AAJA Minnesota--It's Hotter Than You Think!


	April 2006 AAJA meeting minutes April 18, 2006 In attendance: Annie Hua, Lewis Leung, Shruti Mathur, Nancy Yang Absent: Tardy: Tom Lee, Mary Tan, Nancy Ngo, William Salbaburo NEXT MEETING: 11 am, Sunday, May 21.Tom Lee’s, Minneapolis. Web site: § Shruti and Nancy Y. are updating. The home page, events, news and membership pages have been updated. § Resources page will be updated soon. Financial presentation: § Lewis got documents from national chapter, need a letter from the board saying who is authorized to be signees. Lewis and Nancy N. are authorized to sign right now. Need at least two signees, but one person to act on behalf of the board. § Lewis: Should have two signees because it’s a big account. For our new accounts we should have at least three signees, Lewis will be one and have two others. Will be more convenient because we will always have two people available. To open the accounts, the banker said background checks are necessary so signees will need to go to bank and add name to the account that Lewis will open. Will open checking at Wells Fargo. Signees: Lewis, Tom and Mary. Only need two signatures on all transactions. Endowment: § Have budgeted $2K for the endowment. § National is “asking” to receive about $2.5K-$5K from each chapter. Deadline is May 31. § Requiring each chapter to have an endowment event. National is hoping for at least $1K for the endowment event. § Idea: Give 10 percent of Taste of AAJA proceeds to endowment? Or at least 10 percent of all events we do in 2006? § Will change the amount to $2.5K to endowment fund. Lewis will send check out. Membership and social: § Don’t want members to feel like they are being bothered by board members – won’t pursue the one-on-one initiative. § We should do a mixer instead of one-on-one. § Since students are gone during the summer we need a summer social mixer instead of a fundraiser. We’re thinking of having the karaoke night/poker fundraiser in early fall at the University of St. Thomas; they provide karaoke equipment and poker tables for free if reservation is done through a University of St. Thomas student. § Nancy N. got a call from someone at the State Theater (Minneapolis on Hennepin), Lisa Ling will be in town on May 18 promoting a book. We are trying to schedule a preshow reception with Lisa at Solera. Discount tickets for the show will be available if we can get a group of 10+. Need to have an announcement for it and get RSVPs. Could be the spring/summer mixer. Per Tom: Neal has said we should always piggyback on prominent AAs who come to town. George Takei, for example. Contact at State Theater is supposed to e-mail Nancy N. with more details. Shruti suggested making the reception a fundraiser. Lisa will need something to do before the show to relax. HAVE BOOKED THE CANOE SPACE AT SOLERA (LONG CENTER TABLE IN THE BAR/LOUNGE AREA) FROM 5 P.M. TO 7 P.M. MAY 18. § UNITY picnic is July 8. § We do a lot of events on weeknights and we are missing out on our nightside workers or weekend reporters. Should we have a social event on a Sunday afternoon? Social committee will come up with ideas of what to do. § Current schedule: May 18 event with Lisa Ling; summer lawn-bowling social/mixer; fall is the karaoke/poker night fundraiser; December is Taste of AAJA. Letterhead: § Use a newspaper address rather than home address. Put it under Nancy Y. rather than home address. Silent Auction Items: § Nancy N. is having trouble getting silent auction items. Using two of Shruti’s Indian things, Nancy N. inquiring into Target gift card but it might not work. We are not excused from donating for silent auction, but excused from being in charge of a committee. Need 3-5 items total. Nancy N. wants two more. Annie could ask entertainment guy for some extra DVDs that get sent to the newsroom. Need to know items by this Friday (April 21). ELP: § Mary Tan and Annie Hua are leaving April 19 for ELP. They will give us some kind of report when they return. Taste of AAJA update: § Tom is working on it. Put in a call to U of M Al Tims for rental. NEXT MEETING AGENDA: § Update Lisa Ling reception from Nancy N. We need to get an email out and get a good showing so we can get a good discount. § A BETTER Taste of AAJA update from Tom § Web page update from Shruti and Nancy § Lewis will have a letter ready to be signed by board members for our investments. § ELP update from Mary and Annie (what they can tell us).