Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice

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New Information!!

The Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice
invites you to attend:

Weaving a Culture
of Peace:
The 2006 Convocation of the
Florida Peace and Justice Community
June 2- 4, 2006
Paramount Plaza Hotel & Conference Ctr.
Gainesville, Florida

PRESS RELEASE (May 18, 2006) - click to read

Addition to the Program!!
Convocation to Feature International Peace Artist
Anna Huong, Vietnamese-born war refugee, peace activist, and internationally renowned artist, will display her150 foot Peace Mural in the main ballroom of the Paramount Plaza Hotel on Saturday and Sunday of the Convocation. This dramatic and highly acclaimed artwork will be open for viewing by the public, free of charge, on Saturday, from 4 to 6:30pm. The convocation program will also include a hands-on Lets Paint Peace art project as participants will have the opportunity to work directly with the professional artist. Other pieces of Artist Huong’s extraordinary talent are on display in the Art, War and Peace Museum in Jensen Beach, Florida and in the Art Palace of Miami. The Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice is pleased and honored to have Huong as part of our historic Convocation.

SILENT AUCTION Fundraiser at the Convocation
Click here to Register Your Donated Items

Display Table and Sponsor Registry
VENDOR TABLES: The Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice extends an opportunity to organizations and individuals who may wish to participate in the Convocation as either an Exhibitor or a Sponsor. All vendors who make arrangements by Wednesday, May 31st, will be provided a 6- foot skirted table in the Resource Room adjacent to the main meeting hall at the hotel. For more information and to make arrangements, Click here.

National Sponsoring Organizations:

Global Education Associates

Yes! Magazine
The Peace Alliance Foundation

REGISTRATION

Hotel and Lodging Information

Keynote Speakers

Best Practices Breakout Sessions

Schedule Overview

Invitation from John X. Linnehan

Background & Goals of the Convocation

Discussion Board

Background of the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice and this Convocation

Other Sponsoring Organizations

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Registration for the convocation - $130.

Your registration includes admission to the entire weekend program; Saturday Evening Banquet; Saturday Bus Trip to the Peace Farm; Saturday Picnic Lunch at the Peace Farm; Two continental breakfasts; Resource Manual and Program Guide; One Year Membership in the FCPJ; and a subscription to the FCPJ publication Just Peace. Please note on your registration form any special accommodations needed.

OTHER OPTIONS for those who cannot attend the full weekend:

Friday Night Only 7:30-10pm (Korten Keynote & Peacemaker's Reception) - $25

Saturday Night only 7pm-11pm (Banquet & Program with Mische, Gagnon & Entertainment) - $50

Full Saturday program (Morning and Afternoon Workshops, Picnic Lunch at Farm and Evening Banquet/Program) - $100

Saturday Day Program only, with Lunch (No Evening Banquet) - $50

Full Saturday and Sunday Program w/all meals - $120

Link to On-Line Registration Form: Click here

Link to Mail-in Registration Form: click here

If mailing in your form, address it to:

FCPJ State Convocation,
P.O. Box 336
Graham, FL 32042.

Hotel and Lodging Information

We have arranged a discounted room rate of $72/room/night. Each room has two double beds; Participants are advised to reserve their room ASAP. To reserve your room, please call the hotel at 877-992-9229. Be sure to mention you are with the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice and ask for the group discount rate. For more info about the hotel, go to http://www.paramountgainesville.com/

Featured Speakers

David Korten
Friday Evening Keynote:
“The Great Turning:
Toward a Culture of Peace”

Dr. David C. Korten is an author and leader in transformational social change. His address will reflect his new book, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community (May, 2006). He is best known as the author of When Corporations Rule the World (1995), and as board chair and co-founder of the Positive Futures Network, which publishes Yes! magazine."

Patricia Mische
Saturday Evening Keynote:
“Weaving the Values that Sustain Us.”

Dr. Patricia Mische is a co-founder and President Emerita of Global Education Associates, a network of people in some 90 countries collaborating in research and educational programs related to the advancement of peace, social justice, human rights, ecological integrity, and democratic participation for all the world’s peoples.

Bruce Gagnon
Award Recipient:
The 2006 Dr. Spock Peacemaker Award

Bruce Gagnon is Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space and was the first coordinator for the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice. He travels the world working to stop US plans to weaponize and pollute space with dangerous nuclear materials.

Convocation to Highlight
Culture of Peace “Best Practices”

For a description of each panel topic
and the panel participants to date - click here!

The State Convocation program will feature a series of “Best Practice” panel discussion workshops involving a number of presenters representing various organizations and projects. These panels will be organized over three concurrent breakout sessions on Saturday morning and afternoon, and will showcase successful models for advancing “peace culture” values and practices within diverse organizational settings and across various social institutions. The intent is to demonstrate concrete examples of how a culture of peace can break into the fabric of the dominant culture.

Each session will consist of 2 or 3 panelists and a moderator, and run for 75minutes. Each will begin with a focus and introduction by the moderator, followed by a short presentation by each panelists, and then an open facilitated dialogue among audience participants and the panel. In all, 12 “Best Practice” Panels are planned, with four running concurrently over each of three Breakout Periods:

Breakout Periods:

12 Panel Workshops are planned. For a description of each panel topic and the panel participants to date, click here. Scheduling of Panels will not be assigned a specific time slot till one week before the conference. Registrants are advised to check the final scheduling of panels as it will appear in the printed program when they check in at the Convocation. The following listing is current as of May 18th, but is subject to change.

Peace Education Center at the Teaching Farm

Your registration fee includes bus transportation and
a tour and home-cooked picnic lunch at the Farm.

Convocation Schedule

Friday, June 2

7:30 Plenary Session
“The Great Turning: Toward a Culture of Peace” - Keynote by David Korten

9:15 Reception for Florida Peacemakers

Saturday, June 3

8:30 Plenary Session

9:30 Breakout Sessions

12:15 Tour & Picnic at FCPJ Teaching Farm

3:15 Breakout Sessions

7:00 Banquet Program / Award presentation “Weaving the Values that Sustain Us.” - Keynote by Patricia Mische
9:00 Entertainment

Sunday, June 4

8:00 Optional Meditation Service

8:45 Plenary Session / Regional Caucuses

11:00 Closing Session

12:00 Adjourn

See www.fcpj.org for schedule details and updates

An Invitation to be part of a "Great Turning"
              from
              John X. Linnehan,
              President of the FCPJ

Dear Friends:

As the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice begins its 25th year, it is my privilege to invite you to join with us in Gainesville, the week of June 2-4, 2006. Our Convocation is a very special gathering as we “call together” and attempt to “weave together” the many and diverse persons who are about the task of etching out a culture of peace here in Florida.

We have prepared a very attractive conference featuring two nationally known keynote speakers, along with numerous peace and justice advocates from around the state who will showcase their best practices. During our banquet on Saturday evening, the Dr. Benjamin Spock Peacemaker Award will be given to a dear friend of many of us, whose vision and leadership inspired our founding nearly a quarter century ago. Other activities will include an opportunity to visit the FCPJ Teaching Farm, caucuses to advance networking and regional organizing, as well as an opportunity to celebrate our past and plan for the future.

We welcome old 'veterans' of the peace struggle as well as the many new friends we have made during the past year’s Community Dialogues around the state. Our coming together will help bond the network of individuals and organizations that will bring forth a less violent, more peaceful, more sustainable, and more just society. But our gathering can only be as energizing and inspiring as the people who attend and give it life and spirit. The FCPJ needs you to be part of this important work. We owe it to future generations, and we owe it to the Earth. Please join us and be part of this momentous occasion!

In Peace,

State Convocation Background

The seeds of this gathering were planted in the FCPJ Annual Retreat in February, 2004. Since then, the FCPJ has engaged an arduous effort to re-vision itself and engage a wider constituency by promoting community dialogues across the state. (For more information on those dialogues, see www.fcpj.org.) The dialogues attempted to unpack the meaning of a culture of peace and identify best practices in communities across the state. This Convocation has the potential to re-frame progressive political discourse in Florida and promote collaboration among diverse constituencies who share attitudes, values, and beliefs that reflect an emerging culture of peace around us.

Goals of the Convocation

This Convocation will:

Inspire and educate

Give hope to the future

Empower participants to action

Interpret preceding community dialogues

Educate and demonstrate best practices;

Offer proactive approaches that articulate new ways of thinking and acting;

Impact civic discourse about public policy;

Illustrate how a culture of peace impacts all social institutions;

Demonstrate that a culture of peace embraces diverse progressive causes and
constituencies;

Celebrate the FCPJ’s 25th anniversary year

“To create a just, sustainable, and compassionate post-corporate world we must face up to the need to create a new core culture, a new political center, and a new economic mainstream.”

- David C. Korten, The Post-Corporate World

DISPLAY TABLE & SPONSOR REGISTRY Click here

DISCUSSION BOARD Click here

Other Sponsoring Organizations (partial listing):
-- The Earth Charter,
-- Fellowship of Reconciliation
-- Florida Campaign for a US Dept. of Peace
-- Grandmothers for Peace
-- Florida Center for International and Public Policy, Univ. of North Fla.
-- Pax Christi-Florida
-- Justice & Peace Commission, Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine
-- Wage Peace of Jacksonville

Background of the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice
and this Convocation

Who We Are

Founded in 1982, The Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice is a community of diverse persons who hold a common belief that change is possible and that we can be a channel of that change. We are a community of communities across the State and a living laboratory to explore, model and advance a culture of peace within the larger dominant culture. Our community is diverse, inclusive and multifaceted, as it expands in circles of commitment across geography, race, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, education, profession, and socio-economic status. Working together, our members and affiliate groups promote a more just, human, and nonviolent world through education and action

Our guideposts include:

a fundamental belief in the power of nonviolence

an awareness of our need to live in a harmonious relationship with the earth

the need to be tolerant and respectful of one another

a profound awareness of our need for solidarity with the marginalized of our global society

Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice
PO Box 336, Graham, FL 32042
Bob Tancig, Coordinator
info@fcpj.org/www.fcpj.org
352-468-3295