Friends of Mali

Board Meeting Minutes

Saturday, March 29, 2003             

2:00 p.m.

 

 

Agenda

I.  Old Business

A.    Potluck/Outreach

           Set for Saturday May 3, 2003.

         Jumana and Jenna will brain storm hosts and get addresses to Allison.  Shawn, DeeDee and Karen Mullhauser are DC possibilities.

 

B.  Updating bylaws and mission statement – Move to next meeting

    Delete who is eligible for funds but leave consensus part

    Structure of the Executive Committee – Sec 6.2.  Matt will try to make the     wording clear that the newsletter editor, webmaster and membership secretary,     appointed by the president, are members of the executive committee.

 

  1. Folk life Festival

Jumana paid for the postcards advertising the folklife festival.  She’ll get an updated list of addresses by Monday to Jeff and postage to Denise.  Postcards should be at Shawn’s now and will be mailed out soon.

 

Jumana is going to spearhead an effort to put a resource website for teachers together.  It will assemble curriculum on Mali developed by various teachers and organizations.

 

Jenna and Shawn met with Karen Mullhauser, owner of an International consulting firm.  She’s a friend of Perdita and hosts PC Baba when he comes to town for an annual bead festival.  Usually before the bead festival she has an informal gathering to sell PC Baba’s goods at her home.  She agreed to let us use this forum to advertise our fundraising.  Jenna is planning on going to this gathering to do the fundraising pitch and distribute postcards.  Others are welcome to attend.

 

Current Ambassador to Mali and his wife have offered their support in bringing Malian artisans here for the festival.

 

    Publicity for the festival has been put on the website and an official e-mail has         been sent to all board members.  Jumana has collected some pictures and images        of bogolan from several contributions, that she’ll send to the Smithsonian for set       decorations.

 

D.  Old action items

Info on leadership of TeachNet -  Ann Binker is probably the best contact for them.  She’s the Director of Global Education and Technology.

 

Membership Dues – we now have 90 paid members!  We didn’t make our goal of 100  for the end of March 2003 but we’re pretty proud of what we’ve got.  Jeff reported one 3 yr membership sold as well as some family memberships sold.

 

E.   July Reunion

1.    Lodging - Jeff put a link for hotel accommodations on the website since so many hotels are accessible by internet.  Jumana has still to get the name of the park where we’ll have the picnic.  We’ll use this spot as our rendevous point and have an informal meeting to kick things off.

 

2.     Happy hour location is at Bossa in Adams Morgan from 7-10 pm.  Its on the website. We’ll put up Mali art work in the bar before hand.

            

F.  April Newsletter

1.    Sabrina is going to push to get the April newsletter out in the first week of April.

2.    Quotes for purchasing PageMaker software – sorry, I didn’t get this info

3.    Article on FOM’s self-sufficiency – Jeff sent article.

4.    FOM’s progress on becoming an official organization (filing tax-exempt status etc.) – We have found an old newsletter that indicates that past FOM board members did indeed procure tax exempt status for the organization.  Jenna found other documentation that indicates FOM was incorporated in 1992.  We will try to get a copy of our tax-exempt status from DC government.    

 

5.    Perry Sutton’s article about her experience working in Mali as a professional  should appear in the upcoming April newsletter.

6.    Janet Hale will write a two part article about (R)PCV’s experience being married to Malians.  It is scheduled to appear in the July and December 2003 newsletters.

 

G.  FOM Issues

1.  Outreach to PCV parents

         Sabrina is a member of list serves MaliPC and Mali MOMs and POPs.  She          will contact these organizations to let the parents know about FOM and          encourage them to check out our website.  Jeff will add them to our list of          bulk e-mailing.  Sabrina has sent a letter to the volunteer in Yelemane to get a   “from the field” article for the newsletter.  The volunteer has not written back   yet.

 

II.  Other

     A.  Update on Annual Youth Retreat in Mali

     The group is still working on the application.  They can accept direct deposits.  They have secured funds from UNICEF on the condition that UNICEF gets to pick 20% of the participants.  They also have commitments from Coca-Cola Company.  The retreat is scheduled for August 2003.  While we’d like to support this retreat with fundraising, we don’t want it to conflict with fundraising for the Folk Life Festival.  So, we’ll publicize the retreat at our booth at the festival.  We’ll use it as a way to tell the pubic about the things we do as well as get potential financial support from them for the festival.

 

B.  NPCA’s link to FOM has been updated and changed.  Current FOM info is up.

 

I.  New Business

 

Jeff proposed that we sell stuff at the festival – t-shirts and hats with a FOM logo on it.  We’ll do a call out for a logo by the end of April. 

 

We could also have luggage tags made by Malian artisans shipped to us from Mali.  Todd Crosby and his girlfriend are in Bamako now.  Jenna will contact them to see if they could help us with logo design and logistics.  Jeff will organize the logo and get quotes on t-shirts and hats.

 

 

Next meeting: Sunday,  April 27, 2003 at  3pm