INDIA SUDAR

EDUCATIONAL AND CHARITABLE TRUST

Registered No: 454/2004 web: www.indiasudar.org  mail: admin@indiasudar.org

D-Lakshmi Sree, No.2, Old No.43, Vedha Nagar, Chinmaya Nagar Stage II Ext, Chennai-600 092.

MINUTES OF MEETING

Meeting Code

03/2009_10

Meeting Type

India Sudar USA Team Meeting

Date & Time

Nov-2009

Place

New York, USA

PARTICIPANTS

  1. SATHYA
  2. SRIRAM
  3. ANITHA
  4. SUBASHREE
  5. SIVANARAYANAN

AGENDA
  1. Various projects undertaken by us was discussed.
  2. Stress mainly on how we go about learning centres .
  3. Both Sathya & Sriram are open to take IS forward, provided we are open to discuss the ideas rather than closing it without discussion.
  4. US team has inclination & passion for the cause. Constant communication to be maintained.
  5. Certain basic aspects like website, communication, blog & promotion was discussed. Details of these below.
  6. How do we encourage people who are willing to help ? How will a new member know
  7. how he can contribute. Any help(in whatever form) should be appreciated with equal enthusiasm.

DISCUSSED(D), ACTION(A)

#

 

Agenda Discussed & Decided

Action Owner

1

A

Funding Aspects :

 

Would be nice if monthly sheet is regular. It is a differentiating factor.

Monthly update to donors thank u & some update on project will build more credibility.

 

What is the status of FCRA ???

There is a perception that xfer can be done through paypal & go through IS member to get it route(IS member recieves & then xfer ant to IS account).But this will nto work if we are asking from people we know only professionally. They would prefer xfer directly. SO BETTER TO HAVE OPTIONS RATHER THAN RESTRICTING OPTIONS.

 

Why corpus fund not maintained ?

Will help during crisis right. The status as of now is we are tackling basic funding issues. This is more long term. We are not there yet. Focus is to get the current fund siutation stable & increase inflow,only then corpus funds. But definitely a great suggestion to take a long term view.

 

2

A

External Communication medium :

 

Website is very preliminary looking. Should be to standard without grammatical & spelling mistakes. Appearance also can change for good. There are many sites like unicef, Ashoka.org which can be useful Blog also need to be better. Can correct the spelling & grammatical errors it has. A member also willing to do that. Was receptive idea that the original flavour of the writer would be maintained while basic errors will be corrected People with good english knowledge & creativity should be assigned the job. Try to be very active on ngopost.org. Very good site. will give good visibility.

 

3

A

Promotional videos:

 

Very effective medium. Take help of org who do it professionally & for free.

One org in bangalore did for an NGO for free & infact it won german award.

Few videos from trustees should be there explaining the working of projects.

Good FAQ set in videos.

Interaction with students can also be captured.

Can have celebtiry vouch for us & all to be within 2 minutes. Builds credibility.

Watch videos in ashoka.org & TED.

 

4

A

Internal communication:

 

To correct the errors in internal communication if the person who visits can send report to an indetified communication contact to rephrase some errors. If the person who visited is not able to type report due to time constraint can talk to an identified communication contact & that will be typed / sent as internal group report.

 

If all the leads are ok, then we can have one /two persons. This is just a communication medium. Original mail would be sent by the person who visited. Can be managed through moderation. Role to be defined clearly for report preparation (Subashree will take lead for this). But exact hours required for this purpose & clear definition of role is to be given to the identified communication person.

 

5

A

More stress on going to next level:

 

Sathya very much interested in expermineting new things like skill developemnt for teachers. Willing to drive the effort if support & open mindedness is there.Should think on how to go to next level from this level. More work needs to be done. Ideas can be heard , given enough debate & then accepted/rejected. Rejection/approval to ideas is not the point, but giving enough thought to the idea.

 

6

A

Feeback & Survey:

 

Good idea to get feedback from partners also. Will increaase our credibility. Feedback from members & beneficaries also should be encouraged. MBA graduates can used for forming a questionaire & later interpret the survey results. Will be a good metric to see where we stand. We should aim to getting some accreditation in audit & also be upto real good standard. Especially when we approach corporate this IS ABSOULUTELY NECESSARY !

 

7

A

Action Items coming out of discussion(US team will play a major role )

 

Website revamp. Anita Sriram will help us in this along with Sriram & Sathya. Profile page can be created to capture the skill set of our members. That itself will give us info whom to contact when. IS presentation to be TOTALLY REVAMPED !! WOrk on promotional video. Communication person identification will also be done by one of our US members. Proposals to be sent to corporate to be reviewed. But before that website, blog & presentation to be ready.