HSA Meet 10/22/09

HSA Minutes

ERC Lounge

October 22, 2009

The meeting started at 8:35 PM

Attendees: Thai, Melody, Mai Foua, Dina, Becky, Choung, Xiong, Lee, Mai Xia, Donne

Check-In Question: What would you do for $5 dollars?

Study Day with Mai Xia in Library Friday 11AM Science Library

Sports Day with San Jose State (November 21, 2009): They are willing to come down here. Relay, sports games (ultimate Frisbee). Food TBA.

Discussion of HSA as an Organization so far and Midpoint Check with Members:

Some of the topics we discussed: How is everyone doing in class, life, etc. Below 2.0 puts you in academic probation. Below 1.0 will get you barred. Withdrawing from a class puts a W in your transcript, but doesn’t lower GPA. Not the best option but better than letting your GPA fall.

Round Robin – How was your week? For those students who feel like they need help with classes, we discusses that there are MSI tutoring, as well as personal contacts who have taken/TAed for those classes.

Concerns with the org: Are we putting enough logistics into the meetings? Our meetings seem quiet and dead. Lee says that he is comfortable around here and feels that Melody and Mai Xia are doing their part. The freshmen shared that they all feel comfortable at our meetings. They say that they like being here, and the only thing keeping them from coming are their busy schedules.

Nov 20th HSA Thanksgiving Potluck Nov 6th Bonding Henry Cowell State Park Hiking and Picnic if weather is good.

Check out question: What would you do right now if the sprinklers just came off and the doors and windows were locked so you cant get out?

HSA Meet 10/15/09

October 15, 2009

Meeting Minutes

8:00-8:30 PM: Meeting Location problems, we ended up having it at the e^2 conference room

HSA’s Bowling Night:

v  A lot of fun

v  A lot of people came out to hang out

v  Ate pizza instead

Sac’s HUSA Event:

v  A lot of fun

v  Met some interesting people

Cultural Show Budget:

v  Hmong Sausages: we are going to check which place is cheaper and then we’ll decide

v  Proto-J: wants to come for free, but help pay for gas

• Forthe-Dimension: wants to come with him Proto-J
  • Can play while people are eating
  • Make sure that we can only fund what Proto-J

v  Must put stipulations

v  Lee must contact them ASAP and talk to them about what she really wants

Study Day:

v  Withdraw starts today and ends Nov. 4, 2009

v  October 23, 2009: Mai Xia will email everyone

• Booking a place
• Snacks

ISHE Meet 10/13/09

October 13, 2009

ISHE Meeting Minutes

1. Check-In Question: What Hmong food do you want right now?
2. What is ISHE and coming up with the theme: blurb on agenda
   1. Touch of ISHE according to the core members from last week’s meeting
      1. i.      Defining theme: phrase theme? Or ishe theme?
      2. ii.      Deadline of theme: decide today?
   2. idea of themes: focus of the big picture of what ISHE can be this year
      1. i.      Benefits on college
         1. This focus will be on the good of college such as resources, academics, etc.
      2. ii.      Issues while in college (retention)
         1. This focus will be on the bad of college but teach them about resources, social workshops, etc.
3. Keynote Speaker
   1. Qualifications: charismatic personality, animated, personality, no robot speakers,
      1. i.      Examples: Senator Mee Moua, Louanne (San Jose), Blong Xiong, Dr. Peter Lee
4. T-Shirt Designs
   1. Designers/Designs
      1. i.      Mee Cha
      2. ii.      Check with Paulina about paying someone to design the t-shirts
      3. iii.      We can chip in to give the designer something for helping with the design
      4. iv.      Open design up to everyone
      5. v.      Lee will ask McQueen if he wants to do the rough draft t-shirt design and have Mee Cha do it on computer
5. Workshops
   1. Mandatory Workshops
      1. i.      Financial Aid, Admissions, and EOP (Thai)
   2. Student Workshops
      1. i.      Letting the students pick what workshops they want to go
         1. Have a limited amount of student go
         2. Bad because students might just pick one and go
         3. This may depend on how many workshops we have
      2. ii.      Mandatory for facilitators to attend a workshop so that they know what they’re doing
      3. iii.      Self-Esteem workshop like the one Kia did
         1. Have Edward or Nancy facilitate
      4. iv.      GLTBI Workshop
      5. v.      Benefits after and while in college
         1. Motivation
      6. vi.      Student Panel
         1. Xiong thinks it was amazing and rewarding for the college students
         2. Have Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior
         3. Equal Gender
         4. Each took a turn talking about their experiences in college and it was an open discussion and questions (initiated by volunteers)
         5. Students might be limited with questions because throughout the day they might already have learned about the volunteers.
         6. Setting: sat at the benches at Oakes College and college students sat at the cement area
         7. Nominate: Lee Her, Freshman Girl, Lee Moua or Thai, Kao
      7. vii.      Identity Workshop
         1. Create a line from 0-10 and then put themselves into that group and discuss
      8. viii.      Gender Workshop
         1. Dividing to girls and boys workshop and bring it in together at the end and have a full discussion
6. Shadowing Classes
   1. Time slot in itinerary
7. Check-Out Question: When you go back home, what is the first thing you would do?

HSA Meet 10/8/09

HSA Meet 10/8/09

Attendees: Thai, Melody, Mai Xia, Crystal, Mai Lor, Oliver, Elizabeth, Donne, Donna, Bao, Becky, Lee Her, Lee Moua, Dina, Seng,

Meeting was held at Donne’s place at FSH because there were no other available venues.

The meeting started at 8:00. Check in question was “If you can be anyone/anything, what would you be and why?” We began with a reintroduction of HSA, its history and why it was created.  Our main goals were to provide a safe space and give back to community.

We established community agreements such as but not limited to: active listening, respect for all perspectives, step up step back, late comers should read agenda in advance, and the safe word for anyone who feels uncomfortable with anything is PINEAPPLE.

HUSA participants in Sacramento on Oct 10 from 9-4 am are Thai, Mai Xia, Donne and Xiong.

We discussed some rough details and plans for the cultural show. It will take place around week 8^th of winter quarter, Feb 22-26 around 6-8 or 7-9 pm at Oakes learning center because. Merrill’s is way too big and our expected target is only around 150. The plan for the show will be to incorporate all aspects into one storyline with a strong emphasis on a cultural aspect. It will be about two lovers from different backgrounds, the green and the white. The cultural show planner Lee Her also wanted to incorporate all of the Hmong artifacts that we had used from last year. There would be a main skit that would last around an hour. The choices for the theme of the show were “Hmong at heart,” or “Living in two worlds.” We leaned more towards Hmong at heart. Questions raised were how can we emphasize the difference between green and white hmong within the show?

For food, we agreed on Nam Vaa, Hmong sausages, sticky rice, and stir-fried noodles. Lee mentioned that a Hmong band was willing to come and play for the show, but we have not come to conclusion if they should because of the limits of our budget. As for attire, everyone should bring and wear their Hmong clothes.

Lee’s Deadline to recruit dancers is by October 14 and the first dance practice is to be held on Oct 24.

We are thinking of having a Sports day with Hmong clubs from other schools, preferably from the bay area so it would be easy for them to simply come and go back on the same. Only one college will come at a time. Perhaps we can have barbeque, too. The intended day for this event is Nov 21^st. Interested? Mark your calendars, please.

Dina then briefed us with details from the past ISHE meeting.

Lastly, we played Taboo for the rest of the meeting. The meeting was adjourned at 10 pm.

HSA will be having a bowling + Denny’s event for all its members tomorrow Oct, 9^th at 7 pm.

ISHE Meet 10/6/09

The first official meeting of ISHE started at around 6pm and lasted until 8pm on Tuesday, October 6, 2009.  The members present were: Mailor Xiong, Mai Xia Vang, Melody Thaoxaochay, Seng Lee, Cecilia Zaragoza, Maifoua Her, and the two coordinators (of course).

For introductions, we did the usual name, year, major, and college with the check-in question: If you were to die right now, who in this room would you take with you?

Before jumping into logistics, we wanted to ask the core what ISHE meant to them: What is ISHE to you? What is your interpretation of it?

We did a round robin with everyone and as the note taker, I briefly jolted down what I could write since I didn’t have a laptop (sorry for the grammatical errors):

-Trying to recruit people to UCSC

-It’s more than a retreat.  It’s a time and space to know our community better, influence to inspire students for higher education

-Inspiration, scholars

-reaching out to students and showing them the resources available

-higher education, inspire Hmong people

-small time to contribute to our community, it’s different for everyone

-give back to the community, even if it’s small

-it’s an opportunity for the students to go out into the world

-they have role models and now have the knowledge to make an effort to pursue higher education

-the light at the end of the tunnel is there

-inspiration for Hmong students to pursue higher education, not UCSC but any college

-motivates higher education for high school students

-It’s not the end of the world, there are more opportunities beyond high school and there’s more than getting married after school

-End-

We then moved on to making our own community agreements.

We had a discussion about the theme for ISHE.  The deadline for the theme is the end of October to the first week of November.  One theme we pulled out was from last year’s: Ib ntsias muag rau yav pem suab (a glance into your future).  We decided to change the theme in the sense that it can be just two or three words or one phrase instead of having the usual three phrases like the past three years.  It can be Hmong or English.  Either one works (if it’s Hmong, we’ll translate it anyways).

For t-shirt designs, the deadline will be February 28.  We decided not to choose the colors until the design is finalized.  Please announce this to anyone you  know!

We all agreed as a core, to have a keynote speaker this year.  The qualifications for a keynote speaker is as followed (as agreed upon by the core): Hmong, has credibility, be relevant to the students, and  have a network.  Please, if you know of anyone, please ask! A keynote speaker for this year’s ISHE is essential!

We want to target Stockton and Modesto this year for ISHE, aiming for 50 students.  The dates  for ISHE is still in the process of being determined.

ISHE meetings are officially every Tuesday from 6pm-8pm.  Location is TBD.

Minutes courtesy of Dina Moua