The meeting began with a review of the last week’s minutes and the “action-items” from the previous week
-         Uma was moved from the Asha-Core to the Asha-Syr listserv.
-         The cheque to Dr. Sudershan has to be sent.
-         Clarifying the confusion about including new members on the Asha-Core listserv, since a few of them did not know about the meeting.

Theatre Workshop
The South Asia Center has offered $1300 out of the projected $1600 needed for Aparna Sindoor’s workshop. Asha needs to raise $300. Various options were thrown out on how to do that. It was eventually decided that Asha-Syr would utilize money allotted by the OGLEL/GSO to student organizations for the year. The dates for the workshop are the weekend of October 25-26, 2002.

-         The organizing team – Radha, Mallika and Aarti – will fix the fee and the advertising strategy by October 8, 2002.

Mehfil 

The proposed event on November 9 in the Schine Underground. The organizing team – Sejal and Nikhil – are in the process of figuring out the expenses and avenues of funding, as well as the design of the event. (Antakshri seems on the cards – compered by Cyril!!) The have fixed to go with Haripriya to meet Joshua and Anthony in the OGLEL – a.k.a GSO – on Tuesday October 8,2002.  

Westcott Movie

Veronica had no progress to report on this matter. Haripriya said Tula, our Faculty Advisor said she could help us in such things. It was suggested that Veronica continue her efforts and that the event be postponed to spring.

P.Sainath’s Photo Exhibit

Natarajan said there had been no response to his email queries. Efforts on that front will also continue and the group  is willing to postpone hosting the exhibit to spring.

World Computer Exchange (WCE)

Sucharita is leading this effort from Asha-Syr. She said she’s collected four computers so far, mostly through spreading news by word of mouth. She said that she’s been in touch with other Asha chapters, specifically Yale, which is quite active on this project. She suggested that we have information on this and a form on-line, as a way of disseminating information. In the meantime, she also plans to get in touch with WCE about their standards regarding the computers that can be donated. Natarajan and Nikhil will work on putting the website information together and Sucharita will provide them with the publicity blurb.

Books Collection

Sucharita brought up the idea of supplying the projects we support with educational books – as a way of having some direct influence/contact (besides the money and progress reports i.e.).  Some Asha chapters have made arrangements with Tulika Publishers in Chennai to supply books worth $100 to the projects they support. It was suggested that maybe Asha volunteers could collect old children’s books that could be sent to the projects through people visiting India.  There was a brief discussion about the usefulness of this - could it be construed as interference? Do the projects really need these books? How relevant would books from America be for children in India? It was decided that we would check this out with Ananya in Bangalore.

In absentia, Vikas was delegated with the task of contacting Ananya to ask them what they thought of this. If there is interest, individual donors could also be offered the option of supporting Asha’s projects in this manner.  Sucharita will do a short write up to explain this project.   

Registration

Asha’s registration with the OGLEL/GSO for 2002-2003 has been completed.   As mentioned earlier, Tula Goenka from NewHouse School is our new Faculty Advisor and henceforth will be on the Asha-Core listserv – Hi Tula! Great to have you on board!

The Constitution of  Asha-Syr framed in 1994 will be made available for everyone’s perusal on-line. People – CHECK THE WEBSITE!!

 Task groups

We revisited the task groups formed last semester – to allow new members to join and also older members to move/change task groups if they wanted to. It was decided that task group members would present a plan for the year at the next meeting. The task groups are

Projects – Vikas, Neelakshi and Veronica

Talk – Jerry, Veronica , Radha and Nikhil

Fundraising – Sucharita, Mallika and Nitika

Administration/ Website/GSO Liaison – Haripriya, Shanmugha and Natarajan

PR/New member orientation – Radha, Aarti, Mallika and Jerry

On-line discussion

In the week since the discussion was initiated only two members of the group wrote in. The group was asked to please contribute. Veronica would send out a summary of the first set of responses by Monday October 7.

COMPAS/Asha collaboration

Nitika asked if Asha would be willing to collaborate with a Maxwell School based Graduate Student Organization – the Coalition of Minority Public Administration Students (COMPAS) to put together something on Diwali towards the end of October. There was some discussion on the multiplicity of events happening around that time and Asha’s involvement in them. Eventually it was decided that Asha would have a booth at the event, and possibly some of the Garba dancers from Basant Mela could present the dance again. The possibility of using some of the people involved in SIA’s events for this semester was suggested to Nitika. The venue and date for the event is yet to be finalized. Nitika will keep us updated.

Asha-SIA connection/collaboration

Aarti and Sejal said that they would meet with the SIA folks to discuss collaboration between the two organizations. Aarti attends SIA meetings. This should be a good opportunity for the two organizations to work together. 

The next meeting is scheduled for Friday October 18, 2002 in Schine. (Room to TBA)