[ We had decided to have separate fundraising and projects meetings, this week onwards. The minutes of the projects meetings are also available in the "Diary" Meetings: www.ashanet.org/princeton/diaries/meetings ] ______________________________________________________________________ Fundraiser meeting: 3:30 - 4:30PM, saturday, Feb 1st. Minutes by Sumathi Attendees: Amrish, Kumar, Suren, Zuzar, Hansa, Sudhakar, Amit, Arudra, Anirban, Manoj, Siddarth, Sumathi Fundraiser Title: "Asha Utsav 2003" Tentative date: May 24th. 1. Fundraiser program: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Last week a few volunteers(Suren, Kumar, Amrish and Sumathi) met with Mr. Jaywant Utpat who was the top in Suren's list of potential candidates show organizers. Mr. Jaywant Utpat was a unanimous choice considering his previous experience, creative ideas, confidence and motivation. He has brought together some very good music artists and has concrete ideas for novel show themes such as a medley of various music forms such as qawwali, hindi pop etc. Jaywant has been a tabla player for the past several years and in the process has participated in umpteen programs. He organized a show last year for Marathi Vishwa - a local maharashtrian cultural org. He also mentioned that his wife Sonal would help in the coordination, compering and as a singer. Jaywant convinced us of his commitment to promote good quality of the program. His openness for our input and 'ASHA-customization' appealed to us. Suren has volunteered to help with creative ideas about show theme etc. Jaywant also welcomed including one or two dance peices of Ms. Renuka Srinivasan, whom Vikas and Kusum located. (Her group's recent fusion-dance performance was quite popular. Sheteaches Bharatanatyam at Rutgers University, Busch campus and is very willing to put forth a befitting performance to promote the cause of Asha.) Some of us will meet with her this coming week, nail down details of performance, cost etc, and if all goes well, introduce her to Mr. Jaywant Utpat to work together. The program cost: $2000 for music part + approx. $100 for every dance peice. Madhavi Devasthale's dance group is already included. 2. Venue: ^^^^^^^^^ Hansa and Kusum worked hard last week to get a suitable auditorium. The West-windsor- Plainsboro North school, and Middlesex county college (Ewing ) were found to be favorable. Formalities to book a date will be completed this week and a venue will be finalized. 1. Tickets, Flyers and Posters: ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Tickets will be professionally printed this time. And like the previous 2 years, we hope Rohini will design the posters (and tickets this time). Flyers will be mostly text based so as to be printed by volunteers themselves (again like we did previous years). Suren volunteered to enquire costs of printing all these items. Tickets - need to print 1500 (so that they can be distributed to potential buyers), flyers - we'll need 1500 - 2000.. and posters (11' X 16') - about 50. Online ticket sales: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Our new volunteer Zuzar volunteered to enquire about this aspect from various places including indiainfo.com, sulekha.com etc. Asha Presentation on event day: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Brainstormed on several approaches .. 1. a 20-minute presentation by a volunteer (Amrish) as usual 2. a presentation by some outspoken children picked from a local school 3. split 10-10 minute presentations in 1st and 2nd halfs, with an Asha-movie in one, and projects presentation in another. 4. a skit by two people, bringing out the flavor of Asha and Asha princeton's projects. 5. 1st 10 minutes - a Nuware Foundation person speaks about Asha Princeton, the projects they're supporting and the satisfaction they gain from it. Next 10 minutes, asha princeton activities and projects 6. etc! Food: ^^^^^ We will not go with Bengali sweets this time, as the quality last time was not satisfactory. ______________________________________________________________________ Minutes of the first "projects focus group" meeting: Minutes by Sridhar Agenda: 1. NuWare Foundation support for new projects 2. WAH2002 funding for Khajurdaha 3. WAH2003 process 1. NuWare Foundation Funding NuWare Foundation has indicated interest in supporting new projects of Asha Princeton in addition to their continued support for Khajurdaha and Vasundara. We have reviewed BTS and Asha-Chennai scholarship projects, but have not completed the review process to regard them as Asha Princeton projects. Ideally, one month would be needed to finish the process. Projects group agreed to hold ad-hoc meetings to finish the process, if necessary. Action items: 1. Sridhar to ask NuWare for the deadline for NuWare Foundation's decision making process and schedule projects group meeting to review individual proposals. 2. Anirban, Rajesh, and Kumar to get the details of BTS, Asha-Chennai and Anawim projects respectively for Project review process. 2. WAH2002 Khajurdaha The WAH 2002 team has informed Sridhar that Khajurdaha might receive funds of about $5K from the WAH funds. The chapter need to decide if the money must go to Khajurdaha or any other project. The possible availability of $5K is in contrast to the intial feedback that there would be no WAH funds available for Khajurdaha. Subsequently, we had decided to fund the project from funds raised at our chapter The original Khajurdaha proposal for WAH was for around $20K. Following a closer scrutinization of the proposal the chapter had decided to trim it to a $15K proposal. One option was to use the $5K towards completely funding the WAH proposal. The team decided to revisit the items on the proposal that were not funded and make a concious effort in making the additional funds from WAH2002 available for the Khajurdaha project. Action item: Sridhar to present the details of the WAH2002 proposal items that were not funded by Asha Princeton. Date to be determined. 3. WAH2003 Process: Discussion was centered around two specific issues that need to be resolved. 1. Whether to change the format of WAH process. The current model and the proposed model were presented. Volunteers are requested to read through the minutes of the recent teleconference sent by Hansa to Asha Princeton and relevant messages from Asha-projects (four pertinent links were sent to AshaPrinceton mailing list by Sridhar). Action items: Sridhar to set up a poll on Asha Princeton mailing list to decide on our chapter's choice of format. Deadline Feb 8th. 2. Theme-based WAH. The new WAH process will most likely be based on themes. A few themes have been proposed by the WAH host Chapter (St.Louis) so far. The scope of the themes and rationale for their choice is not clear yet. Action items: Asha Princeton WAH reps (Hansa and Sudhakar) to find out the details of the themes being proposed and send information to Asha Princeton. Based on that, we will set up a poll to decide on the themes. Deadline Feb 9th(?).