Minutes of Asha Seattle meeting on 07/17/08 Venue : RTC LWSD No 414, Morton Johnson Room, Redmond, WA Attendees: Deb, Srijan, others Hariksha People’s Welfare Trust Ravi’s wife is a Special Educator Wants to start a rehab center for children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) and mental disabilities. Wants to teach ADL (activities of daily living) to children Some of the logistics are missing in the proposal— For example: there is not enough one on one between students and teachers, didn’t budget a van for travel (originally saying they were going to use autorickshaws, although not appropriate for children with these kind of disabilities) Received pages and pages of justifications for each of the questions Other NGOs are not in their village (other NGOs are in neighbouring villages). From a financial perspective (Srijan), 1) may need to hold off with funds because we’re somewhat over budget 2) This is another chapter’s project, and it is our decision, whether or not we are comfortable helping out They haven’t identified special educators yet, but are intending to after they find out if they receive funding. Foreseen Daily schedule Children will be picked up from the center Prayer Physio-therapy Lunch Recreation This is a one-time pending the budget funding request for an Asha-Irvine project Vote Yes: 11 No: 0 Abstain: 11 Project is approved appending budget Gandhi Kasturibhai Village Development Society Works with migrant laborers, small farmers, children, people with disabilities, dalits, In addition to our project, also started healthcare and work with ADIS Works with 150 children Started 5 centers (which are schools) all in the Tiruvannamalai District in Tamil Nadu Conducted 12 health check-up camps Started children’s credit union They boosted savings by about 30% All children are still in school Do not know why they don’t have any drop-outs. Think that’s great. They are not taking any new students. Moving the children forward in grades. What exams are being used? Not sure, will check. Will fund the project for 6 months pending site visit, and then will fund for the whole year. No red flags for the project. Vote Yes: 16 Abstain: 4 Miles4Smiles 2008 Program and Policies In 2006 runner paid for registration and we paid for training. In 2007, we had runners pay for training but we paid for registration and t-shirts in the marathon. We need to decide what to do this year. Training cost is $100. Registration cost is $75. Most people are fine in paying training cost, but some of the students are finding the $100 difficult. ½ marathon minimum fundraising amount equals $500 Full marathon minimum fundraising amount equals $1000 Hareesh thinks it’s okay to deduct training fee for students and ½ cost registration cost Binay thinks it’s okay to ½ costs for students Ken thinks it’s should be uniform Vote Non-students: will pay training fee Students: will not pay training fee Everyone’s registrations will be covered Yes: 18 Abstain: 1 Chapter Coordination Updates Low Volunteer Bandwidth We are managing close to 50 projects right now Several long term volunteers have left We’re proposing a three-month freeze on new projects (all projects that are already in the proposal phase are still fine) We have 5-10 projects from other chapters 2 projects have no stewards what so-ever 8-10 projects only have 1 steward 20 projects need a 3^rd steward Vote Yes: 17 Abstain: 2 We need someone to help organize the Asha summer picnic. Divya, a new volunteer agreed to help coordinate it. A new volunteer orientation will occur on the 29^th. The finance meeting will be next Wednesday Congratulations to all the bikers who bike to Portland in STP. Awesome job! Asha west coast conference is Labor Day weekend August 31 – September 1 Finance There will be a finance meeting next Wednesday to discuss the budget in full. In 2007, we funded over $700,000 to our project partners in India. In 2008, due in parts to the dollar fluctuation, estimates show that we will be funding close to $1 million. We have in-built reserves, but should plan ahead fundraising rise. In addition to low volunteer bandwidth, we may want to freeze projects a bit too, until funds even out. Minutes taken by Deborah Kukreja

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