Monday and Tuesday March 17 and 18

The caucus meeting was much less heated than the one on Fri.
There was a discussion of acceptable language: sexual health and reproductive rights?,disability?, gender allows for all sorts of gender beyond men and women, marital status includes widows?, early and forced marriage,, etc/\. The Pacific caucus wants language on fisheries and aquifer fishing.
This was followed by a presentation by Pat Black and Anne Lawson about how the NGOs are organized in Great Britain (Ireland,Scotland Wales, and England)They have developed a Alliance of over 100 women's organizations which work together on women's issues and has built a good relationship with the British Government> The model sounds interesting and so Canada and the US, separately, are going to start work on trying to tie the NGO's together. I will work on the Canadian one with a couple of other women and we hope to have a loosely knit group or at least a comprehensive email list by mid fall

TUESDAY MARCH 18th

I was late for chapel today but the cough is bad when I first get up. After chapel I attended the UN briefing. The Vice Chair of UN Women spoke first about where the bureau receives its funding - mostly from voluntary donations of member states, a little from the Secretariate. She also talked about the necessity of involving men as well as women at all levels of activity. She spoke about increasing accountability. There were only negotiations beginning at 1 pm today. They went until about 11 pm and managed to approve some paragraphs. The facilitator has declared that this will be the last time through the text so we are all hoping that discussions go well. There will no longer be opportunity to inject new language or concepts. However NGOs can still suggest putting things together for a more concise document. It is currently 28 pages.

The Advocacy Committee of Ecumenical Women met at 10 am to review the third draft on order to get our comments in before noon as the the core group of Soroptimists. I returned to my room to type our comments and send them out before noon, had lunch from the deli up the street and then a nice nap. This cold has made me tired.

The Caucus met again at 6:15 and continued discussions of how to do a coalition and managed to end by 8 pm.
Joan Fraser was with us at the caucus and she, Alice and I headed off to meet her husband and his running group at an italian restaurant at 94 and 2. The group ran 6 miles in 1 hour. Ross Fraser is considering coming to Toronto to run in the Toronto Marathon in the fall. This couple have become great friends over the years. Joan even made a visit to us in Canada last summer, I ordered calamari for us to share before the runners arrived and the sixe of the serving was amazing, We all had some and I brought home a container of leftovers (which were not great reheated for lunch today).

Home about 10:30 and off to bed.

Blessings Judy