As I mentioned in my recap of the NWTRCC national gathering in Eugene , the national war tax resistance organization is going to try to encourage more regional gatherings of war tax resisters. There’s already a regular regional in New England, and we’d like to see more of that sort of thing.
To this end, NWTRCC budgeted some seed money and committed to providing that, and additional non-monetary assistance, to a new, emerging war tax resistance regional, assuming we could find one.
I recently learned that the Pioneer Valley War Tax Resistance group from Western Massachusetts liked the idea so much that they boosted our initial modest $300 of seed money with $1,000 of their own money. They’re also hoping this extra money will enable the national organization to help nurture more than one such regional gathering.
Ruth Benn, NWTRCC’s national coordinator, recently sent out a request for regional gathering proposals. Here are some excerpts:
Have Fun, Meet Great People!
Start a Regional Gathering of War Tax ResistersNew England war tax resisters have been holding an annual gathering for more than 20 years! While on occasion other areas have hosted regional gatherings, there has not been one outside of New England in many years.
The Coordinating Committee (CC) meeting in Eugene adopted a objective to cultivate at least one new war tax resisters’ gathering somewhere in the U.S. The idea for this grew out of the results of the Affiliate Survey last year and discussions at the CC meeting in Birmingham where this was considered high priority. Clark Hanjian included this is a proposal to the meeting, which was slightly modified and then agreed to by full consensus:
Encourage regional gatherings
The NWTRCC Administrative Committee (AdComm) recommends that NWTRCC coordinator contact groups in NWTRCC network that might be willing to host a regional gathering asking if the group would submit a brief proposal to NWTRCC for that gathering and some help with funding and promotion of the new regional gathering.
The AdComm would choose one region to help from the submissions.
Among the criteria for choosing a region are:
- Possibility of repeatability — not just a one-time gathering;
- Located in a region that has not had regional gatherings;
- Regional focus, not local or just national;
- Opportunity for WTR counselor training
If you or your group has even the slightest interest in getting a regional gathering going in , please contact Ruth Benn at the NWTRCC office. If you are really interested, please write a letter or informal proposal describing some of the ideas for setting the planning in motion, and email/mail/fax it along. We don’t want to discourage anyone from investigating the possibilities for organizing a gathering and will try to help make it as easy as possible. Because of the War Tax Boycott we do have many people around the country who would like to meet other resisters in their area. The NWTRCC office and others in our network will help with outreach and other tasks as much as we can.
Once proposals are received, the AdComm (or subcommittee thereof established by the AdComm) will review them and select at least one region to assist in planning the gathering.
While there is no exact deadline, planning for a gathering should get underway a few months in advance of the event. We would hope to have some requests or ideas in motion by the next NWTRCC meeting, . Contact the office as soon as possible with your ideas.
