FCC Board Meeting Minutes
December 2, 2004
Attending: David Youtz, Marylou Cooper Green, Barry Radick, Joe Kelly, Marjorie Berman, Tim Stoenner, Aileen Koger
Recording: Cara Blouin
Guests: Lily Cardlin, FCC Long Island
Absent: Kevin Matthews, Beth Rosenthal, Ross Lewis, Edna Moy, Hollee McGinnis, Amanda Baden, Elizabeth Smith Mao
Commenced 6:30 PM
David reminded the board to renew their membership
An article will be coming out about FCC in Big Apple Parent magazine
Events
1. Visit from Wu An An (Aileen)
a. Wu An An has been invited to speak in Washington State, and FCC will bring her to visit New York after that conference
b. A reception for friends and significant donors, and a larger public event are planned while Wu An An is here
c. The Saturday public program could be a fundraiser, although Joe suggested it may be better used as an opportunity for outreach and publicity
d. Aileen expressed a desire for partners and people to promote CIC’s work
e. David suggested one goal of the Saturday event be to identify new volunteers for the Orphanage Assistance Committee members
f. Barry talked about his meeting with board members at Spence Chapin who may be interested in partnering and learning more about our orphanage assistance activities in China.
g. FCC has also invited Wu An An’s daughter, and is working (together with Seantor Murray’s (WA) office to help her visa process
2. Culinary Retreat- Chef and Asian cookbook author Corinne Trang has approached FCC to offeria special FCC weekend retreat to learn Asian Cooking. We will explore what form this might take, perhaps including her in Culture Day or another upcoming event, or notifying families of the opportunity over the listserv.
3. Waiting Families Meet Up (Deb)
a. The November 21 event was moderately well attended
b. The next event will be in Manhattan
c. Marylou suggested inviting Michael Traister to provide medical background regarding adoptions from China
4. December 4th MoCA event and other partnerships (Marylou)
a. MoCa is emerging as a good partner and this was an easy event to plan and well attended by FCC families
b. MoCA may be interested in a project of gathering artifacts to collect the history of our community, as they do with other Chinatown communities
c. Brooklyn Children’s Museum has offered FCC a free weekend
d. Marylou and David are developing a list of institutions and magazines that will give FCC members special discounts and benefits. This is seen as a way to expand the benefits of being a member of FCC (similar to those offered to donrs/members of Channel Thirteen, for example). So far, institutions have seemed very willing to partner with FCC. We will create a brochure listing the partner institutions, and will also post this on our web site, and FCC will provide FCCNY Membership Cards starting in early 2005, so that Member families can receive these benefits easily.
5. Chinese Culture Day Report (Marjorie)
a. Most Culture Day Team volunteers are returning
b. A new graphic designer is needed and several other positions. Someone is needed to tackle games for Culture Day.
c. We are going ahead with planning for the May 7 Event at Liberty State Park; there are no new developments, and Deanna Hunt will be managing more of the process with us this year. The CD Team is in the process of identifying a new theme for 2005
Newsletter Update
1. The most recent newsletter has a new, improved design
2. The new FCCNY Mission Statement was added just before this went to print, and also includes Save-the-Date information on New Years and Culture Day, and the current list of Board Members.
3. Tim reminded the Board that members will not get a paper copy of the directory this year (the membership form on the back of the Newsletter needs to be changed for next time)
4. Mena Messina has begun work on the Kids Iissue. Board Members are asked to encourage families and their own kids and others to participate. There will be messages going out on the listserv encouraging kids to send in contributions.
5. FCC New England’s special issue will be distributed
a. NY and San Francisco chapters will both distribute, which helps to reduce the cost over all.
b. It will be mailed in an envelope with an explanatory letter from FCCNY describing to our members why we believe this edition on Learning Disability Issues may be useful to families in our area, and mentioning our interest in working with other chapters and sharing materials that they have created with our families
c. Aileen wondered how much of the 60+ page issue is local new England content. We are assured that most of the content that is not Learning Disabilities articles is of general interest; a few items are purely of local interest – but it makes more cost sense to provide the NE issue to our families as is than to try to reprint separately.
d. The Board approved distribution of the issue
6. FCCNY Newsletter Editor Mary Child has expressed concern about managing the layout / editing phase for future issues, since this was difficult this time and required numerous rounds of proofing. She may continue with the current designer or may explore using a new person, preferably an FCC parent who is familiar with our issues.
a. There was a discussion regarding the balance of the layout/design costs and whether or not we would lose the benefit of having all material located in a central location, as we now have it.
Gift Memberships
1. Barry suggested offering gift memberships to FCC. It was agreed that this should be done so as to keep the process and workload as simple as possible.
2. Marylou suggested a discounted price, but it was decided to keep things simple with a single price for regular or gift memberships.
3. Tim expressed concerns about the logistics and extra work behind the scenes
4. Tim will discuss strategies with Team 5.
The next meeting will be January 6th, then the Annual Meeting on February 5th, then FCCNY meetings will be held on the first Thursday of the month every month thereafter.
Adjourned 9:20 p.m.