At NOAH’s last monthly board meeting, representatives voted on a list of 16 issue areas, narrowing it down to the following eight: Affordable Housing, Education, Gun Violence, Economic Equity and Jobs, Voting, Racial and Religious Discrimination, Transportation, and Neighborhood Disparity. These will make up the slate we will be voting on at the Issues Convention, where we will select the final four issue areas.

The Issues Convention will take place this Saturday, May 20, from 3:00 to 5:00 pm at Greater Bethel AME Church, 1300 South St, Nashville, TN 37212. We will carpool from GNUUC, leaving at 2:00 pm to allow plenty of time for parking, signing in, and finding our place in the sanctuary. We will have one vote for each of us attending from GNUUC, up to a maximum of 10 votes, so be sure to indicate that you are from GNUUC when you sign in. (We are not limited in the number of our attendees.) You can register here to save time, but you will still need to sign in at the Convention.

At the Convention, we’ll listen to brief pitches from people in support of issue areas that are important to them. After we’ve heard about all of the candidate issue areas, the voting will begin. In the first round, we’ll vote for our top issue area. If we “win” that round, we will move on to our second issue area. If we don’t win the first round, we might consider forming coalitions with other member groups who have some of the same priorities as us, so as to be strategic in our voting. We will caucus amongst ourselves between rounds to decide our next vote.

After four rounds are completed, task forces will be formed around the four issue areas selected. Task force meetings (currently virtual) are always open, so consider checking them out and maybe even getting involved! See Nancy C or Doug L for more information.