Phone Conference
Present: Dana Olson, Donald Pattillo, Chris Purdef, Pamela Ross, Rhonda Stanton
1. Letterhead
Rhonda has been in contact with Joellen the graphic artist and FoM’s letterhead is almost finished. Yesterday she supplied Joellen with the Cyrilic “Prijateli na Makedonija” and Friends of Macedonia’s email address. Joellen should be getting the finalized product to Rhonda this week and she will send it out. We also decided the best method of distributing the letterhead.
Task: Rhonda will send out the letterhead once it’s finished.
2. Student Contract
He received the signed agreement with Hristina, which he will snail mail to Rhonda. She’ll then stamp it with FoM’s seal and file it away. The IRS wants some assurance that FOM’s money will be used as it’s supposed to, and Don told them we’d use a contract to make sure that students are studying and so on and so forth.
3. Fundraising
Don said that we need outside sources money if we are going to be sustainable. We need to start looking up things. Don said that we need start snail mailing people (RPCV’s and their families/friends). We should do what we can to get snail mail for RPCVs to develop our database. We need to contact specific interest groups, specifically the Macedonians in the US. Kris said that we should contact that are not connected to the region ethnically, but are connected in other ways. Rhonda has a list of foundations that may be interested in funding FoM.
Task: Don will contact Hristina and Rhonda will contact Sasko to get contact names. Rhonda will send out her list of potential funders.
4. Bank Account
Don said that we have $1,350 in the bank, including $200 development grant from NPCA. We also decided that our fiscal year will be the calendar year.
5. Calendars
Pam wants to know who is going to buy this calendar. Kris suggested ebay, former Yugoslav residents, professors. Kris suggested putting these things on our website and market our website. Don’s worried about the fact that everyone does calendar, which may lead to competition. Another issue is a picture point person....maybe Nicole Kilbert will be interested. Rhonda will contact her after the meeting and report back to the group.
6. Newsletter
Don suggested that we get a newsletter by the end of the year. Chris said he would help out with this. Will anyone else?
7. University of S. Florida
They’re setting up a branch in Ohrid. Chris will contact this women to see about how we can cooperate with them.
8. Biljana in Macedonia
Don will call her to more information.
9. New Board Members
Rich & Michele Gotchall Joellen Reineck, Nicole Kilbert, Vinko, and Zvonko. Kris will contact Zvonko and Vinko about becoming board members. The rest were not on the phone & couldn’t consent.
10. Guidelines
We need to revisit the Gudielines in order to match them up to what we do in real life. Don will review the Guidlines as he works on this issue. He has been in contact with Julijana regarding her upcoming funding. Don thinks that we need to use some formal application process (with aspiration statement, etc.). Eileen is concerned about the word “scholarship” in our formal writings. Therefore we need to “work around” this concern.
11. Website
Don will contact Rick about linking the NPCA’s website to FoM’s website and getting the translations uploaded.
Next Conference Call: TBD
