Sister Cities

APPROVED 08.08.24 SISTER CITIES ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES 07.11.24 Meeting held in the President’s Conference Room (Room 310A) in Building 3 (aka Christofferson Building) at College of Eastern Idaho (1600 S 25th E Idaho Falls, ID 83404) and remotely via Zoom. ACTION ITEMS 5:30 PM ● Roll Call and Confirmation of Quorum: 5:34pm ○ In attendance: Lisa Armstrong, Sunny Katseanes, Laura Combs, Cal Ozaki (in Cindy Ozaki’s stead), Chloe Doucette, Jeremy Crook ○ Absent: Catherine Smith, Jake Durtschi, Amanda Logan, Charlotte Combs, Cindy Ozaki ● Approval of May 9, 2024 Meeting Minutes ○ Tabled one more time as Chloe could not access the Zoom to write in the names of those approving and seconding. ● Approval of June 13, 2024 Meeting Minutes ○ Motion to approve the June 13, 2024 Meeting Minutes made by Laura Combs and seconded by Lisa Armstrong. Motion passed unanimously. ● Approval of Reimbursements ○ No current reimbursements outstanding DISCUSSION ITEMS 5:39PM* ● Updates from City ○ Catherine was absent, so no report was given. ● Report from Sister Cities Adult Association-Cal shared report ○ Adult delegation will be sponsoring the welcome dinner for the youth delegation visit. Clarke Kido is organizing. If you can attend, please do. It is your opportunity to meet them. (Esp. Catherine and Amanda who will be traveling to Tokai-Mura later). ■ Committee members can bring their kids to the welcome reception. ■ Laura shared that they can make us all a nametag with our names in English and in Katakana (Japanese) ■ 6-7pm on the 25th at the Friendship Garden (Thursday). Tautphaus Park Party is the next day, Friday, at Tautphaus Park Shelter #1. ■ Farewell party is on Sunday the 4th. If anyone wants to come to any of the programming, Laura will send the itinerary and just let her know ASAP if you want to accompany them. ■ Adult members will be hosting the adult chaperones coming to IF in two weeks time. That is all organized. ○ Adult delegation for Tokai is going over in October. They generally homestay for two nights. One of the best experiences of going over there. You get to enjoy and learn the way people live over there. Very different experience. Catherine, Amanda, and Mayor are staying at a hotel, but they will still assign them a family. The family will come over and meet with them in the hotel unless they want to change their plans. They would be welcome to do the homestay with their assigned families.  APPROVED 08.08.24 ■ Adult delegation going to Tokai is at maximum capacity. Have always gone on as a full delegation. It is important that everyone arrives at once so that the hosts can be in control. They are very on time. That is important to them. Very important that they come as a group and leave as a group. Mayor, Catherine, and Amanda should plan accordingly so that there is just one agenda. Cal is aware of the potential visit with the governor planned during the time, but it would be very helpful to have a detailed itinerary. ■ Gift giving is very important. Four levels of giving. Two formal levels= Association level (associations exchange gifts via presidents), City to City level (Mayors present gifts), informal include gift bags (50 bags with small items, then personal gifts (individual gives to host family, and to personal friends). The two formal gifts are in public, the informal ones are in private. Cal has examples of gifts they’ve given to share. ● Mayor needs to plan on a gift, but also the three delegates from the city need to prepare to bring their personal gifts. ● Report from Sister Cities Youth Association-Laura ○ Upcoming visit: ■ Laura will share a specific itinerary soon. ■ Attire is formal and modest for most Japanese people, but casual is fine for us. Perhaps don’t wear a tanktop. Youth is always more simple and informal. ■ They commissioned a painting from an artist at the farmer’s market as an association gift. ■ If the committee plans on attending events, they could bring gifts to share. Put a business card in a cellophane bag of candy or something simple like that. Most appropriate to bring to the farewell party. Helps if you have your picture on the gift somewhere. The farewell party is Sunday from 5-7 (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter party- everyone encouraged to dress in costume). ■ Laura is curious as to whether the city would cover all of the Japanese food up until their budget limit? If the city would accept a single receipt and then itemize out the local people’s cost? They have to buy in one transaction for the best price. She will submit a receipt for this unless she hears otherwise from the city. ■ If you have swag to add to the gift bags, great. Please give it to Laura. Cal says he could use 50 pieces of swag as soon as possible as well for their upcoming trip to Tokai. ● Community Outreach ○ Sponsorships from and Involvement with Local Businesses- ask Jeremy when he comes back ○ Youth Association Social Media Marketing ■ Lisa asked if Laura would have a recruitment poster she could submit to the schools for approval to be hung. ■ Ads? Geolocating?- no decisions there yet. ○ Local Educator Grants  APPROVED 08.08.24 ■No submissions thus far. Lisa will send it around again. If no one applies by a certain date, maybe we should decide how to reuse that funding? Can it be used for something else this fiscal year? We need to determine whether that is a good idea or not. Could Catherine send out on the city's social media? Add to the museum newsletter? Ask the Idaho Falls Public Library to add to a wall near their exhibit? Lisa will make an infographic for us to use. ○ Booths at Community Events ■ Juneteenth was good, but windy, so they packed up a half hour early. A good start. Hopefully it will grow each year. Didn’t get to talk as much about the Sister Cities program as they would have liked. ● Maybe we think of a different activity for this audience in the future. They gyotaku brought kids over, but largely without their parents who would be the ones to get involved/ get their kids involved in Sister Cities. ● Ask the Juneteenth committee to connect the pieces and organize the booths a bit more so that there was a whole Japanese area? Chloe will follow up on this. ■ Could we do a booth at the Youth Jam? They’re maybe too young. ■ We need different missions at each booth depending on the audience. For example, maybe we need a big sign “Have you ever thought about visiting Japan?” that would work better for older audiences. ○ Friendship Garden Sign ■ Chloe sent it to Catherine. Chloe and Catherine will continue working. ■ Cal said the City is working on the end of the island near the railroad bridge. Judy Seydel is trying to figure out what they are doing. If Catherine or anyone knows, please share. ● Sunny suggested she reach out to PJ Holm. Cal said Judy already had, but didn’t find anything out yet. ○ Fall 2024 Museum of Idaho Minidoka Exhibit ■ The topic is Nisei Resistors. Chloe will talk to her staff about tying in sister cities as a response to dealing with conflicts. ■ Cal shared that Jim Francis used the “Facing the Mountain” book for his recent FFL lecture. Would be a good book to have and Jim might be willing to do a talk at the MOI. ■ Adult delegation is arranging a private tour of Minidoka in September, after Labor Day. Cal will share more information with Chloe. ○ Potential Exhibit at The Art Museum of Eastern Idaho ■ Chloe suggests that we take this off of our outreach possibility list. After multiple contacts, she has had no response from TAM. She thinks they are very busy with their expansion, etc. ■ Chloe could reach out to David at the zoo to see if there is any opportunity to add some signage in their Asia area. ○ Potential Additional Library Signage ■ Jess from the library would be the contact for that. ● New Business  APPROVED 08.08.24 ○ Judy is giving a talk on the friendship garden at 3pm at the MOI next Thursday. Chloe will tell the front desk to let any members of the association in for free if they don’t have a membership. Just mention that they are with the association. ● Date and Agenda Items for Next Meeting ○ Same standing agenda items next time. We will plan to spend a little more time on the Youth Association report since they’ll want to discuss how the visit went. ○ August 8th, same location ADJOURNMENT 6:41 PM