Day 1

Brief Agenda

It was felt that this year would be the year of Introspection and Consolidation and consequently that became the theme of the conference. Ravi Kuchimanchi, one of the founding members of AID, has an infectious enthusiasm and Day 1 starts with an inspirational talk from him. Introspection follows inspiration with volunteers pondering over AID's (their) performance in various activities including Projects - approval and funding, collaboration, and visit and feedback; treasury and fund-raising - donor management and response; and legal issues. After lunch, we discuss gender issues and take a pledge to eliminate gender prejudices from our daily lives. After this we will go over the happenings in various projects, and get a glimpse into our annual report. The day ends with Aruna Roy and Shankarji

For more detailed agenda, read on

Detailed Agenda

1. Registration and Breakfast[7:45 a.m.]
   • Registration fee will be collected (Only Cash or Cheques will be accepted)
   • Registration packet along with food coupons will be handed out
2. Prayer [10 mins] (TBD)
3. Connecting the dots - past, present and beyond [ 30 mins ] (Ravi Kuchimanchi - aid@vsnl.com)
4. Introspection and Consolidation [ 3 hours ]

   • Project Collaboration [ 30 minutes ] (Ravi Arunachalam - ravia@alumni.cmu.edu)
     Details from session chair:
     The plan is to talk mainly about the results of a projects survey on post-approval feedback, interaction and effectiveness of projects, based on measurable indicators. Monica from Ann Arbor has been co-ordinating the survey, and its ongoing. Since we expect to do more work on this in the coming month, I wont be able to give details on what exactly we will be presenting.
   
   Points that may be covered:
   
   1. Cover points about extending the life-cycle of the project - starts way before receiving the first proposal and extends way after having the ubiquitous "vote".
   2. Long term relationship building requires long term committment and relationship building, most preferrably by the project co-ordinator.
   3. Project review times are too long
   • Project Visits and Beyond.. [ 60 mins ] (Kiran Kumar Vissa - kiranvissa@yahoo.com)
     Details from session chair:
     Let us collectively reflect! This is what we hope will be the nature of this session... within the constraints imposed by having a large group and a time limit. Volunteers are invited to share their reflections even before the conference so as to make this exercise as rich as a village visit itself is! In keeping with the nature of the session, the description here might be best given in the form of questions.
     1. What did you like best about your last visit to a project?
     2. What do you carry with you of the sounds and smells and sights of the village you visited?
     3. What do we look for when we visit a project or an NGO?
     4. Does our project visit typically leave us with more insights into village life itself?
     5. How do we go about getting answers to all the questions raised in the project discussion?
     6. What do you do when you are not sure about the credentials of the NGO itself?
     7. How can we get into more detailed discussion with the villagers themselves as opposed to just snapshots and soundbites?
     8. What do we think of the role of village visits in project review and understanding?
     9. Do village visits have an even greater meaning to being an AID volunteer?
   • Treasury and GBM [ 20 mins ] (Ajit Natarajan - ajitk@email.com, Sudhakar - sudhakara@prodigy.net)
     1. Progress made since last conference
     2. Treasury open issues
     3. Annual Report Presentation
   • Legal [ 10 mins ] (Prosenjit Gupta - prosenjit@onebox.com)
     1. Registration and Tax issues
     2. Introduction to the workshop to follow
   • Fund Raising [ 45 mins ] (Hrishi S. - hrishi@ti.com & Malini Vittal - malini_vittal@yahoo.com) 
     1. Introspection on what marketing efforts have been taken in the past and lessons from those
     2. Regain focus on personal donations from people. Why is Maryland still the top chapter in fundraising even though it is in a University and why other chapters that have been around for a while haven't grown similarly ?
     3. Resolve discrepancies in people's perception of whether fund-raising is an urgent need or whether AID is sitting on a lot of money and shouldn't be tapping more donor dollars without clear plan on how and when it will be spent. 
     4. Spend more time calling donors and asking them if things are smooth and updating them about our work.
     5. Why not write grants
   • Web [10 mins.] (Naga - nagapr@yahoo.com)
5. LUNCH [45 mins]
6. Gender Issues [ 60 mins ] (Vaijayanti Gupta - vaijayantig@yahoo.com/Pavitra - pavitraa@hotmail.com)
   • Update on what activities have been going on in AID in this direction
   • Anti-dowry pledge
   • Personal things that AID volunteers should do
   • Domestic violence and gender harrassment
7. Update Session [ 2 hrs ] 
   • Hundred Block Plan Presentation [60 mins] (Priya Ranjan - priya@glue.umd.edu)
   • Project and Processes Update [60 mins] (Rajeev Natarajan - rajeevpn@rocketmail.com, Ravi A - ravia@alumni.cmu.edu)
     • Gujarat Earthquake relief update.
     • Other "interesting" projects
8. Photographs & Poster Session [60 mins]
   • Sainath's Photographs
   • Poster providing Chapter Updates
   • Posters and Photographs show casing Interesting Projects
9. DINNER [45 mins]
10. Invited Talk: Speakers Aruna Roy and Sankar Singh [3 hrs.]
    More about the Speakers