Minutes of the meeting held on September 21, 2002 -by Amrish

In attendance at the meeting on September 21 were:

Vinay and Sumathi Iyengar
Kusum Kanwar
Arudra Burra
Manoj MP
Anirban Hazra
Kumar Ramaswamy
Santanu Chakraborty
Maya Yajnik
Amit Sahai
Shankar Krishnan
Amrish Garg

At the meeting, Shankar gave a presentation on the
deliberations of the Asha East Conference (held at
Princeton during August) that are most relevant to our
Chapter and moderated the ensuing discussion.

The talk fell under the following broad headings.

1. New volunteers  

We need to attract, mentor and retain.

Amit and Manoj volunteered to make flyers for the SASA
meeting at Princeton. Tentatively, October 19 was
fixed as the Asha meeting that would be specially
structured for the new voluneers. Details to be worked
out. 

New and existing voluneers would benefit from a
reading list. The PROBE report was mentioned. Arudra
agreed to present the report at the meeting on Nov. 2.

Amrish offered to circulate the document that
illustrates how Asha operates.

Active engagement of volunteers is necessary for
sustaining their interest in Asha. We want to make
sure that all willing volunteers are involved in one
or more tasks.

2. Overhead costs

After some discussion, it was agreed that (a) we
should keep a track of overhead expenditure incurred
by volunteers and (b) willing volunteers should
contribute a small amount yearly for meeting petty
expenses (postage, printing, travel expenses of
invited speakers etc.)

3. Project selection and monitoring

We should consolidate our basic guidelines document
with those of MIT, SV and DC Chapters. This is an
action item for Himanshu.

Site visits are an essential part of Asha's operation.
The ability to evaluate a project during a site visit
comes with experience. There are dos and don'ts.
Shankar offered to contact Melli for info.

Amit felt that "excellence" should be the prinicipal
criterion for assisting a project.

New volunteer Kusum said that individuals making a
difference should be sought out. She will share the
information that she has from articles in Outlook.

We will need to have a future meeting in this area.

4. Fund-raising

This is an important aspect of Asha's functioning and
we need to benefit from the experience that the others
have accumulated. 

The discussion could not be completed due to lack of
time and will be rescheduled on a future date.

Regards.

Amrish