Minutes of Asha Seattle meeting on 04/11/07 Venue : RTC LWSD No 414, Morton Johnson Room, Redmond, WA Attendees: Theresa, Maria, Deb, Shailesh, Aparajita, Gaurav, Srijan, Swati, Prashant, Sree, Ravi, Manohita, Harish Inviting Vinod Raina for a Talk - Presented by Srijan Srijan presented the possibility of inviting Vinod Raina for a talk in Seattle. He'll also be attending the Asha conference, but very few Seattle Volunteers are attending the conference. It'll be a good opportunity to listen to him. Every one was in favor of inviting him. Conference admin expense - Presented by Ravi Asha bi-annual conference will incur avout $3500-4000 for various admin costs. This money needs to be raised from admin account - mostly through volunteer contributions. The proposal was for Seattle chapter to bear a good portion of the cost, Seattle being one of the largest chapter in terms of fund raising. Srijan mentioned that Seattle chapter's admin funds have gone down since last year. However, we can definitely take up some of the cost for this. We voted on Seattle chapter sponsoring $1500 towards the admin costs for the conference. Votes: Yes 10, Abstain 1 CMS Proposal – Presented by Aparajita and Swati Aparajita presented budgets for various subprojects of CMS for approval. Most of these are ongoing projects with minor changes. Srijan commented on his experience on CMS, based on his site visit few years back. One thing that was pointed out was that CMS was not generally able to contain their number of students for most of their schools. Many times they have contacted Asha, after they have already enrolled many students beyond the original project plan. a) Health expenses, previously supported by an Austrian agency. Medicine is the major new component (compared to last year), other components- midwives training and other training for health awareness. Next year, they are hoping for other agencies to pick the ball again. Voting- Health $5060 (out of which ~$ 1500 in medicine, instruments & contingencies will be  increment for 2007.) Yes- 6, No- 1, Abstain- 6. b) Sharda Balika Bidyamandir- School for dropout girls. Talented teachers, KG-grade 7, want to extend to grade 8. Small portion- 1 time and most recurring. Cooks, teachers, tailoring teacher (to be tried for initial 6 months). (Last year supported ~ $16000 for SBB). This year's budget- $18866.22 recurring & $200 one time. Voting based on contingent on questions about food Yes- 10, Abstain- 1, No- 0. c) Surendra Smriti Bidyaniketan (Amlamethi) school building- CMS wants to make a pukka building as many villagers take refuge during monsoon floods. Secluded region, only school. Current structure- 2 rooms. Suggestion- to involve community in labor so that the community can have stake in the school. Question has been asked about cost (per sq. footage). This proposal will be voted at a latter date based on the suggestion and question. d) SSB (Amlamethi) school- tours, teaching learning material are new costs compared to last year's budget. More # of teachers, salaries increased, providing cooked food. Voting for $23236 (recurring for 3 years) - Yes-8, No-0, Abstain-2. e) One time mud construction of 1 NFE center at Amlamethi in Gosaba. Will be voted on later. Vikasana bridge school – Presented by Manohita Submitted for WAH 2007, looking for funding till end of this year. Co-stewarded with UFlorida. New items- solar lighting and purchase of computers. Total budget $5000. Previously supported $4500. Site visited by UFlorida, response has been positive. Right now looking for funding from other local organizations. Yes 9, Abstain 1, No 0.	Br

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