Asha Austin Meeting Minutes (June 28, 2009)

Asha Austin Meeting Minutes (June 28, 2009)

Attendees: Savitha, Rahul Rao, Ganesh, Gaurav, Murali, Amit, Sweta

1. Gramin Shiksha Kendra - Murali

Murali gave a brief background of GSK
Schools are at Bodal (150 children) and Jaganpura (200 children) are supported by Asha and Vibha
The third school is funded by Yatra Foundation
Talks are on with Yatra to give some support to the other two schools also
The update is about the school at Bodal
Bodal school was operating out of a temporary structure built on the panchayat land
Last month a person called Amit Shankala gave them a long term lease on his property
He has leased out the whole land and the building on it to the school
It's a 10 year contract, they'll revisit it in 3 years.
They'll be moving to it next month (July)
It used to be a hunting lodge
They came up with expenses required to fix the lodge e.g. build toilets, repair windows ad doors, hand pump etc.
Last year they did not spend 3.5 lakhs from the money sent from Asha (Austin+SV)
They want to use that money for this expense of repairing the new property
Murali has seen the property from outside and it seemed good for the school.
They have extra money because there were fewer teachers for some time last year
The money left over is mainly from the surplus from teachers' salaries
They got lesser experienced teachers when they were expecting more experienced ones and didn't have to pay them that much.

Questions/Action Items:

If this is phase one, what will be phase two?
How many toilets and bathrooms?
How long will the repair work take? Will it be ready by the time school starts?
This might be need to be told to/discussed in Asha- SV.
Murali will keep track of how much is being spent on what.

Vote:

Approve:

Disapprove:

Abstain:

2. Shristi Event: Discussion on Asha guidelines for a fundraiser

These are guidelines as learnt from previous event planning.-Need these guidelines to be spelled out so that the new volunteers have these to refer to.
These need to reflect Asha wide and Chapter values based on our projects.
Helps the event planners to focus on other event goals.
Mission statement and Asha logo remains fixed.
May have an event specific tag line also.
Need to keep record and receipts.
The vision/overall goal of the event needs to be clear.
The goal of these guidelines is to have our current policies/beliefs documented.
These can and should be discussed at chapter level when newer volunteers have differences in opinion and want to discuss it.

More guidelines

Which organizations should we not accept donations from?
Might need to decide on individual event basis about when to 'end' the event.
We should publicize at those events/places/organizations who we will be comfortable inviting to our events?

Questions/Action Items:

This is question for Asha-wide PR team. Is there a consistent logo for Strides of hope program?
Need to close some of the questions/guidelines so the publicity for upcoming events goes smoothly.
Plan to have a beliefs/values document and a questions document and then see if the questions get answered by the values document.
Suggested date: July 12th
Need to maximize participation in the discussion. Possibly combine event and chapter meeting that week so that all event volunteers also come to the discussion.
Need to reach consensus or have a vote at the end of that discussion
We prioritize this discussion e.g. publicity is foremost right now.