Meeting Minutes for Asha-Detroit general meeting on Sunday, March 18, at 4 PM at ICAE
Attendees: Deepak, Sai, Hitesh, Venkatesh Agaram, Venkat Sahai, Jui, Nisha, Senthil, Sanchari, Debashree, Suchi
1. Introduction of new volunteers - 10 minutes
New volunteers at meeting: Senthil, Sanchari, Debashree
2. Project updates
* BISWA – 3 minutes (Sai)
Sai waiting for site visit report and annual report for BISWA for 2006 (needed for budget allocation). Budget year to change to March 31st to April 1st. Mrs Mahanti would try to address Asha sometime after April 15th.
* Kuvempu – 3 minutes (Sai, Akila, Shankar)
waiting for updates. Delayed disbursement of budget for lack of documentation (financial report) from their side. Shankar is in touch with them. Shanmuga has got some of the reports. Progress report of children with Prakash. He will collate and send it to us. Planning to involve teachers too in future conference calls.
* Shanti Sadhana Ashram – 3 minutes (Kumuda, Srini)
2nd installment check returned as it was not delivered somehow. Need to verify the address. Visit scheduled b/w 15-26th this month.
* Purna Pragna Trust – 3 minutes (Suchi)
Need to standardize the funding cycle. Will use just half of the school (ring road construction). Need to decide the amount of funding if students are reduced. Or keep the funding same if they can take additional projects like vocational training etc. ACTION ITEM-Venki:Look into possibility of Mysore university taking up some of the responsibilities as part of student community service.
* Mahila Samakhya – 3 minutes (Hitesh)
educate girls in residential setting. Hitesh anchoring the project. Asha supplementing by providing part of the funding.
3. April social activity – 3 minutes (Mani)
No April activity scheduled yet. May activity selected - May 5 Informal Mixer at the DIA at 11am featuring the photography of Ansel Adams. ACTION ITEM-Everyone: Provide suggestions for an April activity to Mani. mani(dot)narasimhan(at)gmail(dot)com
4. 2007 mission statement for Asha-Detroit – 5 minutes (Deepak)
Complete statement attached at end of minutes.
5. Asha-Detroit chapter publicity (coordination help needed!) - 5 minutes (Deepak)
Ad on Radio for mentioning Asha's ranking on charity navigator. Hitesh working on it. ACTION ITEM-Everyone: Need someone to work on flier for Asha meetings and location. ACTION ITEM-Everyone: Publicity – During events need to focus more on publicity. Also need to focus on people showing interest in Asha. Need someone to create a database on all Asha volunteers – and keep the list updated – and keep in touch with volunteers. ACTION ITEM-Everyone: Need volunteer for coordinating for India day event and Festival of India event – this time a section will be reserved for all non-profit orgs at one of the events.
6. Support from UM-Ann Arbor IASA (coordination help needed!) – 5 minutes (Sudhi)
Support from IASA – Will help in publicity and fund-raising for Asha. Annual basketball tournament – they want to invite a team from Asha – event on April 11th. They will help with marathon and 5k. In long term to try to work out a program for their students to raise money by pledges etc. Need someone to coordinate with IASA for various Asha events. Need to try for IASA funding in 2008 – need a professional movie on Asha for this. Interests expressed by UM-IASA:
a) 5k
b) project involvement
c) basketball tournament (april 11)
d) marathon (background support) and maybe running
e) garba event (unlikely)
7. Support from NetIP-Michigan – 5 minutes (Deepak)
NetIP – Run on April 1st. Anyone interested can participate. We can thus publicize for Asha. We will also set up a table for our 5k event. NetIP members will probably help with cleaning of Belle Isle.
8. TeamAsha updates – 5 minutes (Sudhi)
TeamAsha – trains Detroit free press marathon (3rd Sunday of October) participants. ACTION ITEM-Everyone: Need volunteers to publicize the event and recruit participants. Sudhi has sent a signup sheet for manning TeamAsha tables at various running and community events.
9. 5k updates – 5 minutes (Jui)
5K – Fund-raising to come from individual participants. Need volunteers to publicize the event and recruit participants.
10. Walk-in: Asha-16 Conference registration open
The
Asha wide conference, Asha-16 is being organized in New Jersey during
26-28th May 2007 (memorial day weekend) by Asha CNJ, Princeton and
Philadelphia.
If you want to meet Asha volunteers all over
the world, make new friends while brainstorming over the issues that
affect India and Asha and check out the great local attractions (New
York City is pretty close) this is the place to be.
The
conference website
http://www.Ashanet. org/centralnj/ conference/
2007/index. htm
Summary:
Sat, May 26 - Mon, May 28
Rutgers University
$70/person registration
Accomodations at: University Inn and Conference Center
$94-$115 / room
ACTION ITEM-Everyone: Sign up for the conference!
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2007 mission statement for Asha-Detroit:
Maintain a fund raising income consistent with Asha-Detroit's recurring project obligations while increasing the core volunteer base for 2007 by 50% over 2006.
How?
1) Broaden Asha-Detroit's appeal to a wider audience by reintroducing project activities and social activities instead of only fund raising activities.
2) Initiate an aggressive publicity campaign to spread awareness of Asha for Education and recruit more volunteers through multiple fronts:
a) Community networking – leverage exposure and membership of professional organizations (NetIP, MAPI, etc.)
b) University outreach – leverage exposure and membership of the local university community (UM-Ann Arbor IASA, etc.)
c) Planning events dedicated solely to publicity only without being distracted by fund raising
d) Personalized and timely attention especially to new volunteers or potential volunteers
3) Focus on reducing fund raising effort by 50% compared to 2006 in order to offset the significant resources for items (1) and (2). This is achieved by being selective with fund raising events and being very particular about planning and execution.
Why?
This is CRITICAL to the survival of Asha-Detroit. Metrics gathered since 2004 have shown a steady decline in volunteer attendance at meetings. Furthermore, Asha-Detroit must expand leadership in order to avoid becoming overly dependent on a limited number of people.
Fundraising and Publicity Plan for 2007 to be announced shortly.