Minute January 30th, 2016
Minute : Nepali American Friendship Association
Date : January 30th, 2016
Venue : 2800 Royal Ave, Madison WI 53713
Start time : 2:00 PM
Members Present :
a. Executive Member –
1. Purna Shrestha
2. Ramesh Khanal
3. Kabindra Adhikari
4. Rajendra Aryal
5. Som Khanal
6. Rajeeb Karna
7. Archana Dhakhwa
8. Mahendra Pathak
9. Abiskar Bharati
b. General Member –
1. Shreedhar Ranabhat(Ex-Officio)
2. Aek B Chhetri
3. Hemanta Shrestha
4. Aesasbi Chhetri
5. Pallav Regmi
Agendas:
1. Review of past program: International Fest, School Rebuild Project (SRP/N), Gift Wrap and Kakshya.
2. Discussion on forthcoming program: Brat Fest Registration, Nepali New Year Celebration (April 16, 2016) and Picnic (July 16, 2016). Hall/Spot Booking and assignment of coordinators.
3. Discussion and preparation of Annual General Meeting (AGM), submission of provisions (International support) of amendment in AGM, Volunteer Appreciation.
4. Tax Filing for 2015/2016 (2072 BS); and budget preparation for the year 2073 and submission.
5. Treasurer's report (Income and Expense Status).
6. Miscellaneous: Websites, Facebook, emails, YouTube, Sahitya Blog
7. Nepali American Youth Leadership (NAYL) Agendas
Formalize NAYL and its efforts under the workings of NAFA activities. Open a separate bank account on behalf of NAYL to facilitate its financial activities, including collection of donations and payment of expenses. Recognize the volunteer hours of NAYL as NAFA volunteer hours. Publish/post NAYL activities in the NAFA websites. Help NAYL achieve the School Academic Year 2015-2016 budget goal $20,000. Pledge $1,000 from NAFA funds to NAYL. Help with the $10,700 corporate donation and other fundraising along with students and student parents. Help with securing 2016 Brat Festival volunteering opportunity, whereby the NAYL students can engage their peer group hand in hand with the NAFA members to generate approximately $1000. Facilitate online donation and fee collection
Agenda #1 - Past & Ongoing Events :
- International Festival
o Coordinator Kabindra Adhikari briefed.
o Anshuman Adhikari, Abiskar Bharati and Kabindra Adhikari volunteered from 9 Am to 5 PM. Impressive number of NAYL volunteer were present to explain the NAYL vision and mission to people via NAFA information booth.
o Total Sale of $56.00 was made as per interest of visitors at booth and out of that 20% will go to NAFA along with $2 donation.
o ‘Write your name in NEPALI’ was a huge success, 120 people wrote their name in Nepali.
o Per Aek Chhetri & Shridhar Ranabhat, NAYL needs a platform and NAFA should avail the platform for them. NAYL can be mobilized more efficiently as a volunteer next year for International Fest.
o Abiskar Bharati suggested need to coordinate musical involvement as well in international fest.
- School Rebuilding Project
o Purna Shrestha briefed about SRP.
o First meeting was called on December 21st 2015. Total of 9 people are in committee.
o Team Leader is not appointed yet and general discussion ended the meeting
o Next meeting will be called in February of 2016.
- Gift Wrapping
o NAFA could not get involved in Giftwrapping event this year.
o Navraj Pandey was the coordinator for that event.
- Kakshya
o Archana Dhakhwa briefed about Kakshya.
o Great feedback from parents and progress of the children attending kakshya is very impressive.
o Total of 19 students are present every week in Kakshya. They are in 3 groups in accordance to their level of Nepali language abilities. They had exam on January 17th 2016. The groups: Sagarmatha, Kanchanjungha and Machhapuchre have been reshuffled after the test to focus on different need of students.
o Suhani Pandey, Ishan Luitel, Pranav Adhikari, Belisma Shrestha, Yujen Thapa and Arhat Dwa were awarded for performing great in test. NAFA will reimburse Archana Dhakhwa, the cost of the awards presented and the supplies purchased for students, i.e. $50.
o Archana Dhakhwa stated that NAFA has been always welcoming our young generations to volunteer. Kakshya has been and will be always open for them both for helping and learning. Sridhar Ranabhat suggested starting a summer extra Class where NAYL volunteer and Kakshya kids can help learn each other would be beneficial where NAYL volunteer can cycle between themselves.
o NAFA has and will support Kakshya .
o Ramesh Khanal suggested taking children to an outing which would motivate them.
o Rajendra Aryal suggested to keep parents of the children involved in a creative work like Play or dance or song while waiting for their children. This creative work can be showcased in NAFA event later.
o Hindu Dharma Circle (HDC) will host Shripanchami for Kakshya Kids on February 14th 2016.
Agenda #2 – NAFA Upcoming Events
- Brat Fest
o Coordinator : Purna Shrestha
o Date : Friday, May 27th 2016 (Memorical Day Long weekend)
o Username and password allocated individually so volunteers need to signup in the website under NAFA Group by END OF FEBRUARY.
o Can collect names and email addresses and one person can enter all the information for volunteers
o NAYL can get involve into brat fest under NAFA banner. NAYL will coordinate with Purna Shrestha.
- NAFA Nepali New Year program
o Coordinator : Navraj Pandey & Archana Shrestha
o Date : Saturday, April 16th, 2016
o Time : 4PM to 11PM
o Venue : Eagle Heights
o Som Khanal will reserve the place for the event with Kitchen.
- NAFA Sahitya Sanjh
o Coordinator : Som Khanal
o Date : November 2016
o Venue : TBD
- NAFA Scholarship
o Coordinator : Purna Shrestha
o Date : End of June, 2016
- NAFA Summer Picnic
o Coordinator : Rajeeb Karna & Archana Dhakhwa
o Date : July 16th, 2016
o Venue : McKee Farm Park or TBD
Agenda #3 – Annual General Meeting
- This will be held in Nepali New Year Program
- Constitution amendment for international relief work/Support
- Consult with Aek B Chhetri for the ruling for wordings
- Present Budget NAFA activity-wise
- Volunteer Appreciation plus Volunteer of the Year
Agenda #4 – Tax Filling
- Purna Shrestha and Mahendra Pathak will work on the tax filing for NAFA.
- If the donations and the fund in NAFA’s accounts are more than 50K for the year of 2016 then there will be much more complex processes NAFA has to go through, informed Purna Shrestha.
Agenda #5 – Financial Report
- Mahendra Pathak has already sent the email about the financial report.
- Earthquake relief fund has been kept in a separate book. Donations are still coming in. For more details, Please contact Treasurer.
Agenda #6 - Miscellaneous
- Websites/ YouTube
o NAFA Google website is up to-date with current information.
o Website also gives information about the recent and upcoming NAFA events.
o NAFA Executive board approved to buy the domain name for NAFA. Abiskar Bharati will work on this.
o The name of website for now is https://sites.google.com/site/samparkanafa/
o YouTube channel of NAFA has few more videos added to it, per Abiskar Bharati.
o The link to the YouTube channel : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf778gnxaAD80OPthwclnZw
- PayPal account
o NAFA needs an online medium to collect donations.
o NAFA will start its PayPal account. Abiskar Bharati, Purna Shrestha & Mahendra Pathak will work in this ASAP.
- NAFA Sahitya Blog
o www.nafasahitya.blogspot.com has all the NAFA Member’s creative articles in it, per Abiskar Bharati.
- NAFA Facebook page
o More than 1200 likes.
o Lots of message from Nepalese community coming to Madison get information about NAFA and Nepalese community in Madison from facebook page.
- NAFA Library
o Abiskar Bharati is numbering all the books present in NAFA Library to avoid missing books from library.
- Ramesh Khanal requested to submit the bhajans for HDC’s new bhajan book. HDC is reshuffling bhajans and adding new ones being coordinated by Dinar Shrestha and Ramesh Khanal.
- Som Khanal informed representative from Laxmi Pratisthan is coming over to chigaco, IL and they would like to have a small talk session with NAFA members as well. Purna Shrestha informed we can meet the representatives once they are here.
- Ramesh Khanal informed, Blood Donors of America has convention in Dallas, TX and are going to publish a “Smarika”. He asked members to submit articles to him. Articles can be in English or Nepali but needs to be related to blood donation or donation.
- Next meeting will be on March 1st week, 2016
Agenda #7 – Nepalese American Youth Leadership(NAYL)
- Aesasbi Chhetri & Pallav Regmi represented NAYL along with Hemant Shrestha, Aek B Chhetri and Shreedhar Ranabhat.
- As informed before, they are associated to Texas-based organization, started by Shreya Dahal, who are yet to gain a non-profit status.
- NAYL-madison have 20 members now per Aesasbi. They have already fund raised $800 so far.
- Per Pallav, NAYL is not part of NAFA but they want to collaborate with NAFA in their initiatives.
- NAYL want NAFA to advertise them via NAFA’s channels like website and Facebook page.
- NAYL wants financial support from NAFA as a started fund and wants NAFA to manage its money via opening a bank account for them. Plus NAYL wants NAFA to handle its online donations.
- NAYL wants NAFA to give the Brat Fest spot to them so that they can generate the fund for their organization.
- NAYL wants NAFA to track its volunteer hours as NAFA’s volunteer hours.
- Mahendra Pathak, treasurer of NAFA, said NAFA cannot handle the financial matter for another organization. This will get NAFA into lot of troubled waters later.
- Archana Dhakhwa asked NAYL representatives, why they cannot be a youth wing of NAFA just like volleyball teams, who are NAFA members but are like a separate entity. NAYL can be youth wing of NAFA until they are stable and until they register as a separate non-profit organization. Once they are comfortable with their Vision, mission and goal then they can go solo from there. Till that time NAFA can keep a separate book for NAYL like it is doing for earthquake relief fund.
- Purna Shrestha along with rest of the executive board unanimously told NAYL representatives that NAFA supports their youth in every endeavor.
- Pallav Regmi stated NAYL would just like to associate with NAFA but not come under the umbrella of NAFA or work as a wing/sister organization of NAFA.
Meeting End time : 5:20 PM
Minute Prepared By :
Abiskar Bharati
Secretary
On behalf of NAFA.