Minutes of the chapter meeting held on 12/09/06 at 4.30pm.
(Minutes by Ravi)

Present: Ravi,  Amrish, Sowmya, Hansa, Jalpa
New: Alap Jani

The following items were discussed:

1. Anand's visit: Planning for Anand's east coast visit was
discussed. Hansa mentioned that she would pick up Anand from Newark
airport on 12/25 in the evening (at 4.30pm). Potential dates for the
Anand's meet with the Asha volunteers in the area (NJ, and Philly)
are 12/25 and 12/26. Potential venues are the Princeton university and
Passage to India restaurant. Ravi would find out availability of access
to Princeton University E-Quad building during the holidays. Hansa
would find out availability of the restaurant. We may have a talk at
the university and have dinner or if the venue is restaurant, the
dinner and talk may be combined. There is a plan to have conference
call for this on 12/16 night to review the plans.

2. Public Relations/Fund raising coordinator for the chapter: Need for
someone to coordinate the public relations and fund raising activities
at the chapter was discussed. Jalpa agreed to take this responsibility.

3. Treasurer: The chapter treasurer, Uday, needs to support and backup.
There is also a potential that Uday may not be available in the area.
The names of Shankar and Ravinder came up for this purpose. Ravi would
pursue this further.

4. Anirban talk: Anirban has been associated with the chapter before
moving back to India last year. He is back in US. During the last one
year, Anirban has spent time with some of the Asha projects, and
followed current events such RTI (Right to Information act). We are
planning to invite him to share his experiences during the month of
January. The potential date is 01/20/07.

5. Asha 2007 calendar: The chapter ordered 250 calendars to distribute
among donors, volunteers, etc. The chapter is paying $5 for each
calendar. It was decided to sell the calendars at $5, and distribute
some to the donors as compliments.

6. Sanctuary workshops: The chapter approved to fund two Sanctuary
(focus group) workshops in 2006. Hansa has already paid for one
workshop as the money was not made readily available from the chapter.
It was decided to reimburse Hansa the expenses for the workshop.

7. Publicity event: The chapter has been organizing every year a fund
raising event. There are offers from these old groups to do the event
with the chapter next year, too. It was decided that a publicity event
may be useful instead of fund raising event. The publicity event can be
used to showcase the Asha projects, recruit potential marathon runners,
interface with potential donors and volunteers. It was decided to set
up a vote on this in the chapter yahoo groups. Based on the response,
it would be decided to go ahead with the publicity event. The
modalities would be discussed later.

8. New projects: Due to lack of preparation, it was decided to take up
discussion on new projects in the next chapter meeting.

Ravi