UWC New York - Working Group this Sunday - Detailed Agenda & Directions Attached

[Kevin Jackson]

Hello all, 

A friendly reminder that we will be getting together at my house this Sunday at 4 PM to have our first working group meeting. 

If you're interested in helping us plan you should come. 

I live at 220 Christopher Columbus Dr, Jersey City, NJ, 07302. 

The best way to get there is to either take the WTC Path with direction to Newark and get off at Grove St station [7 mins] and walk another 7 mins to my house 

OR 

Take the 33rd St Path which stops at 33rd, 23rd, 14th and 9th St (all on 6th Av) and also goes to the Grove St station [aprox 20 mins from 33rd st]. and walk to my house (walking directions attached)

I've written up an agenda based on the feedback during UWC day and my thoughts. This is just a starting point to have some structure for our discussion. 

If you've already confirmed your attendance, no need to e-mail me again. If you haven't yet but would like to come, just send me an e-mail. 

Looking forward to seeing you, 

Regards,

Kevin 

UWC - USA '06 - Venezuela

P.s if you haven't yet, please join the UWC - NYC Google groups. You can do that by sending an e-mail to uwc-nyc+subscribe@googlegroups.com or by asking me to add you. 

Agenda/Discussion Topics (also attached as a Word doc)

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3 Main Questions for 10/7:

1.       What are the areas we want to focus on for the next year? 

Based on the feedback it seems there are broadly 5 areas where we could focus

a.       Community building & Networking: events/initiatives that bring UWCers together and strengthen our bond, both personal & professional

b.      Community Service: service in the NYC area

c.       Fundraising: fundraising for UWCs as a group.

d.      Recruitment / spreading the word: how can we work with the US Natl committee

e.      AlumConnect platform: technology platform that can be expanded to incorporate all UWCers   

 

2.       What specific events could we plan for the next quarter?

We want to plan larger events once a quarter while continuing with the SSSs every month. Ideally events can incorporate multiple goals (i.e. Service AND Fundraising) but if we have enough interest and enough people involved in planning we can always plan more

 

3.       How do we want to organize our core group/board?

My initial idea is to have 1 or 2 leads/co-chairs for each of the areas we want to develop (e.g. Service, Fundraising, etc.). Each area can then have a small team; teams are open to anybody to join and would probably fluctuate as there are more/less events & initiatives to plan. In practice we all probably help out in many areas, but it’s important to have people who can focus on one topic.

1 or 2 people can be overall leads for the chapter to make sure that there’s always a central point of contact and all teams are coordinated (This is just my view and is open to suggestions)

 

Area Specific Discussions

§  These are just the questions I could come up with based on the feedback and my own wild thoughts and are by no means exhaustive. Everybody’s questions and ideas are always welcome

§  Many of these questions can only be answered in the medium to long-term through the investment of time & effort: we’ll need to try events, reach out to other parts of the UWC community, research opportunities, etc.

Community Building & Networking:

-          What are some ongoing initiatives we could run. E.g:

o   Mentorship: pairing up more recent arrivals to NYC with older alumni who are matched by interest/carreer paths, etc.

o   Welcome to NYC: how could we help new arrivals?

o   Etc…

-          How do we strengthen professional networking in NYC?

-          Do we want to create a logo & t-shirts? It could be a great way to identify ourselves as a group and also to fundraise

Community Service

-          What kind of community service do we want to do?

-          What are some good organizations to partner with?

Fundraising:

-          What’s should be our yearly goal?

-          Who do we want to raise funds for?

-          If we want to collect money ourselves to pool it into a scholarship we’ll likely need to partner with or become a non-profit. What are our options? Initially it is probably best to partner with one of the US Foundations (AC, Pearson, etc.) or UWC-USA itself

Recruitment/Spreading the Word

-          How can we work with the US Natl. Committee?

-          How can we target and reach talented high school students in New York?

-          Outside of targeted recruitment what are other activities we could do to spread the UWC message?

Community Service

-          What type of service do we want to do?

-          Who do we want to raise funds for?

-          If we want to collect money ourselves to pool it into a scholarship we’ll likely need to partner with or become a non-profit. We can discuss options. Initially it is probably best to partner with one of the US Foundations (AC, Pearson, etc.) or UWC-USA itself

AlumConnect Platform

-          What are the needs that we have as a community that this platform could address?

-          What are the main functionalities that a platform should have?

-          How can the platform use or benefit from existing resources (e.g. Mountbatten list, extranet, UWC-USA app)?

-          What’s our development plan? (i.e. what functionalities should be prioritized, how should they be tested, etc..)

-          How do we engage other alumni that may have the skills & enthusiasm to help build it?