When: Thursday 23 March 2000, 5:30-6:30pm
Where: Union South
Who: Subbu, Anita, Kamal, Venky, Harit, Charu, Ganti, Navin, Manoj
Purpose: Updating all volunteers about projects being considered

Subbu informed us about the Asha presidential election being conducted.
Currently, all but one of the four nominated candidates have declined
to contest, so we have only one candidate to vote for. Each chapter
sends in one vote. 

Remaining discussion is broken down by projects discussed.

Relevant documents can be obtained (soon) from our web site at:
   http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~asha/projects.html

- GIRD:
   - Venky is our local steward and updated us on the situation.
   - He is in contact with the project contacts in India (Ragini Behn,
     Sandeep, Ashok Tipnis) and is obtaining answers to detailed questions.
   - After getting a summary of the group's activities and funding
     requests (~Rs 1.2 lakh (approx $3000) for 1 year) 
     a quick vote was taken and we decided that if we fund the
     project (which is conditional on whether they have sufficient
     focus on the educational component, building schools etc), we
     should fund the entire project.
   - Venky will get a few more questions answered and we hope to 
     reach a decision on this soon.
   - LATE UPDATE: We have decided to fund this project, details will
     be posted by Venky to asha@cs soon.

- SERVE
   - Kamal is our local steward.
   - Not much update since last time. They seem to have got a $4,700
     donation from a German foundation.
   - It is not yet clear whether we will fund the project since the
     initial funding requests seem entirely infrastructural and don't
     have any educational focus.

- Cheelghat
   - Anita is our local steward.
   - We still need a lot of questions answered about what they want
     to do in terms of schools and education.
   - Ganti raised the question about the possible illegality of 
     the project's operation and whether eviction/imprisonment
     would affect Asha politically.
   - Total funding required is around Rs 2.68 lakhs (around $6000)
   - Jayashree from Seattle is donating individually and is being
     matched by Microsoft for a total of $2000
   - Asha-St.Louis is considering funding too
   - LATE UPDATE: Asha-St.Louis has decided to fund this project, so
     Cheelghat is no longer on our list of possible projects.