Minutes of the meeting held on September 7 -by Amrish

In attendance were:

Giri, Anirban, Sridhar, Kumar, Sumathi, Vinay, Uday,
Santanu, Manoj, Amit, Hansa, Maya, Sachin, Amrish.

Anirban described his visit to the Sunderbans project
run by BTS, a local organization. The population of
the island is approx. 200,000 divided into 10 gram
panchayats.  BTS operates schooling up to 4th grade
level in one of the gram panchayats with a population
of 22,000.  The government-run schools leave much to
be desired.  Anirban spoke favorably of the work being
done by the NGO. Last year, Asha-Seattle had provided
$15,000 toward construction of the school premises.  
The requested amount for meeting recurring expenses
this year is $10,000 toward the education of 195
children. The amount pledged by Asha  - Stars and Asha
– Cornell is about $4,000 so far.  During the meeting,
a pledge toward the project was made by Maya.  Our
Chapter members are requested to offer support to the
project and can get further details from Anirban.

Sridhar informed the audience that Asha - Delaware is
raising funds by holding an evening of music on
September 21 at 6 PM. Those interested should contact
Sridhar, Sumathi or visit
www.ashanet.org/delaware/swarasandhya .

There was a discussion on statements made or allegedly
made by Sandeep.  Asha for Education has been and
continues to be a non-hierarchical, non-political and
non-religious organization.  Members of our Chapter
are requested to attend our meetings if they have any
kind of misgiving.

Giri provided an update on the Nalamdana Youth
Education and Leadership (YEL) program in Chennai. In
the past, the project has received funds from Asha -
Princeton, Asha - DC and Asha - Stanford.  The project
is doing impressive work in teaching leadership skills
to students who otherwise would miss out on the
opportunity.  This year the focus was on horticulture,
environmental issues, personality development and
pottery.  The students also have a chance to volunteer
and perform community service.  The audience raised
questions regarding some of the financial data.  Hansa
volunteered to work with Giri on this project.

As per the decision taken earlier, each of our
projects will now have two coordinators.  Maya has
volunteered to work with Sridhar on the Khajurdaha
project.  Rohini and Vikas are coordinating the
Vasundhara project.

Others who have specific responsibilities are:

Manoj:		Webmaster
Priya:		Treasurer
Himanshu:	Coordination of Work-An-Hour
Rajesh:		Asha - Chennai and fund-raising
Kumar:		Fund-raising / donor relations
Amit:		Fund-raising / donor relations
Vinay:		Merchandise
Anirban:	Merchandise and Calendars
Santanu:	Newsletter
Dipali & Uday:  Database
Shankar:	Monitoring of e-mail lists
Sumathi:	Co-ordination with other Chapters
Amrish:		Meeting announcements and minutes  

The above is not exhaustive because I am sure I have
omitted some names and functions. Please let me know
what I may have missed.