CAMEO Membership Meeting

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Minutes.-

Tom Harmon, Vice-Chair called to order on behalf of Kenan Al-Husseini, Chair of CAMEO, who couldn’t attend the meeting.

We had a great turnout for this meeting, 26 Members that were welcomed by Tom and the meeting started:

  1. SusanStaley has accepted the position of Administrative &Project Consultant. Susan will work in a volunteer capacity for 10 to 20 hours per month. As CAMEO has been more visible and active in the Community we all recognize the need for this kind of support.
  1. We moved on to the updates regarding the Film Series:
  1. Sherif Abou-Rayan, from Cummins Greater Middle East Affinity Group, provided an update regarding the event on December, including the Film “Children of Heaven”, the presentation about Iran from Reza Khamsi and the Shoe Drive, “Soles for Souls”.

He reported that Susan did a great job organizing the film event with the International School of Columbus. There was good turnout – about 100 people. Reza’s participation making a presentation and hosting a session on Q & A’s about Iran was also outstanding! He has received very good feedback. The shoe drive brought 200 pairs of shoes for those in need, so as Sherif mentioned, this first event was a COMPLETE SUCCESS! Well done everyone!!!

  1. Frank Griffin from the African American Association, updated all regarding the next film event that will be presented within the celebrations of the Black History Month. The film is “Beat the Drum” at the YES Cinema on February 15th. The event will go from 6pm to 9pm. Children attend for free.

The event will have the participation from different organizations, related to the topic of the film as: Granny Connection, Columbus Enrichment Program, Africa Drumming and AIDS Awareness. Susan is organizing the event form the International School of Columbus side.

Still working on the logistics, since they are expecting about 200 people and will require two cinemas and organize/synchronize the presentations.

Related to this topic, Tom made reference and thanked Columbus Area Arts Council for its donation to support the film festival: Warren Baumgart explained that CAAC has the commitment to support this kind of events and will support CAMEO with $425 USD in 2010 and another $425 USD in 2011. He encouraged us to use the money to “build the audience”, i.e. Marketing, Posters, CAMEO Website and make more people aware in the Community at large of the events. Thank you Warren!

  1. Executive Committee report and CAMEO Board Retreat. - Tom explained to the membership that the Executive Committee decided to have a Planning Session early in 2010 to build our work plan, realign resources and prioritize our focus based on our Vision, Mission and Values.

After a year, CAMEO has accomplished what it had planned for 2009: get formed, launched our Website, have a formal Board. It is time to get the Organization to the next level, and keep responding in an organized way to the Community requirements. This retreat will take place on Saturday January 23rd.

We will report on the outcome during our next Membership meeting.

It was a nice lead way to hear from Darrin Sorrells and Marsha from the Center of Teaching and Learning. They are interested in partnering with CAMEO since as they mentioned, they want to have a “Multicultural Faculty”. CAMEO accepted the invitation for a dialog on how we can work together; we will include this in our agenda for the Retreat and our work plan discussion for 2010.

4.Website Committee updates. - Augustine Jung, CAMEO Webmaster, updated the Membership on the progress of our website. We have a procedure in place with clear roles and responsibilities and a process to take care of the routine maintenance of the information. We have five Associations, so far, that are taking turns in a monthly basis to keep the information fresh and updated. We agreed to ask the rest of the Associations to name a representative and get trained on how to upload information. We agreed to provide names to Augustine by the date of the Retreat, January 23rd.

An area of improvement in the Website, that Augustine mentioned, is the Forum. He made the commitment to work with the supplier and make it more intuitive and user friendly.

  1. Program Committee Update. - Annushka shared her enthusiasm to get more resources working with her and get this Committee up and running. For the moment, both committees: Program and Outreach will stay together, until we gain more traction. Annushka mentioned she is looking forward to the retreat to assess the projects she has in mind and build a 3-6 months calendar. She reminded to the Associations Presidents that we need to nominate a representative per Association to work with her in this Committee.
  1. Financial Update. - Unfortunately our Treasurer Sabby Sabapathy, couldn’t attend the meeting, but Tom provided the update mentioning that we have around $ 8,000 USD. A more complete update will be provided in our next Membership meeting.
  1. Reflections on the life and impact of Dr.Martin Luther King .- Jarvis Cooper did a great job taking the audience through a journey of what meant and still means the message of Dr. King and how we can apply to our Organization. We all agreed that we want CAMEO to be an Organism with Purpose! In continuous evolution. Valuing our differences while making a difference.

A challenging question he launched to us: In a year from today…. Would anybody miss CAMEO? Let’s move from Success to Significance.

  1. Associations Updates.-

African American Association. - February is Black History Month. Several Activities planned. They will publish a calendar in the CAMEO Website.

Chinese Association. - On February 6th. Chinese New Year Celebration from 3pm to 8pm, at East HSchool. Entertainment, Fundraising and Chinese Dinner.

Latin American Association. - Planning launch to the Community at large, given all the activities during February will move the date to March. Continue working in two key projects focus on Latino Education.

Trinibago Association, - Carnival celebration on February 15 and 16. Also will be a conference on what does the Carnival mean.

Granny Connection. - Dawn Palmer announced that there is an event on February 20th. At SouthsideSchool Auditorium at 7pm. Roots Suite – Keyetta Dance Company of Indianapolis.