Planning Meeting for 2006-2007 - Rice University



Fulbright Alumni Association

Houston/S.E. Texas Chapter

Planning Meeting for 2006-2007

8/19/06 9:00am-10:30am

Turquoise Grill- Houston, Texas

Minutes

Attendees: Everette, Tracy (Penn) Charlene, Charlene’s husband and daughter (forgive me for not remembering names) Tong, Fran, Dan, Lincy, Deanna.

Overview of the Year and Progress

Official Address of The Houston/SE Texas Chapter

5644 Westheimer Road#175, Houston, Tx 77056

Grant Application Submitted and Awarded with special thanks to Charlene Dykman for overseeing the proposal.

The goal of the Chapter is to fill a gap between University Based International Offices and Community – Everette is working on acquiring a full list of all Fulbrighters in the Greater Houston area, by contacting various organizations in Washington DC, including the State Department.

Everette told the group how some Fulbrights have had a difficult time their first week in the United States. He has been talking to the IIE and the University of Houston International Office for Students to solve some of the problems. One student had housing problems, could not cash a check and had her purse stolen. Everette assisted the student with these problems. An informal lunch to welcome all Fulbrights to the area is planned for 12:00pm, September 1, 2006 at the University of Houston Hilton

Grant Overview – Awarded $4,000 for the 2006-2007 year. Charlene Dykman agreed to serve as the Grant Officer for the current year. She presented an overview of the expected grant activities. The two goals of the grant are to educate/advocate Houstonians of the Fulbright Program and to conduct a service/outreach program. The grant account will be maintained separately from the general account. There are four activities planned for this year.

Longitudinal Activity – Welcoming and Greeting Fulbright scholars and students to the Greater Houston Area- Maryann is spearheading this activity.

Longitudinal Activity – Creating a Speaker’s Bureau of Fulbrighters.

Reception for the incoming Fulbrighters of 2006-2007 and the international community in Houston- To be held at University of St. Thomas on the 21st of September – Charlene is spearheading this activity.

Event will last from 7-9pm on 9/21/2006

Presentations will include: Greetings from the President of UST, International Business Activities in Houston, Networking with business area leaders and consulate officers.

100 Expected Participants – Need to have an updated e-mail list for all chapter members.

Cultural/Ethnic Event – A Chinese cultural event is planned for the Spring Semester. Tong is spearheading this activity.

Communications – Dan Stark is charge of communications and is working on creating a webpage for the chapter.

a. The Houston/Southeast Texas Chapter website is currently under construction at:



A motion was made to add a message board to the website.

After construction, the webpage will be submitted to Google and other search engines for listing.

Other Committees

Membership Coordinator: Chak-Tong Chau (Tong) will serve as the membership coordinator. He will need to be notified of any e-mail or other contact information changes. Other Fulbrighters in the Houston/SE Texas area can be listed on the roster for free without being a member of the national association.

Fundraising: An idea to have a donation bowl at each meeting was made. The idea will be tried at the first meeting in September.

Calendar 2006-2007

An informal lunch for new Fulbrighters in Houston will take place on September 1, 2006 at 12:00pm at the University of Houston Hilton restaurant. All members and new Fulbrights are invited to attend. Everette will coordinate and send out more information.

Regular meetings will have two components, one will a business portion and the second a country theme presentation. The first country presented will be China. Each meeting will start at 7:00pm with the business portion. The presentations will begin around 7:45pm and end at 8:30pm.

The General Body Meetings will be held the second Mondays of the month. The first meeting will be on September 11th, 2006. One of the items for the first meeting should be the development of by-laws for terms of office and elections. Meetings will be held at the University of Houston. Everette will coordinate.

The remaining meetings for this year till December are October 16th, November 13th, and December 4th or 11th (will be decided later).

Executive Board Meetings will be held two Saturdays before the General Body Meeting from 9:00am – 10:30am at the Turquoise Grill.

Everette will be attending the International Fulbright Conference in Morocco from November 3-7, 2006. Will there be others?

There will be potluck in association with International Week during November 13th meeting. More discussion on the subject will be done at the September and October meetings.

The General body will need to discuss the date and type of holiday celebration for either the December or January meeting.

The next grant writing cycle needs to be initiated by February, 2007. Ideas are welcome. One idea that has been mentioned is to hold a workshop for preparing for the Fulbright Scholar/student application. The actual submission will take place in May, 2007. Charlene is handling all grant items for the chapter.

The College Station Chapter will be coming down to Houston for the Rodeo in March, 2007. A joint Rodeo event is a good idea.

The Cultural/Ethnic Event, one of the Grant activities, will occur in March, 2007. Chak-Tong Chau (Tong) is in charge of this event.

Rice University had offered to host an end of the academic year meeting/dinner last year. Hopefully, the chapter will be able to hold this event at Rice this year in April or May of 2007.

Prepared by: Lincy Lal

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