org, a 19-day presence in Hyde Park urging President-elect Obama  to carry out many of his campaign pledges, including bringing our wars to an end, curbing nuclear weapons and closing Guantanamo.

• We have been a cosponsor of numerous anti-war events during the year.

• Four Chicago area FOR members are now on the National Council of FOR:  Ed McManus of Wilmette, who concluded four years as national chair in June; Sam Smith of West Chicago, co-chair of the Membership & Programs Com mittee; Bill Scheurer of Lindenhurst, assistant treasurer; and Gilberto Villasenor of Chicago, a former member of FOR’s team in Colombia.

• We now have a page on both Facebook and MySpace.