WAND
Michigan Report: November 2004
WAND
Michigan women train to participate in Speakers' Bureau
Three
WAND Michigan members -- Fern Katz, Barbara Stevenson
and Maria Mannerino-Thompson --attended the training
session in Washington, Dec. 5-7, to get pointers on
public speaking. A speakers/' bureau booklet will
be issued listing the people at the workshop. It will
be up to the speakers and their friends to market
the speakers.
The workshop was conducted by WAND people, Bobbie
Wrenn Banks and Tanya Hargro-Wallace, and David Devlin-Foltz
of The Aspen Institute. Also contributing were WAND
staffers Marie Rietmann, Mary Babic, and Erin Gould.
The materials used to train speakers were developed
over a two year period. One notebook contains speaking
points on WAND's issues, and the other notebook has
pointers on presentation.
On the afternoon of Dec. 7, Fern Katz and Maria Mannerino
lobbied in the offices of Rep. Sander Levin and Senators
Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow about three issues:
1. $21 billion was added to the defense budget in
the fall. WAND feels that these dollars should be
used for Homeland Security. In Michigan it should
be used to strengthen the ability of first responders,
fire and police departments and hospitals. The aides
listened attentively but gave no positive response.
2. Rep. Woolsey introduced the SMART (Sensible Multi-Lateral
Response to Terrorism) Resolution in the House. She
has 50 co-sponsors. We asked Sander Levin to be a
co-sponsor and we asked that the Senators introduce
a similar resolution in the Senate. Only the aide
for Sen. Stabenow seemed receptive.
3. We congratulated everyone for eliminating the funding
for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. We told them
that we are opposed to R and D of new nuclear weapons.
We got positive support in all three offices.
--By
Fern Katz, 12/7/04
