Minute July 26, 2015
Minute : Nepali American Friendship Association
Date : July 26th, 2015
Venue : 2800 Royal Ave, Madison WI 53713
Start time : 1:15 PM
Members Present :
a. Executive Member –
1. Purna Shrestha
2. Ramesh Khanal
3. Navraj Pandey
4. Rajendra Aryal
5. Rashesh Shrestha
6. Narendra Thapa
7. Archana Dhakhwa
8. Abiskar Bharati
b. General Member –
1. Shreedhar Ranabhat(Ex-Officio)
2. Santosh Lamichhane
Agendas:
1. Updates on Fund Raise Dinner (08/16/2015): discussion on event activities, campaign/promotion and planned arrangements: By Ramesh Khanal/Purna Shrestha/Rosha Pokharel
2. Discussion on School Rebuild Project in earthquake disaster areas of Nepal: Initiate finding partner CB/NGOs to participate in RFP process.
3. Fulfillment of NAFA Board Officer (V. P. and PRO).
4. Review of past NAFA activities (experience sharing, farmer market fund raise, Picnic).
5. Discussion on future activities: Children Program, Dashain 2015, Sahitya Program, Kakshya, Scholarship award, Gift Wrap, Earthquake fundraise activities and sponsorship for Dashain event.
6. Financial Report: Treasurer's Report on Regular activities and earthquake activities
7. Miscellaneous: Websites, YouTube, Power Point projector arrangements.
Agenda #1 - Updates on Fund Raise Dinner
- Goal of Fundraising Dinner = 50,000 (including 18,000$ already raised)
- Purna Shrestha’s Briefing :
o Tickets, flyers & letter has been forwarded to volunteer sellers and posted on NAFA social media platform
o 20 complimentary tickets distributed to donors
o Program consists of dinner plus live nepali music at cost of $50
- Shreedhar Ranabhat’s Briefing
o Preparatory work complete, tickets are on sale.
o Target number of people is 150, 50-60 tickets already sold
o Request all to tap personal contacts
o Lot of energy and time has been put in for the program
- Ramesh Khanal’s Briefing
o Tentative format of program 4.45 Guests arrive, 5.15 – socialize/siting, welcome address by Shreedhar dai who will also MC the program, 1 min of observing silence, Nafa’s work, window to tragedy, Joe Peresi’s words, dinner and live music starts, conclude 7.55.
o Detailed information will be withheld from the board till the right time per him.
- Santosh Lamichhane’s Briefing
o Requested the word format of the letter with NAFA’s letterhead to Abiskar Bharati, so that the fundraising dinner volunteers can send out customized letters to probable sponsors, employers
o Per Board members, letterhead cannot be distributed to community in a word document format.
o If needed, names that need to be in the letter can be forwarded via email and a pdf version can be generated and forwarded to the organizers.
o Shreedhar Dai will forward name list of businesses to Abiskar. Abiskar will create letter under NAFA letterhead (pdf format) and forward it to Shreedhar dai.
o Regarding sending to employer and organization’s request of recognizing them, NAFA will add the name in the letter of the employee sending the letter. For recognizing the organization who donates an appreciation certificate, receipt note and a plaque can be distributed. The cost of this plaque will be deducted from fundraised from the dinner.
- Per Archana Dhakhwa, usage of money can and should be shown to the donors so that donors trust our project and keep donating to the endeavor. It should not be donate once and forget it kind of participation.
- Per Rajendra Aryal, why don't we use the senior NAFA member as face of the program? Since they have more contacts, experience and links, tapping it would be very beneficial.
Agenda #2 – Discussion on finding partner
- Per Ramesh Khanal and Shreedhar Ranabhat, need to focus on long term project
- Per Rajendra Aryal, How long can we focus on earthquake relief program as an executive board? Can we not create a sub-committee whom we can give all the rights to make decision and they take care of the programs/issues related to NAFA earthquake relief fund? This sub-committee can contain old members of NAFA, general members of NAFA and one representative of executive board.
- Per Purna Shrestha, NAFA has transformed/changed from a community based organization to a Social organization with the amendment made to the bylaw when this earthquake stroke Nepal. Per him, NAFA should create a subcommittee as suggested by Rajendra Aryal and they can decide which district to work, which partner to select, which school to select based on a guideline. A proposal can be asked from the selected candidates of partners (community based NGO) so that the process is as transparent as possible. NAFA being a non-profit socio-community based organization needs to follow a proper process.
- Per Shreedhar Ranabhat, an email needs to be send to NAFA community to create a subcommittee and select a proposal by this subcommittee ASAP.
- Per Purna Shrestha, NAFA need to mobilize this fund as soon as possible after the selection of the partner, NAFA will not mobilize all the fund at once but it need to be deployed systematically and gradually.
- Per Archana Dhakhwa, Disperse a community letter asking for names of community based NGO asking whom to choose, select names, inform that NGO for proposal, then select the NGO from the pool of proposal. This suggestion was applauded by Abiskar Bharati and Rajendra Aryal.
- Need to generate a criteria by a small committee. Need to make 3 member (small) committee.
- Community can suggest a community based NGO and also answer a small statement explaining why they think their nominee NGO is feasible.
- Email to the community will be sent out by Abiskar Bharati. The NGO should fulfill following criteria
o Should work in earthquake affected district
o Should be school rebuilding related
o Could be Non-governmental Organization or Local/community Organization
Agenda #3 - Fulfillment of NAFA Board Officer
- All executive board members present in meeting unanimously decided
o Public Relation Officer – Rashesh Shrestha
o Vice President – Narendra Thapa
Agenda #4 - Past & Ongoing Events :
- Experience Sharing
o Positive feedback from the community but there was not enough time for questions toward the end due to late start of the program.
o Per Rajendra Aryal , Number of participants were very discouraging and we need to work on time management .
o Per Santosh Lamichhane, it was a great program, except Abiskar Bharati's presentation, although good, was a little long.
- Picnic
o Great program coordination by Narendra Thapa.
o Program was very organized and full of fun but one suggestion of “naach-gaan” program should start earlier than this years’ time.
o Food was plenty and everyone participated very willingly.
o NAFA music system did not work very well, may be due to not connected in a right way.
- Kakshya
o Great feedback from parents and progress of the children attending kakshya is very impressive.
o NAFA has and will support Kakshya .
o NAFA has created a flush budget of $500 per year for Kakshya
o Per parents, community is changing their perception about the Kakshya.
Agenda #5 – NAFA Upcoming Events
- Children’s Day
o Coordinator : Archana Dhakhwa
o Date : Sunday, August 30th 2015
o After Kakshyaa, an external activity for the children.
- NAFA Dashain program
o Coordinator : Mahendra Pathak
o Date : Saturday, October 24th, 2015
o Venue : Eagle Heights
o Narendra Thapa will reserve the place for the event.
- NAFA Sahitya Sanjh
o Coordinator : Abiskar Bharati
o Date : November 2015
o Including Bimochan of a Nepali Poetry Collection first time in Madison
o Children coordinator from parents to manage the children during program
o Invite external sahityakar as guest
- NAFA Scholarship
o Coordinator : Rashesh Shrestha
o Date : Saturday, August 15th, 2015 deadline
o Archana Dhakhwa will create a volunteer tracking guidelines document which will help in selection process.
o Rashesh Shrestha will approach external judges for essay.
o Nepalese Youth Leadership Forum volunteer hours will not be counted as NAFA volunteer hours.
- Gift Wrapping
o Coordinator : Navraj Pandey
o Need to send a letter for the participation – usually sent and will be sent by Ayodhya Batajoo .
Agenda #6 – Financial Report
- Mahendra Pathak has already sent the email about the financial report.
- Earthquake relief fund has $18,650 in it.
Agenda #7 - 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 Youtube channel of NAFA has few more videos added to it.
- Power Point projector arrangements
o NAFA will not invest in projector for now.
- Membership List
o Per Purna Shrestha, the list of current members of NAFA is complete. NAFA also keeps track of its old member’s names and emails.
o Currently, NAFA has 440 people in the list of member and non-members
Meeting End time : 3:45 PM
Minute Prepared By :
Abiskar Bharati
Secretary
On behalf of NAFA.