E-Board Meeting 2005_09_02

MASA E-Board Meeting September 2nd, 2005

Discussion
:
1) Updates on Welcoming BBQ
2) New Sports Officer
3) MASA General Body Meeting
4) Formalizing Meeting Protocols
Time
:
5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Location
:
Union 3502
Attendees
:
David, Nizal, Amin, Julie, Fadhli, Rafie, Nadiah, Zuhdi
Absentees
:
Afan
Chair
:
Nik Nizal
Adjourned To
:
Friday, September 9th 2005


1) UPDATES ON WELCOMING BBQ



Logistics
(updated)
Date Change
- The date has been changed from Sunday, September 4th to Monday, September 5th because:
o MSA will be using the Community Center on Sunday morning
o More members could attend on Monday

Time Change
- Due to the change in date, the time has been updated to 1:00 – 5:00 pm
- We have the Community Center booked from 12:30 – 5:30 pm

Location
- Still remains at the Community Center

MC
- Nadiah and Nik were unanimously appointed as Master of Ceremony for the event




Activities
Planned
Agenda
- Kudos to Julie for taking the extra effort of creating the Welcoming BBQ’s agenda
- The agenda begins with speeches (by Abang Azahari & Nik ) and introduction of the new members, followed by other programs
- All in attendance agreed to the proposed agenda
- Julie will email the agenda to all committee members

Games
- Ija is in-charge of coordinating all game related events
- Among other games planned are “human bingo” and tug-of-war
- We have gotten a rope for Tug-Of-War that needs to be returned by Tuesday
- David suggested a game that requires members to recall everyone’s name. Nik added that members need to be broken into smaller groups to manage such a game

Important Announcements
- $10 Fall semester fees will be collected
- New members will be given a heads-up about the Freshmen Representative election to be held during our first General Body Meeting of the semester
- Ask everyone to update contact information on website. Also collect a hard-copy of this information during BBQ.
- Nik will print the contact sheet




Purchases Update

Food & Beverages
- Order for halal chicken legs has been placed and will be collected from Medina Mart on Saturday at 8:00pm
- Some ingredients for Mihun have been bought by Ihsan, other ingredients for all food will be purchased tonight at Price Chopper with Taroi’s assistance
- Beverages will be purchased tonight

Utensils
- MASA’s inventory has been checked and we have most utensils except for a few:
o Large Foil Trays (7 required)
o Grill Sets (2 more required)
o Charcoal (2 packs required)

- We already have 2 grill sets (1 from Taroi, another at the Community Center)
- Nadiah will contact Odus to get more grill sets

- Afan is unavailable to report on utensil purchases
- Therefore purchases of required utensils is postponed to tomorrow, Saturday September 3, 2005



2) NEW SPORTS OFFICER
Updates
Decision
- While we have received news from the previous election’s SPR, the committee decided to let Hadi and Jebat to decide among themselves, who should hold the position of sports officer
- Julie and Nadiah will inform them about this
- If a decision is not made by the next GBM, the new sports officer will be elected during the GBM


3) MASA GENERAL BODY MEETING



Logistics
Date
- Friday , September 9 2005
Time / Place
- TBA




GBM Preparation
Committee Meetings
- All officers are expected to attend several discussion meeting in preparation for the GBM
- The first GBM Prep meeting will be held at Amin’s place at 8:00 pm this Sunday, September 4th 2005
- Please come with proposals for the year, categorizing them into the following:
o political, social, sports, welfare, academic, or religious

Recruitment
- Zuhdi will be the Master of Ceremony
- SPR needs to be appointed to run elections




Provisional Agenda
Speeches & Prayers

- Begin with prayers by Zuhdi
- Follow with speeches by President and Advisor

Elections
- Freshman elections will be held
- Sports officer elections may be held depending on Hadi & Jebat’s decision

Budget
- Julie will prepare a presentation of our financials
- Each officer will be assigned (during the GBM prep meeting) a set of events that will be held to estimate its budget

Programs
- David will present the activities planned for the year
- David has to contact MSD to find out the date on which they would visit RPI


MASA Fees
- Collect unpaid MASA dues
Misc.
Language
- All proceedings are to be done in English considering that there will be non-Malaysian attendees


4) FORMALIZING MEETING PROTOCOLS



Policies
Length & Frequency
- Weekly meetings are 2 hours long
- It will be held every Friday from 5:00 – 7:00 pm

Punctuality
- Everyone should arrive to meetings on time. lateness will not be tolerated
- If an officer arrives late, he or she will be the next meeting’s chairperson automatically and will have to serve food at the next meeting

Chair Rotation
- Chair rotation system will be in place. The chair for the following meeting will be appointed at the end of every meeting
- Any agenda proposals for the following meeting must be sent to the chairperson by Wednesday
- The chairperson would send out the meeting’s agenda and a reminder by Thursday night

Absenteeism
- If there is a valid reason to be absent or late, inform all officers 12 hours beforehand, via email (masa@union.rpi.edu) and speak to at least one officer in person

Quorum
- Meetings would commence when more than half officers have arrived

Proxy
Backup plans
- If the secretary is absent, the freshman representative will be the surrogate

Project Meetings
Setup
- For each project, there will be two chairs (primary & deputy)
- Each project would have a project secretary to take detailed minutes for the project

Others
Guest attendees
- Guests are not compulsory, but officers are recommended to invite members as guests to our weekly meetings


Note - Taking
- Everyone should have a notepad or other forms of stationery to take notes at each meeting
- Officers are recommended to share meeting templates that make note-taking during a meeting easier. Nik would send out the first template

Sequence / Procedures
- Each meeting should begin with a post-mortem of past events, followed by set agendas, and finally new issues (isu berbangkit)

Sequence / Procedures
- Each meeting should begin with a post-mortem of past events, followed by set agendas, and finally new issues (isu berbangkit)




NEW BUSINESS

1. Cultural Pride Night will be held on September 16th; Nik & Nadiah are working on it. Nadiah will have more information on Monday
2. Sponsor contact person – appoint specific members as point-of-contact with the scholarship sponsors:
a. MARA – Nik / Badik
b. JPA – Julie
c. Petronas – Amin
d. YTN / TNB – Zuhdi


3. Spcd-l@lists.rpi.edu – find out who is the owner; ask the new members whether they would like to subscribe to the mailing list
4. Instruction Folder / Manual – Begin compiling all official documents, reports, minutes etc. so that the following committee has references to ease the transition
5. Calendars – It is recommended to bring a calendar for every meeting. The calendar should be filled with all MASA events (this will be possible after our GBM) to avoid confusion during meeting discussions
6. Afan will be the chair for our next weekly meeting