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UK WILPF 2017-2018 Annual Report

On Saturday 14th April we will be holding our 2018 AGM. All members are welcome to join us at 52-42 Featherstone Street in London. We are very much looking forward to seeing you all.

You can download an online copy of our 2017-2018 Annual Report here – 2017 – 2018 Annual Report

Thank you everyone for your hard work and help throughout 2017. It was an amazing year for UK WILPF!!

Read our UK WILPF Executive Report here:

2017: An exciting year for UK WILPF

2017 was again a very busy year for UK WILPF Section. January 21st saw WILPF members from all over the United Kingdom attending women-led protests against the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. There was a large WILPF contingent at the demonstration and rally in London.

At the first UK WILPF Executive meeting of 2017 Keely Khoury submitted her resignation as job share International Board member and Ros Brunt stepped down as she had taken on the role as job share with Keely. The Executive and membership thank Keely and Ros for all their hard work, especially the organisation of the 2016 Autumn Seminar. Keely and Henri Khoury were joined on May 29th, 2017 by a second son Luca.

In February, WILPF was invited to attend and speak at the LUSH Summit at Tobacco Dock in London. This event show-cased the many radical causes supported by the cosmetics firm.

In March, WILPF members led a well-attended protest at the Royal Courts of Justice at the unjust imprisonment of Alice Wheeldon on the ‘evidence’ of a spy in 1917. There was good media coverage for Alice’s great granddaughters from Australia who are seeking a review of the case. Also, in March, Martha Jean Baker and Anne Scott attended the WILPF Europe meeting.

In April, we held our Annual General Meeting and the election of a new executive. The afternoon was a celebration of ‘Creative Women Peacemakers’, with the showing of Clapham Film Unit’s Manchester Peace Crusade’, with executive member Lydia Meryll as Margaret Ashton, the first woman councillor on Manchester City Council. Jane Grant (London Branch) introduced us to her book, ‘In the Steps of Exceptional Women’, the story of the Fawcett Society 1866 – 2016. There was a display of banners made by women, a selection of women’s songs by ‘Raised Voices’ and a lesson in peace crane making by Maki Kimura.

At the end of April, Joanna Macgregor, International Board member job-share, represented the UK Section of WILPF at the International WILPF Convening in Geneva. She gave an excellent account of her experience at the May UK WILPF Executive meeting.

May saw the unexpected calling of the United Kingdom General Election. The response by the Executive was to write a General Election Manifesto to help women in their campaigning over this period.

In June, many UK WILPF women were accredited by Reaching Critical Will to attend the Global Nuclear Ban Treaty talks at the United Nations in New York. At the same time, here in the United Kingdom women attended rallies and events on June 17th to mark the start of these negotiations. UK WILPF provided placards and women to hold them for the UK CND organised protest in London.

Campaign Against the Arms Trade lead a series of actions at the Arms Trade Fayre in September. WILPF members joined in with many of the actions, including the day against Nuclear Weapons, ‘Arms are for Linking’, on 6th of September.

On Friday 6th October, a WILPF partner organisation ICAN, with WILPF member Beatrice Finn as its Chief executive officer, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Peace Prize was awarded for ICAN’s ground breaking work in achieving the UN Treaty on the prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), and several WILPF activists attended the ceremony in Oslo on December 10th.

October 14th Cynthia Cockburn, UK WILPF member, launched her latest book ‘Looking to London’ at the School of Oriental and African Studies. The same weekend saw WILPF members managing stalls at Feminism in London and UK CND conferences.

On Saturday 25th November, we held our very successful and well-attended ‘Voices of Refugee Women’ Seminar.

The weekend of 8th to 11th of December saw events being held to celebrate the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to ICAN. UK WILPF members attended the ‘Die In’ at the Ministry of Defence in London, with Executive member Sheila Triggs giving a very well received speech on behalf of UK WILPF.

 

UK WILPF Executive, January 2018

 

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