ASHA: Minutes of meeting held on 07/01/99 at Mem. Union

[Kamalkumar Gursahani <gursahan@cae.wisc.edu>]

ASHA Meeting
July 1, 1999
Memorial Union 
5.30 p.m.

ATTENDEES: Kamal, Mahesh, Murali, Neeraj, Vineeta

AGENDA:
To come up with ideas for publicising 'Work an Hour' event in Madison. 

--> Everyone agreed that in Madison, ASHA needed to establish more 
contacts with the Indian community. ASHA still carried the image of
an "all students" organization, which is not true. To improve networking
with the Indian community in Madison it was decided to set up a
consolidated directory of names and email addresses. 

--> "Work an Hour" (WAH) was an ideal package to market ASHA's mission.
Neeraj suggested sending out an email to all our contacts which would
summarise ASHA's goals and give details about the WAH 99 event and how
donors could contribute now and in the future.

--> Murali suggested holding a presentation either on campus or at 
Dr.Bhargava's place as a followup to the email.  It would be easier to
sell ASHA's ideology to a small group of interested people rather than
hold presentations at social events which fails to draw people's 
attention. These people after attending the presentation could then market
the ASHA name through their network of friends. Vineeta added that the
presentation should include the following:
1. Stress that ASHA has no political or religious affiliations
2. Explain where ASHA fitted in the braoder goal of development
3. Emphasise that though ASHA as an organization had a scattered style 
functioning, we are still united as is shown by successfully organizing
nation wide events like WAH, ASHA conference. 
4. Include the strengths of ASHA and how we wish to expand in the future 
Neeraj added that the talk should be a professional one. Murali and 
Vineeta agreed to start working on the presentation. 

--> There was a discussion about how ASHA should cover its administrative
expenses. As the organization is growing it is hard to function with
zero overheads. This point will be discussed with other ASHA chapters.

--> It was agreed that our meeting in the 2nd week of September after
school starts should serve as a kick-off meeting for new volunteers in
the next academic year.