SEBS Online - View News

Conference call executive committee meeting of SEBS-NA was held on September 16th, 2004 at 7pm PST. Following individuals were present at the meeting.

Attendance:
Sagar Onta - President
Pramod Aryal - Vice President
Aalok Kharel - General Secretary
Kiran Sitoula - Past-President/Treasurer

Observers:
Rajan Nepal-webmaster
Rupendra Pant
Laxman Udas Pandey - past vice-president

Agenda 1: Consolidating Fund:

The SEBS-NA fund has been in place in different categories since its inception in 2000. The fund was divided into various projects, which were implemented with varying degree of success. The library fund was used to buy hundreds of volumes of books for Budhanilkantha School's library. The internet fund was used to buy router and sent to Nepal to help establish internet network in the school. The status of the router is unknown. Taking into consideration of success rates, and proper documentation, SEBS-NA hence decided to streamline the administration of the funds. The executive committee decided to consolidate all SEBS-NA funds into one general fund, and support upcoming projects by disbursing funds in project-by-project basis. Funding for a project has to be approved by the executive committee for SEBS-NA, which might solicit experts or advisors comments if needed, to provide the funds. The Emergency Assistance Fund program is still active, which seek to help members in education and health emergency.

Agenda 2: Eligibility for President's Post:

The current by-laws of SEBS-NA only allows the executive committee members to be eligible to seek the post of the President of SEBS-NA. To expand more participation by SEBS members residing in North Americ, Sagar Onta raised the issue of expanding the eligibility to past executive committee members.

Since the issue relates with the by-law and proper functioning of SEBS-NA, it was decided to discuss this matter further and take reference of people or organizations. In addition, the need to seek general member's and advisor's comments was also raised. Sagar will solicit comments from members on this matter.

Agenda 3: Website Updates

Rajan Nepal updated the members on the status of SEBS website www.sebsonline.org. Rajan will provide strategy to update the website by adding Nepali Calender, including advertising information, space for advertisement, enabling the members to update personal information and to load personal pictures etc. Rajan will also look for members to design www.sebsna.org site to store official SEBS-NA information to establish institutional history like meeting minutes, by-laws, fund programs etc. The project will be headed by Rajan and Aalok Kharel.

Agenda 4: Candidate for Treasurer

Kedar Koirala (613) has agreed to hold the post of SEBS-NA treasurer. It was decided to request his resume to assist in decision making by all the members.

Agenda 5: Sagar's Visit to Nepal

Sagar Onta is visiting Nepal from October 19th to November 17th. It was decided that Sagar should meet with SEBS, BNKS, and if possible FOBS to strengthen the ties. Sagar would seek to sign the Working Guidelines between SEBS and SEBS-NA, work with SEBS and BNKS to move ahead with LRC project with schools commitment for providing land and community outreach of the facility, and seek payment of expenditure incurred during the Doko Dai presentation at the World Bank in December 2003.

Agenda 6: Providing funds to SEBS members outside North America

Recently, there has been inquiries from SEBS members outside of North America seeking financial assistance for further education . The issue was discussed in detail. All members agreed that it is a good idea to help SEBS members in need. However, it was felt that SEBS-NA currently does not have the capacity to administer financial assistance outside of North America. Hence, it was decided that SEBS-NA, at present, is not in a position to assist members outside of North America. However, it was decided to coordinate with SEBS in this regard to look for options of supporting such request, and to facilitate in fund raising efforts to help the SEBS member(s) if s/he agrees. Sagar will discuss the matter with SEBS and if possible with FOBS while he is in Nepal.

Agenda 7: Financial Update

Kiran Sitoula will be providing financial update as soon as possible. He is also going to put together on-line financial updating capabilities before the end of the year, with the help of Rajan and Aalok Kharel in www.sebsna.org website. The administration of EAF and other loans will be made possible on-line.

Agenda 8: Girl student members Participation

SEBS-NA strongly feels that participation from girl student members is extremely needed to further strengthen the SEBS activities. It was decided to continue to seek girl student members participation in SEBS-NA. An appeal in this regard would be posted on www.sebsonline.org.