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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes Sister City Committee - 04/06/2009 RECEIVED Sister City Steering Committee AUG 1 7 2009 Monday, April 6, 2009, 5:45 p.m. Heritage Park—Galvan House 1581 Chapparal, Corpus Christi, TX _CITY SECRETARY'S OFFICE MEMBERS PRESENT MEMBERS ABSENT STAFF Jorge Brenner Maria Jaramillo Sally Gavlik-A Drue Combs Liette Ocher Janice Garrett Laura Gonzales Almira Flores Sharon Phillips Javier Morin Michele Thomas Rose Gunji John Rocha Phyllis Roseman Michele Hammock Brandi Williams Dora Hidalgo Tim Dowling Westi Horn CALL TO ORDER: The regular meeting of the Sister City Steering Committee was called to order by General Chair Brandi Williams at around 5:51 p.m. II. ROLL CALL: Laura Gonzales called roll. A quorum was met with 12 of 17 members present. III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Minutes for March 2, 2009 were read. Suggested corrections were 1) In Section VI, Item B — Change "Randy Farrar agreed" — (Randy was not present at the 03-02-09) meeting to "Jorge Brenner agreed." 2) Section VI, Item B — correct spelling of"border". 3) In Section VI, Item A— Change "Tim Dowling was asked to check with Keelung, Taiwan to see if they could handle anther girl." to "Tim Dowling checked with Keelung, Taiwan and they can not take another girl." John Rocha moved to approve the minutes as corrected. The motion was seconded by Almira Flores. The minutes were approved as corrected. IV. TREASURER'S REPORT: DISCUSSION ITEMS: Laura Gonzales reported that the General Fund balance is $16, 069.74. The student's travel, $11,898.40, had not yet been deducted. Balance will be $4,171.34 The PALS account has a balance of $5,283.28. A payment to Bobbi Reed for planning the retreat on 3/22/09 of$200 was deducted from the PALS account. Michele Hammock moved to accept the Treasurer's Report and Drue Combs seconded the motion. The Treasurer's report was accepted. V. PUBLIC COMMENT: There was no public comment. VI. DISCUSSION ITEMS: A. DISCUSSION AND ACTION on June's fundraising event requiring a letter and solicitation permit. Brandi Williams asked where it was found requiring a permit. Dora Hidalgo stated it was in the guidelines. Stated it was a permit that we needed to have the function. asked if it was a city permit. Randy Farrar asked what the timeline is to get the permit? Is it an instant thing? Brandi Williams said she was not able to answer that. She stated that the City Liaison, Laura Gonzales, would need to find out about it. Drue Combs asked if a car wash was considered a solicitation? Dora Hidalgo stated it was a fundraiser. Drue Combs stated that we were giving them a car wash and not just taking their money. Drue stated that city staff could find out about the permit. Brandi Williams asked Laura Gonzales to look into the permit. Drue asked Tim Dowling if he had found a place to have the car wash. Tim stated that he was still looking for a place. He stated he had a couple of leads. Michele SCANNED Thomas asked who the point of contact was and Brandi Williams stated it was Tim Dowling. Chris Kailas e-mailed Dora Hidalgo the guidelines for the fundraising. Brandi Williams stated to be safe, that the city staff would need to find out what permits were needed for the car wash, if any. Drue Combs stated that the solicitation permit was only $10.00. Tim Dowling stated that they had met with the kids on Sunday and the basic idea was to have a carwash on Saturday, June 6, 2009. Tim and his wife will have brunch at their house at 10:00 am. They will leave from his house to go to the car wash site. He had the students and parents volunteer to bring items that would be needed at the car wash. He has a couple of leads for places to have the car wash. It will be finalized Tim stated that the way he read the guidelines was that the permit was for a group coming in to the city to soliciting using phone calls. He stated that he would be real surprised that we would actually need the permit being the City of Corpus Christi. Brandi Williams asked Laura Gonzales to find out if the permit was required and how to go about handling it. B. DISCUSSION AND ACTION on progress in getting our Sister City names on the Sister City Parkway. Drue Combs asked what the progress was and asked if anyone had checked. asked if anyone was assigned to it? Brandi Williams stated that she had not checked. Drue asked Michele Thomas if she could have all seven of the Sister Cities names added to the sign in the Sister City Parkway. She stated that she assumed that the city sign department did that. Michele Thomas stated that the Parks and Recreation Dept. Parks Ops division actually does that. Drue Combs asked Michele if she could contact Park Ops division and get the signs. Drue asked if they could be done in alphabetical order. asked if they could be done separately so that if we had to add we could go back and add. Drue stated that since the board was a big board they could be kind of like riders.???? Drue said it would be neat if the date that they became Sister Cities could be added. stated that you would want it to be readable so that when you drive by you can see the name. Brandi Williams asked if we could put them in the order without the date. Randy Farrar stated he would prefer chronological order. stated then we wouldn't have to go back and change the order if we added somebody. Drue said we would just have to get a larger sign. Drue stated her objective was to identify our Sister Cities on that Parkway sign. She stated that she would give Michele Thomas the list of Sister Cities chronologically. Drue stated that it would be nice looking because people do not know who our Sister Cities are. Sharon Phillips said it was an excellent idea. Several members agreed. Brandi Williams stated that Drue and Randy both wanted chronological order and Drue said she would speak to Michele. Randy Farrar moved to put the names on the sign in chronological order. Tim Dowling seconded the motion. The motion was passed. C. DISCUSSION AND ACTION on what to do about gifts for Mayors of the 3 cities our students are visiting. Who will work with Lisa Garza at the Galvan House to research gift possibilities and get them purchased and packaged for our student's trips. Rose Gunji gave Brandi a catalog with gift ideas. A few of the pages earmarked had to do with the Texas Star and other like items. Brandi stated that we needed someone to take this on. Maria Jaramillo volunteered to help with this. Westi Horn also agreed to help. Maria and Westi will bring back recommendations of price range and items and committee will vote. Drue suggested using Aloe Tile. Drue suggested spending between $35 - $50. Randy Farrar made a motion to give them the suggested max price of$50 each. Dora Hildago seconded the motion. The motion was passed D. DISCUSSION AND ACTION on what to do with Playa del Carmen dancers coming in June. Lodging, food and transportation are needed. Brandi Williams said at Ellen's Christmas party in December, Alfredo, liaison to Playa del Carmen, spoke to Brandi and Heather about the Playa del Carmen dancers coming to dance in Corpus Christi. The dates have changed. It will be in September. They are asking for transportation, lodging, and meals. They will drive from San Antonio. With date change, money becomes an issue. Alfredo will be here in June to negotiate. The performance dates will be September 18 — 26. Drue Combs— Heather, Ellen Murray and Drue set it up for a year ago. Due to a hurricane in the Yucatan, the dancers did not come. They were working on housing for the dancers. They were trying to secure hotels for them. Also, they were trying to make arrangements for transportation to Del Mar for performances. Rose Gunji suggested using churches for housing. They are about 22 people coming. Brandi suggested tabling this and discuss this at the next meeting. Drue will speak to Javier and try to get the performance through Del Mar. She will report at the next meeting. Dora suggested partnering with other organizations to help with the cost. Almira Flores and Javier Morin will work with Drue and Dora. E. DISCUSSION AND ACTION on Sister Cities International organization and its services and annual conference. The annual conference will be held in Belfast, Ireland July 29 — 30. A youth conference will be held during the conference. Monies left over can not be used for travel of the individuals who go. Individuals will be responsible for travel, accommodations and meals. In the past, the committee paid for the registration out of PALS. Brandi asked if anyone was interested in going. Nobody was interested. F. DISCUSSION AND ACTION on what to do with extra general funds money due to travel savings. A variety of ways to spend it could be Peace Poles, Signage in Sister City Park, gifts for mayors, conference fees and more. Be creative. Thanked Chris Kailas and Maria for saving money on travel. Brandi suggested that gifts for mayors could come from general fund. Sharon reminded the committee that some of the money was for the kids activities. Drue suggested using some of the money to purchase items with the Sister City logo such as t-shirts, tote bags, pens or watches. Possibly give the students one and allow them to buy additional items to take to their Sister City students. We need more specialty items for promotional reasons. We need to get our name out. , Tim suggested using the money to purchase newspaper ads in High School papers. We would be able to commit the money for the fall, so that we could use the money and not lose it. Fiscal year ends July 31. Drue suggested a give away at the International Festival at Del Mar. Maybe have a drawing and give away the prizes to the students. Dru also suggested flash drives with Sister City logo on it. Jorge Brenner suggested a professional web page. Liette Ocker and Michelle Hammock will compile a list of ideas and bring it to the meeting next month. VII. COMMITTEE REPORTS: A. Publicity Committee — Maria Jaramillo asked if the different committees could please send e-mails about their Sister City so that she can compile a list and we can discuss it at the next meeting. Sharon Phillips asked John if he had done any publicity for the art show. B. Selection Committee — Work is done until September. The students are v committed for one year. This includes training, presentations or press releases. John Rocha — In the past, the students haven't taken this program seriously after they have taken their trip. John suggested penalizing the parents if the students do not make themselves available the following year. For example, if they miss one meeting —charge 1/3 of the trip, 2 meetings—2/3 of the trip. Randy said this could be written in. C. Fundraising Committee— Dora met with Heather and Ellen and they gave her information on what they had and also Chris Kailas gave her a sample fundraising letter. Dora passed a list around and asked if anyone knew of any contacts that she could send letters to. It would be a list of potential donors. D. Essay Committee — No Report. E. EXPO/International Cultural Festival — Drue reported it was a success and will be doing it again next year. F. Yokosuka, Japan — No report G. Agen, France —Sending 3 girls and 2 boys. Students from France will not be flying back when the Corpus Christi students come back. They will arrive few days later. H. Keelung, Taiwan — Our 2 students will be staying with experienced Sister City families. We will find out the students names soon. Monterrey, Mexico— No report. J. Toledo, Spain, Javier Morin — No report. Javier Morin not present. K. Veracruz, Mexico — On March 20, Jorge interviewed the City Manager. Gave him the letter about our interest in starting Veracruz again. The City Manager will talk to the Mayor and try to appoint someone to start working on it. Jorge will get in contact with them and follow up. L. Playa del Carmen, Mexico — Brandi spoke with Heather and she will get the contact information about Playa del Carmen to Brandi. Will add Ann Jaime to this committee. M. Curriculum Committee/Training — John Rocha— On Sunday, April 4, we had the second phase of the student training. This years students trained the new students. They discussed the history of Corpus Christi. There will be a test at the next training, April 19, to see what they have learned at the training. We have almost 100 % of documentation completed. Maria Jaramillo —We brought international students from France and Japan. They spoke to the students about their countries and it added a personal touch to the training. N. Art Competition Committee —The art show is this evening and everything is ready to go. Middle Schoolswere judged on their own. In the past, all the schools were judged together. There were 30 entries this year. 1st Place - $300, 2nd Place — $200, and 3rd Place - $100. O. New Sister City-Evaluation Committee — No Report P. Activities Committee —Westi asked to add John Rocha to this committee. And John Rocha agreed. Working on the schedule and will have the schedule ready next meeting. Activities are scheduled for July 27 —August 3. John asked for an estimated budget on the cost of the activities. Q. Pen Pals —Tabled VIII. IDENTIFY ITEMS TO BE PLACED ON NEXT AGENDA— IX. GENERAL CHAIR'S REPORT: Recommendation of new steering committee nominees to forward to City Council. Look them over and be prepared to discuss them during May meeting. Had a meeting with Sally about the direction she wanted the committee to go. Due to time limits, Brandy will discuss at next meeting. X. CITY STAFF REPORT: No report. XI. ADJOURNMENT: Randy Farrar moved to adjourn and Drue Combs seconded the motion. The meeting was adjourned. Laura Gonzales, Sister City Recording Secretary Cultural Services Division Parks & Recreation Department The following guide explains the attendance code: AE —Absence Excused for those who were absent due to illness or Sister City Travel R — Resigned Examples of arrival or leaving times— arrival, 6:07 p.m.; or leaving, L7:00 p.m.