In the second meeting, we had a great brainstorming session about ideas for this semester! After an overview of the issues, we thought about how to address these pressing concerns while incorporating the tactics outlined in our mission: education, advocacy, activism, and service. Check out the brilliant ideas:

• Make a formalized and recurrent community service program, which could also influence the content of our other events.
• Take a field trip to educate ourselves — go to an HIV testing center or syringe exchange program to learn more.
• Focus on World AIDS Day and fewer events rather than a full week to maximize the impact and efficacy of each program. This way, we can also promote and attend other great events happening in the rest of the city.
• Maximize impact of election season — join in or lead protest of candidates.
• Table in Lerner with information about testing campaigns and activism opportunities.
• Participate in Dance Marathon!
• Keep challenging stereotypes as a theme to our work.
• Hold a condom couture (fashion out of expired condoms!) and auction event to fundraise for an organization we are serving.
• Involve the Greek system and other non-health related groups in more of our events.
• Hold more speaker events to discuss various aspects of HIV/AIDS, especially with faculty from the School of Public Health.

We hope you’ll join us tomorrow as we plan more concretely for events and themes to our work this semester (and eat snacks). New members are always welcome, so check it out in the Dodge Room of Earl Hall at 8 PM every Wednesday.

Click the link for the information from a fact sheet passed out at the meeting:

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Our second meeting tomorrow evening will be a preliminary brainstorming session for the semester’s goals and campaigns. Everyone is welcome to share their ideas and help us shape our strategies! Join us at 8 PM Wednesday 9/19 in the Dodge Room of Earl Hall for snacks and ideas.

The meeting will be a bit shorter than usual, as we will head over to our first event of the semester at 9 PM. We are very excited to have Ariel Rojas, founder of the Transdiaspora Network, speak about the group and its work “to create and communicate culturally oriented solutions to the next generation of leaders fighting HIV/AIDS in local communities.” Pizza will be provided and the event will take place at 9 PM in the Satow Conference Room in Lerner Hall (5th Floor).

If you can’t join us for the meeting, you are definitely still welcome at our event. Hope to see you tomorrow evening!

It was great to meet those of you who were able to join us at the first CUSGAC meeting of the semester. Here’s a quick recap of our introductory meeting for anyone interested. We welcome new members at any point in the year, so please do join us at the next meeting if you are interested in helping us shape our campaign for the fall!

We started out by introducing ourselves and discussing the mission of CUSGAC:

• Michelle discussed her experience with direct service. She is a volunteer at the Washington Height CORNER Project, a needle exchange and harm reduction agency in upper Manhattan (currently seeking volunteers — please find more information under “read more” below if you’d like to get involved). Needle exchange programs provide clean needles to intravenous drug users to prevent the transmission of HIV.
• Zach described his work with national SGAC, a network of over 20 other college chapters that helps coordinate multi-school actions, advocacy campaigns, and trainings. He is a member of the national steering committee this year!
• Mel described her experience with activism, and how her initial fears and doubts were unfounded and instead she found an empowering communal experience of holding leaders accountable to demands. It’s become her favorite part of SGAC (though not everyone is an activist, and we do not require you to be — ending AIDS takes all kinds of strategies and people).
• Stephanie spoke about community education, highlighting favorite events from last year such as our discussion about HIV/AIDS and the transgender community as well as the queer community in two of our events from the 30 IN, 30 OUT campaign last year.
• Niki spoke about political advocacy, best exemplified by her visit alongside community advocates and policy experts to lobby Senator Gillibrand about HIV treatment funding. Another success was a call-in campaign last fall, which helped push Senator Schumer to sign on to a Dear Colleague letter urging increased funding for global health programs.

We also watched a video about the progression of HIV within the US, though our work affects both domestic and global policy.

We ended with a reminder that our meetings are open to all, non-hierarchical, and that we value the contributions of everyone. With that in mind, we hope you’ll join us for our next meeting, Wednesday 9/19 at 8 PM in the Dodge Room of Earl Hall!

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We hope you can join us tomorrow, Wednesday September 12th, at 8 PM in the Dodge Room of Earl Hall for our first meeting of the semester. There will be food & giveaways while we explain our mission, our past, and our goals. Join us to learn more about our take on informed political advocacy, activism, community education, direct service, and more in order to engage our peers and fight to end AIDS. Hope to see you there!

If you can’t make our meeting, please send us an email, as we may change the meeting day or time.

CUSGAC will be at the Columbia Activities Day, tomorrow (Friday September 7th) from noon to 4 PM on College Walk. Stop by to say hi, sign up for our email list, and get some free stuff!

Can’t make it tomorrow? Send cusgac (at) gmail (dot) com an email to be added to our listserv.

Our first meeting will be held on Wednesday September 12th at 8 PM in the Dodge Room of Earl Hall. Join us for an overview of our group’s past and learn how you can be involved in shaping our course this year!

We hope everyone had a great summer break! We also hope you will join us this semester.

It was great meeting some new folks today at the NSOP Meet & Greet. Stay tuned for the location & time of the first CUSGAC meeting of fall 2012!