April
28, 2010
Dear
FCCNY Members,
On
Sunday, April 18, 2010 the FCCNY Board of Directors and Regional Coordinators
gathered at the home of Kathy Urbina and Tim Stoenner for both a board meeting
and a regional planning session.
The Board of Directors would like to officially thank Kathy and Tim for
opening up their home, and Alan Levine and Jami Thall, FCC South Mountain
regional Coordinators, for organizing and leading the planning meeting. Attached are minutes from the FCCNY
Board Meeting. Minutes from the
planning session will also be posted shortly.
The
purpose of the planning meeting was to bring together current FCCNY leaders to
share ideas about how best to energize members to become active volunteers, and
to encourage volunteers to take on more active leadership roles in each of our
regions. As adoptions from China
have dramatically slowed and children of some current leaders have entered
their teen years with less interest in FCC events, almost all regions have
noticed a decline in attendance at events, membership and active
volunteers. The planning meeting
was an incredible gathering of people who care about the future of FCC. New ideas were generated about how to
better use/share resources and an overall sense of renewed
commitment to FCCNY was experienced by those who attended. While membership renewal is down,
overall FCCNY is a solvent and solid organization that is able to provide
support, infrastructure and resources for many volunteer-driven programs and
activities.
In
the months and weeks ahead, you will see a variety of emails inviting members
to become more involved -- on many different levels, such as joining the board,
volunteering for specific administrative tasks and or upcoming events. We urge to to get involved any way that
you can as the future FCC will be as vibrant and active as we all make it.
Sincerely,
Mary
Nealon, secretary on behalf of
FCCNY
Board of Directors
Families with Children from China – Greater
NY
Board Meeting -
Sunday, April 18, 2010
The board met at 116
Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn, achieving a quorum at 11:15 a.m.
Board members present:
Mary Nealon, Tim Stoenner, Lily Cardlin, Deb Levine, Ross Lewis, Mark Maas,
Mary Sellner
Others present: Barry
Radick, former board member, and Roberta Ferdschneider
Absent: Amanda Baden,
Marjorie Berman, Timothy Helck, Judith Fiorini, and Nicki Genovese
Search for New Board Leadership
- Tim Stoenner, FCCNY Board Treasurer,
stated that he and Kathy Urbina would like to be out of the day-to-day
management of membership, the website, registration, and financial management
within the next two years, since their daughter will be in college by then. Tim
explained that although he and Kathy had been handling all these tasks, they
could be separated so that they were not so burdensome for other volunteers to
take over.
Barry Radick, FCCNY
Advisory Council Member, acknowledged that the board also needed to come
up with a plan for new leadership. Marjorie Berman, FCCNY’s current President,
had announced at the previous board meeting in December 2009, that she would
like to step down as President when someone else is willing to serve, but no
later than the end of her present term.
At the last board meeting, the board agreed that a group of 5 board
members, including Marjorie, would become part of the office of the President on
an interim basis, sharing the President’s duties while giving the board time to
explore the possibility of changing its officer structure possibly to two Co-Presidents
and while searching for new board candidates. The board has not met since
December 2009 but the five board members who volunteered to share the President’s
duties have continued to handle the business and tasks of FCCNY. Barry recognized that a few years ago
the board made a purposeful decision to not function as an events management
board so that it could focus more on the “advocate and educate” parts of the
mission – leaving events, the “celebrate” part of the mission for members
and regions to do. Mary Nealon,
board Secretary, shared her observation that with the suspension of Culture Day
after the last event at Liberty State Park in May 2008, there has been a
decline in activity organization-wide, possibly in part due to economic changes
but also possibly due to the loss of Culture Day as a vehicle to bring our
community together on a grand scale and to trigger membership renewal for some
members. Events bring people
together and provide one way to make serving on the board fulfilling for those
who create and work on them. One difficulty some board members face is that
they now have teens who are no longer as interested in
attending FCC functions. Mary
Nealon said that she and she also thinks Amanda Baden continue to be interested
in creating activities and programs of interest to teens, as well as parent
education programs.
Tim Stoenner noted that
the regions have continued to be active, that many wonderful events are
happening in the regions and in all five boroughs and that the board's
financial support and infrastructure (insurance, registration, banking and
bookkeeping) provide a way for these events to occur. However this support will not be able to continue forever
without new volunteers stepping up to take over some of the administrative
tasks.
Tim stated that there
are now 1000 members. There were 1500 members two years ago and 2000 members at
the organization’s peak in 2005. The reduced number of new adoptions from
China, along with declining referrals from agencies to FCC as a resource, the
reduction in adoption agencies doing adoptions from China, and the lack of
organization-wide events such as Culture Day have probably all contributed to
the decline in FCCNY membership. But Tim said that the current membership
is still enough to keep the organization going, to support regional events and
other programs and activities FCCNY decides to do. Mark Maas said he preferred to look at the glass half full
in terms of the membership we have retained.
The board agreed that we
need new event leaders and new board members. Barry noted that the experiment
of having a board that was policy-oriented rather than event-oriented has not
been successful. He also suggested that it might be necessary to impose an
attendance requirement to insure that the board has enough active members to
fulfill its obligations.
Mary Nealon asked Barry
Radick if he was willing to rejoin the board as had been raised at the last
meeting, and Barry responded that he was.
Mary Nealon made a motion to nominate Barry Radick as an FCCNY Board
Member; Tim Stoenner seconded the motion and the board voted unanimously to
approve the motion.
Tim Stoenner suggested
that Jennifer Maslowski, the Manhattan coordinator, also be approached for
board membership. Jenn has been successful not only in creating and
running activities but also passing them on to others so that they are
sustainable.
In terms of the office of
President, Mary Nealon noted that she is not able to take on the responsibilities
alone due to work constraints, but would be willing to serve as a co-president or
vice president if someone else could be found to share the obligations. The board decided to defer
decision-making about how to structure the officer positions until after the
regional planning meeting when we had a chance to talk with regional
coordinators and other FCCNY volunteers.
Roberta Ferdschneider, who
recorded the minutes of this meeting, was asked if she was interested in board
membership. She stated that she needed some time to think about it due to
family eldercare obligations, but she will be able to take minutes at the next
board meeting.
The board agreed to
schedule an annual meeting in the fall, to look into recruiting new board
members and work on breaking up the administrative tasks (which are
essential to the survival of the organization) that Tim and Kathy handle, so
that a transition can take place ensuring that FCCNY’s work can continue.
It was noted that while
the emails are extremely helpful, it might be necessary to use phone calls or a
mailing to be sure that members are aware of the need for new leadership, since
emails are easy to delete.
Barry Radick volunteered
to draft an appeal for new board members, and attempt to generate a list of
everyone who was ever a member of FCCNY to be used for recruitment.
Treasurer's Report- Tim presented the balance sheet. The organization has $192,900.28. Tim
noted that the organization is financially sound with an adequate amount of
money to support its infrastructure and any regional activities, events and or
programs we would like to do.
Amity - Aileen Koger, Chair of FCCNY’s Orphanage Assistance Program, was not
able to attend the meeting, and sent a memo to all board members requesting
approval of $65,000 in contributions to Amity. FCCNY raised and distributed
$124,200 to Amity in 2009. We have approximately $65,000 as a result of the
most recent charitable initiative. Amity has submitted a request for $115,590
to continue the programs we have supported with our contributions last year. In
her memo, Aileen also suggested that she write a letter to Amity, on FCCNY’s
behalf, stating that the current amount of $65,000 is what we can donate
this year, so that Amity can plan accordingly. If additional donations are
made on behalf of FCCNY’s charitable initiatives, we will make another
distribution to Amity in the fall.
Tim moved that the board approve the distribution of $65,000 to Amity,
and that we direct Aileen to send this letter. Lily Cardlin seconded the
motion, which the board passed unanimously.
FCCNY "Letter from
the President" for the next newsletter –
Tim reported that Marjorie Berman has offered
to draft the letter for the newsletter, which will be distributed late in
May.
NYU-APA Archives - The NYU
APA program has requested that our materials, such as all our newsletters, be
included in their archive of materials related to immigration from China. The
board is enthusiastic about pursuing this offer. Marjorie Berman, who received
the request, told Tim that there are legalities with respects to the transfer
of rights of certain materials that FCCNY would have to consider. Marjorie is
drafting a response, which will be reviewed by other lawyers on the board and then
submitted to the board for approval. The board also noted that in that the
NYU-APA archive would be a good place for FCCNY's newsletters.
Future Culture Days - Deb
Levine suggested that a meeting be scheduled to discuss the possibility of some
kind of Culture Day, now that over a year has passed without one, in the hopes
that someone might come up with some new ideas. Tim noted that an idea of
having a Chinatown-centered weekend has been proposed.
Shanghai Expo Virtual Wall - Ross attended a meeting in Chinatown concerning a virtual wall of
Chinese-Americans to be generated in conjunction with the upcoming Shanghai
Expo. He said that they suggested that all our children be given the last
name character "Ai" which means "love."
There was discussion of pluses and minuses to this: that families might
not like the idea of giving all adoptees the same last name, but it would
protect their privacy. Ross will circulate the material he was given.
Next meeting - The
board agreed to meet on a Monday evening in May.
Adjournment - The meeting was adjourned at 12:10pm.
Respectfully Submitted by Roberta Ferdschneider