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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes Sister City Committee - 09/07/2004 hO1,`1Z131141$7e>> epi "i (co— OCT Sister City Steering Committee a RRTME100 CEI Regular Meeting �, SEC ' Or, Tuesday, September 7, 2004 �dV City Hall-6th Floor Conference Room — 1201 Leopard Street At Corpus Christi, Texas 78401 I- MEMBERS PRESENT MEMBERS ABSENT seY,.:S.&s• swn ....! , y, _ e-7w,Pofr•.T2... d. n 9. .:.m.` Sue Dulaney Gary Hansen Dr. Hsiu "Mindy" Chang (E) Dr. Gustavo Randy Farrar Ann Jaime Bebe Morris Valadez Amanda Jane Haney Rose Gunji Connie Munoz (resigned) Chris Kailas Judy Benkendorfer Regis Barber Elizabeth R. Iglesias John Rocha Ellen Murry Dr. Mufid Abudiab (E) Westi Horn Sharon Phillips Yalee Shih Flicka Rahn Mary Ann Lopez I. CALL TO ORDER: The regular meeting of the Sister City Steering Committee was called to order at 6:10 p.m. by Chair, Randy Farrar following an Orientation for new members. II. Roll Call: Chris Kailas called roll, announced quorum. III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES — A motion was made by Ann Jaime and seconded by Sue Dulaney to approve the regular meeting minutes of July 12, 2004 as written. Motion passed by acclamation. IV. HEARING FROM THE PUBLIC — There was no one in attendance from the public. V. TREASURER'S REPORT — Chris Kailas handed out copies of the Sister City budget as of September 4, 2004 including recent expenditures from the August Student Activities. Budget started at $15,110.80. It was cut $598.20 from last year's budget. Current balance is $13,623.74 a total of$1,487.06 spent from the budget on Student Activities. In addition, another $463.88 was spent for Student Activities from the $500 that was being held in the P.A.L.S. Fund. Balance in the PALS Fund is $36. VI. DISCUSSION ITEMS A. Discussion about process for choosing a new Sister City: Sue Dulaney questioned whether or nor this Committee could afford another Sister City. Others agreed. Chris Kailas reminded the Committee that Yalee Shih, at the last meeting, had suggested the Committee form a Feasibility Committee to study the process and possibility of securing a new Sister City. Ellen Murry volunteered to be on a new Feasibility Committee. Randy Farrar asked who else would like to be on the Committee. Mary Ann Lopez, Yalee Shih, Ann Jaime and John Rocha volunteered to also serve. Chris Kailas reminded the members that copies of 3 processes, the International, San Antonio's and Corpus Christi's were available on the table. SCANNED . .....- _ orm ...4 . ..., 0., ..., LL-11 T1 % \bo . g " lit 014.0Z, SIMMIA...., t POOta . 7 11PeCt?,'e' - 1 C ..e' *las )% 1\N' f \ s\L $' • .- J B. Discussion on setting up of a Nominating Committee: Randy Farrar started the discussion by reminding the Committee that the election of General Chair for next year will be held next month and that he is interested running for a second year. He offered the Committee an opportunity to develop a Nominating Committee to provide other candidates. Sue Dulaney suggested the Committee follow the bylaws and just nominate from the floor. The Committee agreed; nominations will be made at the October meeting. C. Review and discussion of applicants for open positions to the Sister City Steering Committee: Randy Farrar said the City Secretary now wants recommendations on all positions to be filled including those for reappointment. Regis Barber, Mindy Chang and Randy Farrar express their desire to be reappointed. Amanda Haney does not wish to be reappointed. A motion was made by Gary Hansen to recommend these reappointments and seconded by Rebecca Hawn. Motion carried. Randy Farrar recognized those Committee members Rose Gunji, Sue Dulaney and Gary Hansen who must go off the committee. Ms. Gunji said she will still come to the meetings a part of the public and would like to stay on the Young Artists Competition Committee. Mr. Farrar directed the Committee's attention to the packets of the applicants on the table and said we have a lot of strong candidates. He reviewed the alphabetically listed applicants and related information he gathered from his conversations with each. Applicants are: 1) Joseph P. Alley, Aaron Cooley, Sonia Quadros Heil, Venicia Kelly, Heather Stanton Moretzsohn, Kelly M. Smith, Elaine A. Yellen, Kenneth Faseler, and Kuntu Mensah. He said none of these applicants had a conflict with meetings on Monday evenings. Mr. Farrar reminded the Committee that there is a shortage of men on the Committee and to consider recommending some men. Gary Hansen recommended Joe Alley as a good candidate and Judy Benkendorfer said "he's a lot of fun too". Ellen Murry recommended Sonia Heil because she has good networking resources and has time because she is retired. Venicia Kelly was recommended by Rebecca Hawn because she is level headed and enthusiastic. Randy Farrar asked everyone to write down 5 people they recommend. He would tally the votes and give us the results at the end of the meeting. D. Discussion about updated Sister City Program Timeline: Rose Gunji did not get a copy of the timeline, please send her one. Randy Farrar said the old timeline had been updated and runs from October 2004 through December 2005. He asked everyone to bring their copy of the timeline to each meeting and suggested they put all their paper— minutes, agendas, bylaws, program information, etc. — in a notebook. Rose Gunji asked about the mail out of the Sister Cities International Young Artists Competition, stating that she has had a friend volunteer her time to redo the current art brochure for the competition taking out all the information pertaining to mailing off the picture, payments, and correcting the student application. Ms. Gunji, needing to leave early, made her Art Competition report at this time. She reported that the brochure is done and she expects it any day. Once she gets it she will send it out. Usually she has the Committee members deliver the packets to the schools and asked if anyone wanted to help. Rebecca Hawn offered to help her get them out. E. Discussion on Committee Appointments: Randy Farrar asked each Committee member to let him know what special committee on which they were interested in serving. He said they may request to continue on the same committee, ask to serve on another committee or they could serve on more than one. F. Discussion about seeing our exchange students off and when they arrive at the airport: Mr. Farrar said a number of students expressed concern that not all of the Chairs for the various Sister Cities were seeing the students off or meeting on their arrivals. Gary Hansen said it is more important to greet our visiting students. In Japan, all City employees, Committee members, host families and exchange students make every effort to be there to greet our students. They have balloons, banners and make it very exciting for our students. Yalee Shih encourages the Chinese Community here to meet our visitors and calls the newspaper and TV stations to be there also. She said "The visiting students really like that kind of attention. It makes them feel really welcomed." In Taiwan, no matter how late there is always a welcoming committee with a banner to welcome our students. Randy Farrar suggested the co-chairs put some thought into how they can send off and greet the students on their arrival. Also, we need to encourage our Sister Cities to send their students when our students on their return trip. It was noted that if we get the information listed in the current guidelines concerning the names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. of our visiting exchange students and that City's host family information, we could get our students tickets early enough for us to let them know the travel information so our counterparts in our Sister Cities can make their travel arrangements. G. Randy Farrar began the discussion on tentative travel dates for the exchange students stating that Abe Acebedo from CCISD thinks the 18th of August will likely be the start of school in 2005. Mr. Farrar suggests that all our visiting students leave on August 16 and backing up from that date, the dates could be: Spain, June 21 — July 19 —August 16; France, July 5 — July 26 — August 16; all others, July 19 - August 2 —August 16. Mr. Farrar asked the current chairs to contact their counterparts in their Sister City, now, to see if these dates will work with their schedules. The Committee needs to stay on top of the start dates of all the schools early so the tickets can be purchased at the best price possible. VII. COMMITTEE REPORTS A. Activities Report —Judy Benkendorfer, reported that the Activities committee spent about $2,000 on the activities this past year so there should be money in the budget to start our activities in the next year. Ms. Benkendorfer thanked everyone in the committee for their help and special thanks to John Rocha, Dr. Gustavo Valadez Ortiz, and Rebecca Hawn for the parties they hosted; Yalee Shih, Ellen Murry, Gary Hansen, Flicka Rahn and Sue for their help with the students. B. Wheelchairs for Peace — Sue Dulaney and Ellen Murry Ellen Murry handed out the agenda for the trip to Veracruz. She is working on the PR with KORO, KI II, KRIS, KZTV and KEDT and the Caller Times. At this time, all communications are turned over to Ann Jaime. Ms. Murry thanked Dr. Valadez for his help. The Wheelchairs will arrive in Veracruz today of tomorrow. Most of the Committee will be in Veracruz a day before our Mayor arrives. Thanks were given 4 to Ellen Murry, Sue Dulaney, Ann Jaime and Dr. Gustavo Valadez for their work. Ms. Murry suggested everyone going practice their "Grito" before they get there. C. Agen, France — Ann Jaime reported that the French are pleased with our youth. Council Member Melody Cooper was there and took part in their activities. We were well represented. D. Keelung, Taiwan - Yalee Shih reported that the small problems we had were overcome. Corpus Christi has not had an official visit in sometime and we have been invited. An official trip has been schedule from October 28, to November 5, 2004, in about 7 weeks. Costs are estimated to be about $900 to $1,000 for travel. The hotel about $100 per day and about $30 per day for all three meals. E. Monterrey, Mexico — John Rocha reported that our students had a really good time in Monterrey. All expenses for our students stay there were paid by Monterrey. They had a new contact person this year that took care of everything. The additional activities like the Texas Bar B Q dinner, soccer game and Harbor Playhouse he planned because the Mexican students arrived and left early, before many of the other visiting students arrived. He said he could help get tickets for the Harbor Playhouse for next year's activities. Mr. Rocha will be going to Monterrey to visit with Elena. He plans to show her a schedule of our activities. F. Toledo, Spain — It was reported that Council Member Melody Cooper met with Maria Diaz and the Mayor of Toledo, Spain. Ms. Cooper could not find out why they could not find students this past summer. Toledo is interested in having another Art Exchange. Dr. Valadez had received a letter confirming this request. Dr. Valadez suggested we send Greg Rubio as our artist. G. Veracruz, Mexico —Sharon Phillips reported that she had received an e-mail stating that their students had a good time. They sent lots of pictures and loved our people. She has forward a note to let her know our people are coming to give away the wheelchairs the week of September 13-17, 2004. H. Yokosuka, Japan — Gary Hansen and Regis Barber Student Exchange Mr. Hansen said the 2 visiting female students had a great time. VIP Exchange Update We received their VIP visitors. Our contact in Yokosuka has gone on vacation. Tanaka is our other contact. Sue knows of a person who would like to go and can pay her own way; her name is Dixie Oshman. She is interested in learning about their gardens. Council Member Mark Scott is interested in some sore of Sister City Conference. Regis Barber can call for information on it and get it to us. Dedication Ceremony Randy Farrar reported that the dedication of Plaque to the Lexington from the Memorial Mikasa had very good attendance. The Mayor was there, some of our students and even the media. VIII STAFF REPORT Due to the lateness of the hour there was no report. IX. CURRENT CONCERNS Mary Ann Lopez said it looks like travel expenses are "eating us alive". She volunteered to head up a committee to seek sponsorship funds for the exchange program. She would like input from the Committee members. She will put together a sponsorship plan for raising funds. Randy Farrar had completed the tally of the votes on the applicants to be recommended to the City Council as new members of the Committee. They are Sonia Quadros Heil, Joseph P. Alley, Aaron Cooley, Venicia Kelly, and Heather Stanton Moretzsohn. X. ADJOURNMENT — A motion to adjourn was made by Regis Barber and seconded by Amanda Haney. The meeting adjourned at 8 p.m. Chris Kallas, Supervisor Park & Recreation Department