February 9, 2022, Global Connections Executive Committee Meeting
Minutes
Members in Attendance:
Bob Persiko, Melanie Miller Foster, Rita Graef, Shannon Holliday, Maryam Barzegar, Sabrina Lima
Call to order at 7:30 PM by President Persiko. January minutes were approved with no correction.
Reports of officers:
President – Bob shared a brief report on outreach and inquiry activities. He also announced that Ray Bilger, the new member of the GC organization, has offered his home for an event. Mr. Bilger would like to organize an event at his house in springtime for 20-25 people. He is going to arrange for a cater. More information about his event will be provided.
Vice President – Kieran was unable to attend, therefore there is no vice president report.
Parliamentarian – Daniel was unable to attend. No report
Treasurer – Bruce was unable to attend.
Past president – Melanie shared that she is still checking the old Penn State email (gc/[email protected]), however, she asked Bob to add that email to his outlook to not miss any messages or inquiries.
Secretary – Maryam shared activities for organizing the Poetry Night event. Bob and she had a meeting with Webster’s bookstore Café manager and set the event there. The International Poetry Night will be held on April 9th at 7:00 pm.
Public relations, website, and social media – Sabrina asked for some help or idea about how to encourage GC’s members to share their stories for the GC newsletter. Bob mentioned that the objective of this project is to highlight what individual members are doing. He also suggested that this month she can share Deb Leo’s story of her past activities with global connections and Susan Steinberg is going to have a report on book groups for the coming newsletter. Sabrina would like to have any contribution for sharing in the newsletter at the end of the second week of the month.
She also would like to have any ideas or contributions from members for the March newsletter for international women’s day.
Global Programs – Wenjie Fu was unable to attend. No report
Reports from the standing committees:
Cultural luncheons Committee (Shannon)- She shared that she has been spreading the word about Global Connections. Bob shared that he contacted Anthony Sepia about the Brazilian lunch that he is going to organize to keep the Brazilian festival alive as soon as we have the opportunity to do it outside in warmer weather.
Rita shared that the membership committee met on Thursday, January 20th, and set regular meetings going forward. She has been sharing with all committee members that WildApricots can help us to find members who are interested in a community and make sure that we are promoting the community meeting to them, we also can use WildApricots to post an event. She also reported that there are ever changing member numbers; we currently have 98 members in total in January of which 46 are “active” and that includes 9 new members from last month.
Program of activities committee (Kieran)-No report
Unfinished business:
Changes in the Bylaws – Action required:
- Add the Executive Committee recommendation to each of 3 amendments
– All three amendments were unanimously recommended for approval.
2) Share with the membership 30 days prior to a meeting that they would be voted upon
Bob as the president will propose a time for that (probably in the
next 2 months) and probably do it through Zoom.
3) Schedule a membership-wide meeting with a quorum (i.e., w/ 10 people) with a 2/3 vote.
New business:
- Membership directory availability to members
The registered members cannot see a directory of all members; however the individual member can update their own profile and they have control of the settings that general members have access to. Bob suggested that we can inform people in the newsletter that they have control over the data we have on them.
Rita also suggested having a website manager for our website.
- Phone numbers in WA
Phone number is a required field in the form. Although anybody has access to see members’ names, only members can see other members’ email and phone number
- Responsibility for transmission of donation acknowledgment letters
Bob will work with Bruce to acknowledge and thank people who donated to our organization.
- Whether to apply for funding under the annual Centre Gives campaign
Bob mentioned that we had made the decision back in June that we will move forward to do that. Bruce is making an application so we can qualify for donations to Centre Gives. He will take responsibility for the action on that.
- Should we prepare an annual report?
Since we have a monthly newsletter for keeping in touch with our members, Bob will check on Bylaws whether it requires us to have an annual report or not. (Bob subsequently confirmed that the bylaws do not mention an annual report.)
Adjournment at 8:30 PM.