New Forest Group

of Amnesty International

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL (UK) NEW FOREST GROUP

ANNUAL REPORT 2009-2010.

Our monthly meetings have covered human rights in Turkey and Iran, a Southampton Refugee and Asylum Seeker organisation and the Death Penalty amongst other topics, with an increase in numbers at several meetings. We had “a full house” when Wilf Mbanga , editor of ‘ the Zimbabwean’ told us of the latest situation in Zimbabwe and of how he manages to distribute the paper despite the government’s displeasure. Following our meeting concerned with women’s rights we sent 10 letters to M.E.P.s

Our Rotary Charity Market stall last May was as successful as usual with many members involved. Special thanks as usual to the Nixon sisters and the Suttons

The Street Collection in September in Lymington, Milford and Brockenhurst kept our public profile up and the numbers of our members willing to ‘tin-rattle’ is heartening, thank you to all of you.

The Curry Evening, our social event in November, at the Mayflower pub in Lymington was again a great success. Thank you Andrew for your excellent organisation.

Human Rights Day, 10 December, was marked this year, at St Thomas church Lymington in conjunction with the U.N.A.. The 48 articles of the Declaration of Human Rights were read out by each organisation in turn. It was a moving occasion and a very good reminder of our aims. We hope to have more joint events with the U.N.A .in future.

We thank Margaret Vaughan as usual for beautifully decorating our tree at the Christmas Tree Festival in Lymington. The tree was again sold by auction.

For the annual Greetings Card Campaign for Individuals at Risk we were at the United Reformed Church’s cafe ready for the public to come in and write cards on several Saturday mornings in January. This did not prove worthwhile for the effort involved and next year we need to rethink our strategy. Ideas are very welcome. I am hoping that more members would like to broadcast this simple action amongst their friends and the public. Despite all, we did send about 150 cards..

Special thanks to Sheila Gould for putting up posters and being generally ‘on call’.

We have sent £1900 to H.Q. this year. This is a slight increase on last year.

This overview shows we have had a successful year. The Planning Group have worked hard as always to keep things on course, many thanks to all of them. With Roy Sutton treasurer and myself wishing to retire from office, as we both feel that fresh ideas are needed, hopefully next year will be bursting with campaigning ideas

Sue Lewis secretary