Friends of Mali

Board Meeting Minutes

October 17, 2004 4:00 pm

 

 

I.          Old Business

 

            A.        Report on Regional Meetings – September 22

                        Events reported in Boston and Oregon. Both groups were small informal                           gatherings.

 

            B.        December event to welcome new volunteers – December is a bad month                             for activity so we’ll look at January 22-23^rd to welcome new RPCV’s back                         from Mali.

 

            C.        Election                      

                        Allison Williams will submit her candidacy for the Vice-President                                       position and Mark Niles has expressed interest as Treasurer. The                                       Secretary and Newsletter position remain open. Andrew will                                              send an e-mail to paid members to vote by the end of this month (October                         31). Andrew will also send a reminder to unpaid members to pay so they                         can vote. Members can vote on line at vote@friendsofmali.org. The                                  Secretary’s responsibilities will be shared by the board. Minute taking                               will be rotated amongst board members at each meeting. The newsletter                             editor will be appointed as soon as we find a candidate.

 

            D.        Funding Resources page on website – Jeff has created a page on our                                    website where individuals can post and exchange information on funding                             sources for development projects in Mali

                       

II.        New Business:

 

            A.        Non-profit status – no new information

 

            B.        Bringing back lapsed members

                        1. Jeff will write monthly feature on what to find on the FOM website.

                        2. Membership drive

                        We will contact lapsed and registered members to invite them to join                              and find out why they lapsed. Test market it one city. We’ll need to                            generate talking points about what FOM does, what we hope to do and                                     where their money is going.

 

            C.        FOM financial position – we are operating in a deficit, need to come up                              with some revenue generating activities: One thing we can do is have the                            conference call every other month. Another option is to use a service                                 called freeconferencecall.com. Each person pays for the call, not the                                   group. Finally, we will try using AOL IM as another option. We’ll use                             this with next month’s meeting.

 

 

 

            D.        The recent e-mail solicitation to assist the Malian woman pay for face                                surgery is not an appropriate for our website. Individuals can contribute                            and maybe encourage others to help via discussion board but FOM will                              not formally sponsor personal requests like this.

 

            E.         RPCV recognition program – The Peace Corps is sponsoring a                                            RPCV/RPCV group of the month recognition program awarding groups                              for outstanding efforts to further the Peace Corps mission. The e-mail                               about it went out today. Please read, review and be aware. We will                                    highlight on our website and use as a marketing piece. Encourage people                            to participate in FOM and help us win this recognition.

 

 

Next meeting:           Sunday, December 5, 2004, 4pm