This meeting was held on 27/01/09

Members present: Nivedita, Sriram, Malar, Shilpa, Pamela, Nazneen, Vasundara, Rifa, Vandana, Navyatha, Lalita.

Following are the minutes of the meeting.

Administration

• Legal
1. To verify details of land ownership NGO status requirements & the red tape associated with it –Shilpa
2. Voter ID and ration card availability –Pamela
3. To get written permission from SRMC Admin.-Rifa

• Finance
1. To open a Sangam India bank A/C
2. Plan to introduce voucher system, if a member needs money for any activity.
3. Investment for activities involving children on the cards.
4. Malar to take care of all of the above

• H R
1. Awareness Campaign for SRU campus, team of 5 formed.
2. Approach Dean for the banner- Rifa

Ground Work

• Event Co-ordination
1. Targeted activities for men, women & children-every week -Nazneen
2. Lesson plans for children- Apta
3. Skits for children (Eng and Tamil)-Vandana

• Community Liaison
1. Follow up files for each block-Pamela
2. Recruit more Tamil speakers -Vandana

• Infrastructure
1. Vocational training (for women- Vasundara
2. Sanitation put on hold till legal issues are worked out.

Also lined up,

• A meeting with the HOD of The Dept. of Community Medicine on 29th Jan’09.
• A trip to Coimbatore to learn about the intricacies of working as an NGO- In the very near future.
• A trip to New Delhi to meet with and learn from the people running a successful NGO.

Ayesha has been appointed to the Board, by unanimous approval of the members present at the meeting. This step was taken to avoid a dead-lock on an issue in future.Ayesha will assist any dept. that requires her help the most.

Today we kicked off the new year with a General Members meeting. Everyone was invited to come and we did some important work.

We started off the meeting discussing some goals and hopes for the new year.

Some of the ideas that were raised were:

• Expanding our work into the neighboring slums, and collecting information about them via a survey.
• Finding ways to help people that aren’t organized into slums, but who are a common sight on streetsides.
• Look into alcohol/drug rehabilitation programs
• Get more involved with vocational training and microfinance.
• Assigning mentors to set numbers of houses to allow for a more personal interaction with the people.
• Doing more in terms of sanitation
• Building awareness inside Sri Ramachandra Univerisity as well as possibly to other colleges in the city. There was especially a need to build awareness among students in other departments of this college.
• Developing a standard of set guidelines which will help us to determine what works and also to create a good model on which to base our work off of.

The most important function of today’s meeting was to organize our network into a more cohesive group. This was done to ensure that we move forward more efficiently. The group will be divided into two wings, one of which is administrative and the other which is focused on the ground work in the slum. These were then divided into several posts with various job descriptions. People were voted into these positions. More information will be found in a subsequent post.

Hi everyone! Happy New Year and Happy Pongal/Sankranthi to all of you. We’re kick-starting this year’s activities with some big ideas and even bigger hopes.

This year is going to see Sangam India being taken to a new level. We are going to start work with vocational training, regular weekly activities for children, frequent meetings and classes with the adults, and continuation of our existing activities.

Tomorrow, Thursday January 24 afternoon, we will be having our first meeting of the year at 4 pm in the central courtyard of the outpatient clinic at SRMC.

Some items that will be on the agenda are:
- Discussing the ongoing Texas-based clothing drive
- Selecting an executive board
- Brainstorming and sharing new ideas and visions for the upcoming year

Please be there and bring your friends. Even if you are not from SRMC, you are more than welcome to email or call us with suggestions that you would like us to discuss or bring up in our meeting.