HomeMy WebLinkAbout~Master - AIPCA Meeting Minutes from February 18, 2021Ames International Partner Cities Association
Meeting Minutes for: February 18, 2021 at 5:30 pm
Present at Meeting: Marina Kraeva, Jen Malone, Calli Sandahl, Lisa Shen, Linda Livingston
Approval of January Minutes: First – Calli Sandahl ; Second – Jen Malone ; all approved
Approval of Treasurer’s report – beginning balance $10,987.51 ; end balance - $10,718.56. First - Linda Linvingston ;
second – Marina Kraeva ; all approved
Old Business Updates
• Calli forwarded the annual newsletter to the City of Ames, Lisa is going to forward the newsletter to Japan, and
Cindy had the newsletter mailed/emailed to members.
• Photo contest gift update: Linda found an Iowa artist that takes photographs around Iowa that he made into a
calendar. Linda purchased 20 copies and Japan received the calendars at the start of February.
• Tunisia Update: Lisa emailed the Mayor to ask for his input. Mayor Haila asked several questions about security
concerns, traveling with COVID, what next steps would look like, etc. Lisa emailed Lotfi with his concerns, and
Lotfi responded that he doesn’t find many of these issues to be of concern.
o The board still felt there were questions to be answered, specific to the security concerns, so decided to
hold exploration into Tunisia until early 2022, or when the COVID-19 pandemic clears up a bit more.
New Business Updates:
• We welcomed Quinn Wood. He saw our sister city is Japan and has been teaching himself Japanese so thought it
would be interesting to learn more about what we do.
• Lunar Calendar Project: we have a little less than a year to pull together, but we think it would be a great
calendar to include with our gift to Japan next year. We held all discussion until next board meeting when
Katrina will be present.
• Thank you gift to Tomoko: We would like to thank Tomoko for their time assisting us with translating
communications with Japan. The board decided to mail Tomoko a check and thank you card for $50 with
reimbursement from the City. First – Linda Livingston Second – Calli Sandahl
• Annual Meeting: things are pretty up in the air for a virtual or in-person meeting. We would like to meet in
person if possible. June will have nice weather, and public health suggests we’ll all be able to have vaccines by
May, so we may be able to rent a shelter for an evening and host the meeting. We would like to invite all the
members of AIPCA to attend, not just board members. We will ask Cindy in April to share a list of members with
us to invite. Moore Park’s shelter seems like a good choice. We will look at June 17 or 24 at 6:00 pm. Jen will
look at shelter availability and cross reference with high school graduations to make sure we’re not overlapping
any important events for high schoolers. We would love to ask everyone to include their favorite picture /
souvenir / memorabilia from their trips to Japan. Possibly ask a Japanese student to help teach everyone how to
write as a group activity. Everyone is asked to bring one idea in April for the Annual Meeting. Activities / format
of the event / type of food / who to invite / etc. No idea is a bad one! Budget for annual meeting: ~$2400. This
year we will cater everything, so expecting about $10/person with a BYOB.
Next Meetings: no meeting in March, April 15, May 20, and Annual meeting in June – either 17 or 24.
Meeting Adjourned at 6:20 first – Linda Linvingston, second – Jen Malone.