Saktyavesh Board Meeting -14th December 2009

Meeting Information
Meeting Date: 12th & 13th December 2009
Meeting Venue: Aneesh Home (beside SAP Labs)
Attendees: Aneesh, Vinay, Prakash & Ananth

Meeting Agenda
Reviewing our work
Immediate steps – pending and new ones
Challenges
Road Map discussion pending
Improvements & feedbacks

Reviewing our work
Meeting with all Bangalore volunteers (All trustees will be invited for this meeting).
Meeting with all Chennai volunteers (All trustees will be invited for this meeting), Meeting place to be decided by Chennai/ Bangalore trustees.
Combine Monthly Meeting with School Activity.
Meeting Frequency should be once in a month, on weekends.
The above meetings will have to happen on a regular/mandatory from January
Need more discussion on one more bank account for international transfers
Receipts to be issued for every Saktyavesh donations/transaction
To check with the auditor on issuing receipts for unknown transaction (since we don’t have the complete account number)
To check with the auditor on how we can issue 80G certificate to the contributors
Review Saktyavesh Account Book with Auditor
For any money contributed to Saktyavesh, send a mail to Vinay, Aneesh and Saktyavesh email id with a subject “Saktyavesh – Finance – xxx” (xxx-contribution by member name)
Process to be put in place for requests from school
Saktyavesh-Feedback required mails has to be closed in 5 days (except Urgent Requirements)

Request Processing
Request will come from the school
The owner of the request will be informed regarding the request and he has to send a mail to the trustees for feedback. Decision should be taken on the request within five business days of the email. If the request is approved by Trustees, it has to go in the next weekly update.
Request Tracker will have to be updated in Saktyavesh Blog School wise

Monthly Meeting Agenda
Purpose of the meeting / Introduction of Saktyavesh
Update from Saktyavesh Trustee on important activities
Review our past work and plan for the next meeting or activity
Assign a owner for the next activity

Tri-weekly Conference Call
We shall continue having the conference call once in three weeks
Conference calls shall be on Wednesdays and shall start by 10.30PM
The call will be for half an hour
Owner of this action item should be sending out the call agenda before 3 days from the call


Challenges
Meeting with Chennai School Management
To review the previous mail questioned to Chennai school management.
Questions unanswered and new questions to be sent via email to Prakash.
Prakash shall answer/get the answers from the Management / Head Mistress and shall reply to all.

Process to get the money flow constantly
Road Map discussion pending
To be discussed later
Improvements & feedbacks

• Task Execution to be streamlined
• Planning needs to be little more conscious
• Replying to mails with history mails & Do not branch out. If you have sent a mail and would like to send a mail again on the same subject. Go to your sent items and send it (to maintain proper mailing history and avoid conversation leaks)
• All finance information communicated via mail (with Saktyavesh gmail id in cc, Vinay, Prakash, Aneesh. Ex – contribution for Teachers salary, …..)
• Reply to mails with time (this will help in taking decision faster)
• Reply to feedback mails
• Setting a time line for each of actions – sincere, realistic as far as possible
• If even a mail is not marked with “Saktyavesh” in the subject, do mark it
• Don’t every get dejected, keep moving
  “One person talks at a time”
• Realistic expectations & promise
• Maintaining “time”, very important. If we don’t then we are not respecting other people who are waiting for us and this will lead to dilution of interest and participation(Its understandable if there is an emergency)
  

Conf call

• Communicate engagements in Saktyavesh with family (my example). It’s important
• No Anger and frustration or depression
• Have proper subjects to the mail.
• During a conversation, if a discussion changes course,
• don’t reply with the same subjectRun through the process – all of them being followed till now
• Mention truthful/factual information. Make sure that the information being shared is truthful to the best of knowledge
• Keep Saktyavesh Gmail address in Cc
• Meeting people – once in four/six months (open the gates)
• Distribution of work

Feedback
Execution
Lack of active volunteers
Planning needs to be proper
Meeting with volunteers
Giving weekly updates in points

14 December 2009

National Middle School, Chennai

• Half yearly exams for the Children starts this Wednesday (16th December 2009)
• Christmas celebration is planned the coming Saturday, 19th December 2009. We can conduct different activities on the day (games, dance, drama etc… ). Friends who would like to participate, kindly let know. It will be a good time to meet and exchange ideas as well.
• As the School comes under SSA (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan) they have received Rs 12,000. From this Rs 5900 has been spent on racks, Rs 3000 on a tape recorder. The remaining amount is planned for the toys, for Children

Board meeting

• The board meeting took place on 12th & 13th December 2009 in Bangalore. The current activities/tasks, immediate tasks which needs attention, future plans and challenges were discussed. The intention is to share information on each and every activity and involve people on the tasks that each individual would be interested in. If any of you think that there is a lack of information or lack of opportunities, feel free to express (possibly with thoughts on improvement)

Feel encouraged to voice your opinion. Do spread the message of Saktyavesh in letter and in spirit with interested individuals and organizations

07 December 2009

National Middle School, Chennai
The 4 tube light sets that we had donated to the School has been fixed. The Almirah that was donated, also has been made use of, by using it as a place to have books
Government Lower Primary School, Bengaluru
On Friday, 04th December 2009, Sankara Eye Hospital, had conducted Eye camp at the School. This was sponsored by the Government. Six children have been identified for further check up. They have been asked to report to the hospital for special care accompanied by their Parents
Blog Poll
Every effort is made to communicate the updates of our activities, the happenings in the School we support, in the weekly updates. The same is recorded in the blog (http://saktyavesh.blogspot.com/). Your feedback on the usefulness & effectiveness of the information that is available on the web (either in Website or blog) will be of great help. Request you to take a poll on this – just 2 simple questions
Communicate your ideas & comments. Do spread the message of Saktyavesh in letter and in spirit with interested individuals and organizations