Sister Cities

APPROVED 03.14.24 SISTER CITIES ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES 02.08.2024 ACTION ITEMS 5:36 PM Roll Call and Confirmation of Quorum ● In attendance: Amanda Logan, Chloe Doucette, Lisa Armstrong, Jim Francis, Jake Durtschi (application to join the Committee is with the City Council), Cal Ozaki (attending for Cindy Ozaki), Laura Combs, Charlotte Combs o New member: Jake Durtschi- taking on the business community representative seat - comes recommended by Catherine Smith and the City. ● Absent: Jeremy Crook, Cindy Ozaki (Cal Ozaki attending in her place) ● Resigned: Amy Brumfield has resigned- took on another commitment and needed something to come off her plate. Amanda has reached out to Rick Aman to see if CEI has someone else, after that, will reach out to ISU. Approval of January 14, 2024 Meeting Minutes ● Motion to approve by Lisa, seconded by Laura. None opposed. Motion passed unanimously at 5:40pm. Approval of Reimbursements ● No reimbursements ahead of this meeting to approve. ● Amanda needs one final receipt from the adult association to submit all of their reimbursements from last time. DISCUSSION ITEMS 5:42PM Updates from City ● Jim shared some more items from Tokai-Mura that will go to the collection at the library ● Mayor is taking a look at the draft reimbursement plan. ● Jim is officially the liaison to this committee for two more years, at which point new appointments take place. Report from Sister Cities Adult Association ● Display case moved from the City Annex to CEI. o Ozakis asked if it would be possible to get reimbursed for moving the case from the city annex to their home. CEI paid for the second move (from their home to CEI). For approval, that would need to be submitted to the committee at the next meeting. As an initial discussion, it could potentially come out of the outreach budget. $260-$270. ▪ Jim will talk to Pam to see if it could come out of municipal services as opposed to the committee budget. May need to be the association that pays it. Cal will give the receipt to Jim and/or Amanda.  APPROVED 03.14.24 ● Tentative plans for the Adult Association to visit Tokai in the beginning of November. Going forward with plan for full delegation of 18-20 people. No specific date yet. ● 19th of February is the Day of Remembrance. Idaho Falls may have an event. Chloe offered to have JACL reach out to the Museum of Idaho for space if needed. Report from Sister Cities Youth Association ● Going to donate the crystal plate which was the gift from the most recent visit to the library’s collection. ● Planning Japanese delegation visit here. Should theoretically be July 25th-Aug 5th (roughly). Would come in at night and leave super early in the morning. Similar to past years. Monday -Friday structured with all day activities. INL, EBR-1, City Day, Craters of the Moon, welcome party, farewell party, maybe interested in doing a museum day. Laura will reach out to Chloe. o Looking for more host families if anyone is interested. Ideally, with kids 10-20 years old. Hoping to have at least 12 families for those days. On the weekends, the host family will take them fishing or camping or whatever that family enjoys to do. o 15 students between 13-18. Would only have one student per host family. (The Youth Sister Cities Association would like to ask the City if they could do a welcome party/ picnic at the Friendship Garden because they don’t allow picnics there anymore.) Community Outreach Opportunities ● Friendship Garden Sign o Chloe met with and interviewed Judy Seydel. Great conversation, lots of insight that will lead to good label text. Chloe is meeting with Clarke Kido and will also interview him before drafting language. Hope to have an initial draft ready for the next meeting. ▪ Judy mentioned that she would really like to keep the actual garden area “immersive” in the sense that it is serene and relatively free of distraction. Chloe shared that signage might be able to go at the bridges on either side of the island rather than on the island itself to accommodate. Jim mentioned that we might be able to get the city to match some funding in order to fund two signs because the committee’s budget would only pay for one (if that) right now. ● Fall 2024 Museum of Idaho Minidoka Exhibit o Moving forward. Hoping to open early September. Chloe is still in talks with the group from Minidoka and will reach out to JACL and the Sister Cities Associations as the plans progress. ● Potential Exhibit at The Art Museum of Eastern Idaho o Chloe reached out to Alexa, mentioning that the committee would love to partner with them if they have any Japanese artistry exhibits planned. As of the meeting, had not heard back.  APPROVED 03.14.24 ● Policies and Procedures for Providing Grant Opportunities to Local Educators o Lisa- nothing specific for policies and procedures from the district. A lot of enthusiastic responses. To move forward we need to think more about these questions: What are our plans for this? What do we want this to look like? Mission/goals/priorities? Are we allowed to give a grant as the committee or would the associations need to do it? Could we write a check to an individual teacher? o Lisa will work on processes and procedures so we have max and min figures. ● Youth Association Fliers in Local Schools o Really touchy with the fliers. Are there other places that kids and families hang out? Could we hang them in places with less red tape? o Charlotte- If you want teenagers to see it, we might want to look at social media. We could do geofencing or Instagram ads instead? Lisa will pull together a calendar of athletic and academic events. Maybe we could get an agency to partner with us/give us a discount. IE has been pretty friendly to nonprofits. What’s the message we want to have? o Come back with content, list of events to target. Plan on reporting back on that. Call to action. ● Potential Sponsorships from and Involvement with Local Businesses o Hospitals, Mountain America Center. Amanda will look at getting the Youth Association on the calendar for MAC COncessions next year or ask Jeremy to. o See if we can get businesses to sponsor any of the youth visit activities? Something for Jake to think about. Date and Agenda Items for Next Meeting ● Same standing agenda items for next meeting. ● The next meeting will be held Thursday, March 14th at 5:30pm in Room 310A at CEI. ADJOURNMENT 6:40 PM