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Minutes of Asha Seattle meeting on 01/07/09 Venue : RTC LWSD No. 414, Morton Johnson Room, Redmond, WA Attendees: Binay, Nagendra Singh, Srijan, Arijit, Satyajit, Vibhavree, Eera, Sree, Rajeev, Ken, Tulika, Saurabh, Soumya, Karthik, Anchal and Poorna.
Topic: Policy National Association for the Blind Presenter: Eera
· Clarified discrepancy on funding from previous years. The funds effectively reached them in October 2007. · No funding given for year 2008. · New funding request of INR 295,000 for 2009. · For the past three meetings at the Seattle Chapter, the chapter members have been asking questions about the state of progress and are increasingly concerned about lack of information from the existing project stewards. Steward transition has not made things any easy. · Question asked: Age of students being trained. Answer: 18 to 32 year olds. · Question asked: Explanation required why the numbers in the Excel sheet have almost doubled from previous years .i.e., better explanation of increased budget should be provided. · After quite a vocal exchange of words a vote was taken to decide whether to stop funding or to try and find more information. 2 voted against funding. 11 voted for finding out more information before taking a decision. · Eera and Sree offered to become additional project stewards. In addition, Sree offered to seek people in Bangalore to find out information about NAB.
Topic: Bishnupur Music Academy Presenter: Arijit Mahalanabis
· Arijit, founder of Seattle Indian Music Academy (SIMA) proposed the following new project. Bishnupur Gharana of Hindustani classical music is a dying art. The village is an economically battered place with little financial incentives for promoting this art. The Project seeks to provide a framework for healthcare to the musicians (the teachers and the students), and also setup scholarships for the students. Funding for this would be the fees from individuals taking music classes through SIMA. · Vote taken by the present members to see if this fits under the purview of Asha. Unanimously voted for going ahead with further discussion on this project. After reviewing Asha's goals, Members present generally felt that this project fits in with the agenda of socio-economic reforms. Arijit has been asked to provide a detailed execution plan. · Members brought out concerns on how the flow of finance should be handled from SIMA through Asha to BMA. Microsoft Contribution Matching, Tax and legality aspects were the prime concerns. This needs more data and discussion. · Site visit is underway through Sudipta from SIMA, but Asha members have to do a mandatory site visit. · Members asked questions on the details of how the funding would be used by BMA. · FCRA clearance has to be obtained by BMA.
Topic: Asha Marathon Presenter: Tulika · Different coach for year 2009 through Seattle-Fit.com. · Some of the Asha seattle chapter members planning to meet up and get more information with the prospective coach. · Once a week (weekday) run after March 2009.
Topic: Hosting visitor E S Ramamoorthy Presenter: Vibhavaree · Vibhavaree and Ken are hosting E S Ramamoorthy. · He needs to be picked up from Seatac airport.
Topic: Chapter Updates Presenter: Binay
· Question: Increase meetings from 2 to 3? Two meetings on eastside and one on the westside. · Eastside meetings on weekends have a generally low attendance of4-5 people (not enough to form quorum). Members on an average prefer Wednesday or Thursday evenings. · Volunteers in UW need more mentoring. · Westside folks happy with one meeting per month. · PR team must be set up. Two members interested: Kalpana and Pooja. Suggestion: If possible, the PR team members must be from different companies. · Cinematographer interested in non profit work. Footage of volunteers, donors and of Asha sites. Leaving the seattle area in 10 days (from Jan 7th), so requires immediate attention. · All members voted for getting the footage done (provided there is no money involved). · Anu Arora interview. Looking for volunteers with posters. (Sree+ ?)
Minutes taken by Poorna
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