Meeting Date and Time: Tuesday, March 11, 2025, 7:00 PM
Location: Zoom
Officers Present
President: Bob Persiko
Vice President: not available
Public Relations Officer: Rose Sharp
Treasurer: Bruce Truitt
Secretary: Alexandra Persiko
Committee Chairs (not present)
Penn State Global Representative (not present)
Call To Order: 7:03 PM
February 18, 2025, EC meeting minutes were accepted as submitted.
Reports of Officers & Standing Committees
President – Bob Persiko
- Bob discussed that he received interest in the membership chair position. He will reach out to the person who contacted him.
Vice President – Ciara Halloran (written update)
- Ciara shared that Centre Lifelink has changed its schedule slightly due to other educational classes. The result is that we will have to schedule time slots for cultural events a few months in advance.
- Saturday appears to be the most available day of the week for the 12:00 to 5:00PM time frame. Ciara will follow up with the manager to firm up the next few dates in hopes of creating a regular event schedule.
- The Persian cultural meal date has been confirmed, and space is reserved for April 26th from 12:00-3:30PM. Shannon will provide Ciara with the Persian contact in order to receive more details and promote the event. Subsequently, Ciara plans on contacting Liqaa Hamzawh to ask about her help with the event.
- Ciara raised the question whether to skip the month of April for the charcuterie social given the International Poetry Night and Persian cultural meal that month. The suggestion would be to offer the social in June instead. Additionally, the board should decide whether to hold the Saturday space for monthly or bi-monthly events. The cost for a three-hour period at Centre LifeLink amounts to $50.
Treasurer – Bruce Truitt
- Bruce reported that $5,998 is in the checking and approximately $18,285 in the money market account.
- We received a $50 contribution to GC from a member plus $100 from Donald Hahn for the driver training of a woman in the community in need of being able to receive her driver’s license. Bruce sent a thank-you note. Donald Hahn is a long-time member of the organization and a strong supporter.
Secretary – Alexandra Persiko
- Alexandra reported that the uploading of documents to the GC website is going well and that she deleted some duplicative documents.
- She will work with Rose on uploading newsletters to the website and creating a category called “newsletters.”
Public Relations – Rose Sharp
- International Poetry Night, April 3: Rose discussed the update on participation
- 17 people have signed up to attend, of whom three are active members and the others from the community. So far, seven people have registered their interest to recite poems.
- Rose sent the flyer to various groups, including Applied Linguistics at Penn State, and added it in the Global Gazette newsletter for a second week. This also provides for a QR code/RSVP.
- Rose reported that there is also interest by a student in the Bellisario College of Communications.
- Alexandra will share the event flyer with the Bolashak Kazakh scholars while a mutual colleague in Penn State Global has shared it with Fulbrighters and the Humphrey Fellows.
- Rose reported that she sent the press release for the Poetry evening to WPSU.
- She furthermore provided the team with information on a volunteer opportunity. See New Business below.
Penn State Representative – not present
Membership – vacant
- No news.
- Bob will continue to review the membership list and will send out reminders.
Small groups – Deb Leo (not present)
- Rose reported on the International Poetry Night (see above).
Small Group Discussion:
- Bob: no news this time.
Special Orders – None
Unfinished Business
- Automatic thank-you notes: Bruce continues to pursue this item to create a standardized note.
- Posting the newsletter: create a separate category on the website and add archived newsletters as well. The archived newsletters are on Wild Apricot and are publishable.
- Bruce will review past newsletters in Google Drive and will compare these to Wild Apricot.
- Alexandra and Rose will investigate placement of the newsletters, archived newsletters, and move old bylaws to archive.
New Business
- Student Backpack Project: Rose introduced a volunteer activity with the YMCA that involves filling backpacks with food for students in need. The activity, which takes 2-3 hours, is low-cost and can be organized with a group of 20-30 people. The YMCA provides the supplies, backpacks, and food, while the volunteers fill the backpacks. The activity can be scheduled on any day, other than Tuesdays, and the YMCA is willing to work with different group sizes.
- Bob and Alexandra discussed the possibility of organizing this activity as an organization (potentially quarterly?).
- Rose offered to reach out to Global Learning, IECP and Wenjie re the YMCA and to check on a suitable date for both the YMCA and the Pasquerilla Center for space. Working with other groups might be best to ensure a sufficient number of volunteers are present.
- Contribution for driver’s license training of members of community. This is a standing need: should we create a vehicle for regular contributions?
- Bob suggested waiting to see how this first one goes and then reevaluate for the future.
- Centre Gives: this year’s event is taking place on May 14 and 15. The deadline to submit GC for eligibility review is April 7, but for anyone completing this step prior to March 24, the organization will be entered into a drawing for one of two $250 “Early Bird” prizes.
Action Items
- Ciara to provide information on the upcoming Persian cultural luncheon in late April and to contact Liqaa Hamzah for additional assistance.
- Rose:
- to send out follow-up advertisement about the International Poetry Night and create and post flyers with QR codes.
- to reach out to Global Learning, IECP and Wenjie re the YMCA backpack program and to check on a suitable date for both the YMCA and the Pasquerilla Center for space.
- Rose and Alexandra:
- to talk about the newsletter placement on the GC website and create a separate category for newsletters.
- to work on moving old bylaws to archive on the website.
- Deb, Ciara & Wenjie: to provide a photo to Rose for the website.
- Bruce: to complete the Centre Gives application by March 24 for early bird prize eligibility.
- Alexandra: to send the International Poetry Night flyer to the College of Education to share with the Kazakh Bolashak scholars.
- Bob:
- to provide Rose with last year’s Centre Gives newsletter piece.
- to follow up with members re their membership status.
Next Meeting: TBD
Meeting adjournment: 07:52 PM
Submitted By: Alexandra Persiko Date of Submission: March 19, 2025