Minutes of Asha Seattle meeting on 12/03/08

Venue: RTC/LWSD No 414, Morton Johnson, Redmond, WA

Attendees:   Karthik, Ken, Hareesh, Vibhavaree, Srijan, Binay, Eera, Kannan, Pooja and Satyajith

 

Topic: Financial Policy

Presenter: Ken

 

·         Read through the conclusions from previous meeting.

·         Should the finance team meet more often? Currently the finance team meets EOY to figure out the finances.

·         Maintain a running count of commitments to projects.

·         It's not possible for the finance team to keep track weekly approvals and make sure they are below the targeted expenditure for the year.

·         The meeting agenda should keep track of the available funds that can be approved for new projects.

·         Catch up donations account for previous years account.

·         The previous financial guidelines have expired as the cuts they intended to make are not being made.

·         Are the project stewards consulted before cutting their budgets?

·         Projects should be given 6 months notice before cuts are made or should project stewards be given 6 months notice. Policy regarding this

·         Will be noted in the project processes document. Finance team will be responsible to convey the information to stewards. What stewards do

·         With the info will be covered by the project processes document.

·         Do we need have a trigger (a bank balance level) to raise more funds?

·         Is March the earliest time the finance team has funding info? Yes.

·         Vote: Are we voting to approve these guidelines after the modifications discussed in this meeting? This needs approval according to "policy" decision. Hence an online vote is required.

Yes:12 No: 0 Abstain:0

 

Topic: IAWW

Presenter: Satyajith

 

·         IAWW cultural event updates. 4 Asha volunteers helped out in the event.

·         Discussion about event feedback.

·         Voting: Should we support this event long term?

o   Yes: 9 No: 0 Abstain: 3

 

Topic: NAB

Presenter: Eera

 

Introduction

·         Part 1 presented by Siddarth in last meeting. Clarifications in this meeting.

·         Summary about the project.

·         This is coming for 1st time renewal. Approved as $6000/-. The org received Rs. 2,69,000.

·         Went over suggested budget changes.

 

Question/Comments

·         This year we will send approved amount subtract 127535.00.

·         Staff funded in the project -- do they go and help out in other projects?

·         They cannot use the unspent funds for unapproved purposes. They can use the unspent money for approved purposes only.

·         Why did they spend only 1/2 the amount? Number of enrolled students was below expectation. Hence they spent less.

·         Why are they not getting required number of adults for the program?

·         Why is it going from 141k (4 person) in the previous funding to 295k (6 persons) next Budget?

·         Line to line comparison could not be made from the previous budget to the projected budget.

·         Also, there are significant increases in certain line items. Those need to be justified / clarified.

 

Voting

·         Can the re-purpose the money for new programs within the org?

Yes: 0 No: 11 Abstain: 1

 

Topic: Chapter Updates

Presenter: Binay

 

·         Seattle Marathon. Everyone completed the marathon.

·         Volunteer workshop this weekend. Everyone should attend this workshop.

·         Need volunteers to mail calendars to donors.

·         Please get your volunteer time matched with your companies.

·         Contribute to organization admin account. Mention it in your check/donation etc.

·         Partnership with Seattle Art Museum.

 

 

Minutes taken by: Nagendra Singh

 

 

 

 

 

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