April 8, 2025, Global Connections (GC) Executive Committee (EC) Meeting Minutes
Meeting Date and Time: Tuesday, April 8, 2025, 7:00 PM
Location: Zoom
Officers Present
President: Bob Persiko
Vice President: Ciara Halloran
Public Relations Officer: Rose Sharp
Treasurer: Bruce Truitt
Secretary: Alexandra Persiko
Committee Chairs
Small Groups: Deb Leo
Penn State Global Representative (not present)
Call To Order: 7:03 PM
March 11, 2025, EC meeting minutes were accepted as submitted. Alexandra will revisit Bruce’s additional comments to the minutes and make changes, if warranted.
Reports of Officers & Standing Committees
President – Bob Persiko
- Bob said that unfortunately the person who had expressed an interest in the membership chair has stopped communicating, and he surmised that she is no longer interested. Thus, the search for someone to fill this position will continue.
Vice President – Ciara Halloran
- April 26 charcuterie social event:
- Ciara shared that she will not be able to attend the April 26th
- Bob will plan and organize the event.
- Ciara confirmed that no alcohol will be allowed in the Centre LifeLink space. We will encourage participants to bring their own water/drinks, but will have some water available.
- GC will charge $10 per person for the event since we are paying for the meeting location and will provide food. We anticipate expenses around $300. Bob expressed the hope that GC will break even or perhaps make a small surplus.
- Rose offered to post and advertise the social event.
Treasurer – Bruce Truitt
- Bruce provided an update on the organization’s finances, mentioning a balance of $5,400 is in the checking account and $18,286 in the money market account. All bills are paid, including a liability insurance premium of $500.
- He also mentioned that we have collected $150 so far for a woman in the community who needs driver’s education about whom we learned from Alix Crosswell, K-12 Family Liaison / Bilingual Educator at State College Area School District.
- Bruce submitted the Centre Gives application, which qualifies us for the early bird prize. Bruce pointed out the marketing package that Centre Gives sent out (including logos, logistical information for marketing).
- Bob asked if more needs to be done to promote this initiative. We will need to repeat the message multiple times. Ciara suggested having a flyer/QR code that could be handed out at the April 26 event.
- Bob and Bruce also discussed whether attending a promotional event to understand the competition better might be a good idea.
- The Wild Apricot subscription runs out in September 2025 and amounts to an annual fee of $900. We will explore whether Wild Apricot and WordPress can be combined in the future, which would then eliminate the current fee.
- Automatic thank-you messages work well, except for the fact that spacing and the overall layout are not ideal. Bruce will investigate this further to achieve a cleaner look.
- Bruce emailed Marco about old newsletters for archiving purposes. If we do not collect older newsletters, then we will post the more recent ones.
- The group found that website issues overall have been resolved.
- Wild Apricot will be transferring to a two-factor authorization in May. The second factor is a text message if a phone number is registered. The question arose whether the two-factor authorization is needed if one is not an administrative member. Deb offered to check this by logging in.
Secretary – Alexandra Persiko
- Alexandra reported that Rose had shared some interesting alternatives to the WordPress website, and a potential combination of Wild Apricot and WordPress. This issue will be discussed in greater depth during the May EC meeting.
Public Relations – Rose Sharp
- Rose noted that Ciara sent good photos from the International Poetry Night. She plans to post these on various social media channels and in the next newsletter.
- Volunteer Event April 16: 33 people (and growing) have signed up to volunteer for the YMCA backpack opportunity to help school children. There will be representatives from the Intensive English Communication Program (IECP), Community Engagement and other volunteers, including students from a fraternity on campus. We will ensure that photos will be taken at the event.
- Website update: Rose noted that she has explored alternatives to the existing WordPress and that she will be glad to present on that at the next EC meeting. George Rainey in Penn State Global offered to collaborate with us on removing the Penn State email/connection.
Penn State Representative – not present
Membership (vacant)
Small groups – Deb Leo
- Deb thanked all of the GC executive board for their efforts on the International Poetry Night. The formula for organizing the event works very well and the evening was a big success. She furthermore noted that the PowerPoint worked great (thank you to Rose), audio visual, and the hosting by Webster’s – great appreciation to Elaine and her staff – ran seamlessly.
- Deb suggested to hold an international song/music night – to sing a song, play an instrument, have a song played and explain the significance of it. This could be held at Webster’s in the fall. The EC board expressed great support for the idea.
- Organization: employ the same formula as for the International Poetry Night. Deb also suggested using the info table at the event more effectively by having someone stationed there to collect attendee information and provide GC membership details.
- The book group has expanded to 11 members. Deb has had good cooperation from Mariana at Career Pathways in recruiting people to join the book groups. Deb always suggests that book group participants become GC members.
- Ciara suggested following up with International Poetry Night members to ask about their interest in becoming members. Bob will draft a message to personally invite them to become members.
Small Group Discussion:
- Bob: no at news this time.
Special Orders – None
Unfinished Business – None
New Business
- How to communicate on executive orders and being a supportive organization. The group decided to keep this as an open discussion point.
Action Items
- Bob:
- Send a personalized email to attendees and presenters of the International Poetry Night, inviting them to become GC members.
- Contact Fatema, an Iranian chef, about potentially hosting a cultural meal event.
- Keep the topic of supporting people threatened by world events on the agenda for future discussions.
- Forward legal guidance and workshop information about international students’ and scholars’ rights to board members who are interested.
- Bruce:
- Investigate how to fix layout issues in Wild Apricot’s automatic thank-you messages.
- Deb:
- Send her headshot to Rose for the executive board webpage.
- Log into Wild Apricot as a non-administrator and report back on whether the two-factor authentication is required.
- Rose:
- Consider potential candidates from Penn State Global who might be interested in the membership chair position.
- Provide the list of presenters and their emails from the International Poetry Night to Bob for cross-referencing.
Next Meeting: TBD
Meeting adjournment: 08:00 PM
Submitted By: Alexandra Persiko Date of Submission: April 17, 2025