Present: John Harnett, Jake Soderlund, Gail Johnson, Ron Poole, Joanne Rice, Conrad Reitz, Tad Venkateswarlu.

Minutes: Minutes of the meeting held on February 18 2001 were approved as distributed.

Membership: Corrections to the membership list were noted.

Web page: There was a brief discussion on whether or not there should be separate web pages for the School and for the Friends of Tenali. Tad preferred to keep the official School web page as maintained by Allan Laporte. Gail will work on developing a page for the Friends, using some of the content in Conrad's home page, if necessary. She will play this by ear as progress is made.

Tad's report: Tad presented a verbal report on some recent happenings, and provided answers to questions that had been asked. He said that it cost approximately $1.00 per day to maintain a student at the School. The bottom line was an annual amount of $360.00 for non-resident students, and an additional $40.00-$50,00 for resident students. The operating costs amounted to $25,000.00 per year. Approximately $10,000.00 would be required to construct a room to accommodate 25 students. 10 rooms would be required to house 10 grades. An additional eight rooms would be required for vocational programmes and administration, amounting to an all-inclusive capital construction cost of $180,000.00. Electricity cost $185.00-$220.00 per month (rounded out to an estimate of $200.00 per month). The operating costs given above do not include salaries of staff or educational materials. The teaching staff are all full-time salaried, except for one part-time teacher. For the next five years the emphasis will be on vocational training, basket, mat and pot making, agriculture, and mechanical. TV repair which was introduced last year needs to be expanded.

A primary objective is to educate parents and guardians as to the usefulness and importance of education, in order to combat the drop-out rate. The philosophy is that it is better to sacrifice the present for the sake of the future. There is also an intention to develop a small co-operative business financing plan, to forge stronger relations with the local business community, perhaps in the form of a community bank that could be used as the School bank. There are trained nurses on staff, and medical supplies are taken over to Tenali from Canada. The cost is about $4,000.00. B-complex vitamins are particularly important to boost the nutritional levels of the children.

Tad concluded by stating that education is the only way that barriers to the integration of untouchables and others can be achieved, and that the development of a small business plan will assist in this process.

Fundraising: The first priority for the next couple of years should be fundraising, to be used as a base for instructional materials and computers. An amount of $10,000.00 would be an achievable target. A goal should be set for fundraising. People will make contributions for the purchase of physical, tangible things, rather than for operating expenses. What kind of fundraising pitch do we need, and at whom should it be directed? The next meeting should be used for developing a plan, and for determining target groups - e.g. unions, Primate's Anglican World Relief Fund, Indo-Canadian business groups, etc. We need an artist's conception of what the buildings would look like. One of the issues is the problem of donor fatigue, and reluctance to give money for projects in a far-away country. We could consider financing someone to go to Tenali to make a documentary.

Donations should be targeted on two levels: major corporate and organizational donations, and individual donations. Jake will come up with ideas for promotional material. The idea of twinning Windsor with Tenali should be actively pursued. This will have to be done through negotiations at the City Council level, and Tad will discuss this with city officials during his forthcoming visit to Tenali. Joanne will provide him with the necessary information. The resource person in the Windsor City Clerk's office is Mr. Quaglia.

Yard sale: The yard sale, originally scheduled for the first week in June, will be postponed to the Fall. There is still a quantity of stuff stored in Gerry McPhail's garage, and this will be reviewed and discarded, as appropriate.

Next meeting: Sunday June 3, 6.30 p.m. at Gail Johnson's house (1787 Windermere Road).