Sister Cities

APPROVED 02.08.23 SISTER CITIES ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES 1.11.2024 The January 11, 2024 Sister Cities Advisory Committee meeting was held entirely via zoom due to safety concerns regarding the blizzard warning. ACTION ITEMS 5:33 PM Roll Call and Confirmation of Quorum ● Although originally planned to take place at the College of Eastern Idaho, Building 3, Room 310A with a Zoom option, this meeting was conducted entirely via zoom due to the winter weather advisory. ● In attendance: Cindy Ozaki, Chloe Doucette, Amanda Logan, Jim Francis, Laura Combs, Charlotte Combs, Jeremy Crook, Lisa Armstrong ● Absent: Amy Brumfield Approval of December 14, 2023 Meeting Minutes ● Motion to approve by Cindy. Second by Laura. None opposed. Motion passed unanimously at 5:35pm Approval of FY24 Budget Adjustments ● Jim discussed a new draft policy from the City regarding the reimbursement process. o Ask for a monthly report for reimbursables (if nothing to reimburse, they’ll also want a verification of that) o The process should be that the Sister Cities Advisory Committee approves expenditures, then forwards to the City, then the Mayor will designate who will sign off for the City and finance will process it. (Likely Carla will be the designee) o Can also request for advance payment on anything $1,000 or more. Bid must be submitted and approved by committee ahead of time. The City will also advance monies for the limited items of national dues, Zoom, post office boxes, and insurance. o Cindy confirmed that the Adult association had been able to submit their vendor paperwork to the city. ▪ City requested one missing receipt from the Art Museum in regards to previous expenditures. ● Jim also shared that the Mayors from Idaho Falls and Tokai Mura have been in touch and are eager to promote additional connection (exchanging ideas about Senior Center, etc.). City will plan that 2-4 city people, including the Mayor, will travel to Japan with the IF Sister Cities Adult Association. The City would pay for the officials to do the travel. Would not be a line item on the IFSCAC budget, but the adult association should be aware to expect 2-4 additional travelers.  APPROVED 02.08.23 ● For FY24, we had only allocated $2k to administration, but in addition to the insurance costs, costs are going up on zoom. We need to formally reallocate our costs from another category to pay for these expenses. o Cindy suggested that funds are reallocated from the visiting costs o $2,405.91 for 2024 including insurance, zoom, and international dues ● Motion from Cindy that administration costs are $2406 and the additional $406 not originally budgeted for that category should come out of the visiting costs. Second by Laura. All in favor. Motion passed unanimously at 5:56pm Approval of Reimbursements ● Insurance ● PO Box o Motion by Laura to approve the reimbursement of the insurance and PO Box. Second by Lisa. All in favor. Motion approved unanimously at 5:58pm DISCUSSION ITEMS 5:58 PM Updates from City ● Potential interest from a downtown business perspective for the committee. Amanda is in contact. ● New name from INL as well. Amanda is in contact. Report from Sister Cities Adult Association ● Found out from Tokai representatives that this year, they want to go back to the longer, standard visits/exchanges and with the full delegations again. They verified that the Adult Association felt comfortable with that return to normal. All parties agreed to that plan. Tokai generally sets the dates for the visit and do it around their National Cultural Day (this year it is Nov. 4th). Official dates will be forthcoming. Report from Sister Cities Youth Association ● January 1st Ice Skating fundraiser was generally good. There were a lot of people and it seemed to go pretty well. Raised about $1,800. (Less than last year, but last year was on a Saturday and was NYE. This year it was a Monday and New Year’s Day- that probably accounts for discrepancy). Flowed smoothly, better organized this year logistically. No incidents or accidents. ● Youth association spoke with Tokai representatives and agreed to the full delegation visit as well. 15 youth and 3 chaperones. They won’t have a final number until late spring. Will begin to loosely sketch out the plan at this point, but no dates, times, or names currently. Upcoming Outreach Opportunities Calendaring of 2024 Outreach Opportunities ● Jeremy spoke to an area hospital and they are interested in getting involved. Committee members will connect the associations with them for sponsorship opportunities. May also have the opportunity to use this relationship to exchange ideas with Tokai regarding healthcare.  APPROVED 02.08.23 ● Lisa will contact Karla LaOrange at District 91 to discuss how to incentivize teachers to create a unit about our sister city/ to encourage membership of the youth association. Also want to focus on sharing cultural information. Options might include: o Creating extension materials for existing units o Mini grants for teachers which would allow a teacher to decide what time of the year to introduce a unit and to individualize what they want that unit to look like. o Lisa will have conversations and wants to be on the agenda to report next month on policies and procedures for providing mini grants to educators ▪ Students do need to be 13 to join the association (our efforts with the school district should not have the sole purpose of recruitment. Make knowledge the goal and recruitment will follow quite naturally.) ● Chloe will connect with folks to write the label for the friendship garden o The Museum of Idaho has a small Nisei resistors exhibit and distinguished lecture in partnership with Minidoka planned for the end of this year which could potentially include this committee and information about the Sister Cities Associations. ● Committee is also interested in connecting with the Art Museum of Eastern Idaho regarding their schedule. We might discuss whether they could be able to plan to show Japanese prints to increase cultural knowledge? o Chloe will reach out to Alexa about this idea. ● $2k in the outreach budget this year o Purchasing more Japanese flags should be one of the items in that budget so they can be used during visits to Idaho Falls. Date and Agenda Items for Next Meeting ● Recap movement forward on outreach ● Same standing agenda items for next time ● May be able to discuss new potential members ● The next meeting will be held February 8th, 5:30pm. We will have the zoom meeting planned, but will plan on trying to meet at CEI for the in person option. ADJOURNMENT 6:29 PM