June 24th Asha Meeting Minutes :

Attended by : Siva, Bash, Jayashree, Seshu Badrinath, Anji

Details :

  • Phtographs : Siva explained about Asha objectives, activities and focus groups to Seshu Badrinath, a guest to the meeting. Seshu Badrinath is a photographer who wanted to help Asha Seattle. Following is summary of opinions and information given by Seshu Badrinath
    • Children have a special place in his work.
    • Asha Seattle web site is boring. His photographs will help us in creating better brochures and Web site.
    • Adding multi media will make web sites interesting.

    Seshu can commit 2 months of his time and expertise in taking pictures not material costs. Films and developing costs may be over $200. Siva suggested that Seshu could approach some companies for funding photo project for Asha, alternately he could also raise funds from his friends. Asha Seattle is not for investing money to raise funds.

    Jayashree felt Seshu's proposal may benefit complete Asha, just not Asha Seattle alone. Bash said Corporate Group may benefit more with these photographs. Seshu proposed he will make initial investment and take photographs of projects and if Asha could reimburse if it finds photos useful. Jayashree said she would contact other Asha chapters to find out whether they would be interested in this project. Siva showed his Site visit photographs and explained about his visits. Siva is impressed by Thally project.

  • Meeting Attendence : Jaya Shree and Bash attend PPI meetings and they noticed a contrast between number of attendees of PPI meetings and that of Asha General meetings. Every one in the meeting felt something should be done to improve general meetings and attract more volunteers. It was suggested that all group activities should be discussed in general meeting as opposed to in different meetings. Bash pointed out that the major constraint for doing this could be time. Time may not be enough to discuss every item of each focus group. If there are too many items to be discussed by a focus group then they can call for a separate meeting. Information about additional meetings should be posted to Asha Core.
  • Information Night: Pamela found a place to hold Information Night.
    Tentative date: Aug 23 or 24
    Venue:     Pamela's school
    Menu is identified for Information Night, Cook some and cater some. Sanchita is coordination that effort. Charu and Jayashree are coordinating presentation. Bash suggested we should ask Pamela if it would be feasible to hold Quiz at her school. Bash will create list of Asha Seattle Volunteer openings and post it to the Asha Core.
  • Summer Picnic:
    Date and Time: Augst 2nd 1997 between 2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
    Place: Lk. Sammamish Park
    Entertainment: Foot ball, Cricket, Volley ball
    Food/ Snacks: Bhelpuri, Upma, Pakora, Cake, Lemonade and fruits
  • Status for our current projects:
    • RHEDT - we have received a good proposal from RHEDT for setting up the telephone booth. We need to take a decision whether or not to support them at the next meeting. Noon meal scheme and school are in progress. The SAC focus group will be following up regarding individual sponsorship for 3 people to get their degrees.
    • Sundarbans - they have sent in a proposal to PPI for a vocationl training program. If this is accepted by PPI, it will be the very first project Asha/PPI will be supporting together. PPI will be taking a decision next month.
    • Padsare school -Want to increase teachers salaries for an additional Rs 25,000/-. The plan to take this money from Sakhar Shaala project funds since they received some local support for Sakhar Shaala.
    • Spastics - the school is in progress. The last site visit showed some ambiguity on exactly how our funds are being used. Jayashree will write to them for detailed breakdown.
    • New project Madurai Institute of Peace Science - We are co-sponsoring this with Asha Colorado and M.I.T.
  • New project proposals :
    • Anugriha charitable trust - we are still debating whether or not to support this project. We will vote at the next meeting.
    • Redag - this proposal to fund education for individual children in an orphanage will be pursued by the SAC focus group.
    • Faridabad project -We will be making a donor specific contribution towards setting up a new library for the children.
    • We have received an organization profile from PPI for Samanvay Ashram. We are yet to receive a formal proposal. It was mentioned at the projects meeting that this may be funded by some other Asha chapter. We will follow up when we receive a proposal from them.

 
 
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