Date: Saturday, Nov 21, 2009 13:15-15:00 Directors present: Louisa Leung, Crystal Milton, Alex Wong, Mandick Wong. Participated via email: Keith Cho, Peter Poon, Apology: Philip Tai, Helios Tsoi. 2010 ANNUAL DINNER (3/13/2010) UPDATE VENUE - Louisa reported on his evaluation of restaurants for the occasion. - Louisa explored over 8 restaurants to select the best venue for the event. - Restaurants evaluated for food quality, price, menu selections, floor layout for private party, amount of privacy, minimum charge requirement, and location for easy access. - Restaurants explored included Mayflower (Union City and Milpitas), Wing Wah of San Mateo, Hong Kong Flower Lounge of Millbrae, Asian Pearl of Fremont, Willow Tree of Dublin, and Peony of Oakland Chinatown. - All present agreed to pick Willow Tree of Dublin as the best venue for our purposes for its flexible menu, good floor plan for private party and reasonable price. - Willow Tree address: 6512 Regional Street, Dublin, CA 94555 PROGRAM - Idea of a live band to provide live music discussed. Dropped because of its costs and people's preference to socialize and intermingle PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPETITION - Two categories - Most Artistic Category - Most Interesting category - Member submit his/her entries/photos to Mandick before 2/10/2010 - Members specify which category he/she is competing for. - Each member can submit up to 3 photos per category. Total per member: 6 photos - Mandick to post all entries on the QESAAUSA web site for all members to view and vote online. Last date to vote 3/6/2010. - Prizes for the winners of Most Artistic and Most Interesting category. LUCKY DRAW - A total of 3 prizes for the lucky draw. - Other donations/gifts from Members for the lucky draw are welcome ADDITIONAL PRIZE - The first 10 members to register for the dinner event will be awarded a prize. Open to all members except Board of Directors. NOTIFICATIONS to all members - Louisa will send out email notifications to all members about the AGM/Annual dinner. - Members with special dietary preference are to specify upon registration. CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT - Helios drafted 5 proposals to accommodate honorary member status for spouse of deceased life members. - Proposal 1 – Change section 5.1.3 of the Constitution to read “Honorary members shall be former teachers or principals of the School, and spouses of deceased life members." - Proposal 2 – Add new section, section 5.1.4 , to read “Memberships are transferable to spouses upon death. The transferred membership shall not have any voting rights." - Proposal 3 – Change Section 5.1.3 to read “Honorary members shall be former teachers or principals of the School, and persons deemed closely associated with the Association upon unanimous approval by the board of directors." - Proposal 4 – Change section 5.1.3 as in Proposal 3 and add section 5.3.3 to read “Members shall have the power to initiate the proceedings described in section 5.3.1 by written petition signed by ten percent (10%) of the membership." - Proposal 5 – Add another class of membership for spouses/etc. - BOARD selected Proposal 1 with a small addition to read “Honorary members shall be former teachers or principals of the School, and non-member spouses of deceased life members" - This small addition solves the problem of ambiguity in the class of membership (Honorary or life member) when the surviving spouse of the deceased member is also a life member of the Association. - Helios to email all members before 3/7/2010 regarding the drafted Article 5.1.3 and invited all members to vote FOR or AGAINST the drafted amendment. - Members vote FOR or AGAINST the Amendment by email to Helios. - Helios to collect the Votes and inform the BOARD of Directors the result prior to the AGM/dinner on 3/13/2010. - Action for Helios: To inform all Members, including those not listed in the Yahoo Email Group, viz. Paul Wong and Donald Lam. - Action for Louisa: To inform Lui Lei Mei by separate snail mail. SPAM and PHISHING EMAIL - A member recently received phishing email from a desktop dating website and inadvertently divulged the password of her email account. - The Board discussed ways on how to educate members to avoid falling victims to spam and phishing email. - One response is to use the Mac instead of PC, but this is deemed not practicable. - One proposal is for the Association to develop some guidelines on internet security for personal protection and post them on our website. - The Board decided that some existing resources on this issue from non-profit organizations will be posted on the web site for members’ reference. - The Board believes that the ultimate defense against phishing is one’s common sense and personal judgment. - The Board will continue to study the issue further. WEBSITE MATTERS UPDATE - Louisa requested her article “Time Capsule” to be posted on our website. - Crystal requested Mandick to update our Website’s Application Form (for new members to join). Alex will provide Mandick with the updated form for him to post on our web site. MEMBERSHIP UPDATE - The Association welcomes Mr. Gavin Chan, a graduate of 1988, to join the Association. - Mr. Gavin Chan’s email has been added to the Yahoo Email Group. - The Association’s total membership now stands at 120. All are Life Members. TREASURER’S REPORT - Balance of CD account as of 11/20/09 is $7131.60. - Balance of Checking account $1972.05. DR. HINTON’S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION - Dr.Hinton’s Birthday celebration in the weekend of 6/12/ - 6/13/2010 in Vancouver, Canada. - The Board discussed how we can contribute to the celebration, e.g. Dr. Hinton’s airfare from Toronto to Vancouver, donation of frequent flyer mileage from members for Dr. Hinton’s flight, etc. - Crystal will follow up with Peter Poon, who chairs the special committee for Dr. Hinton’s celebration, on how and what we can contribute to the occasion. OTHER ISSUES - VOLUNTARY WORK - Our Association web site will post leads and info on Voluntary work as they become known to the Association. - Members are asked to check our web site for voluntary work leads. - The Association will also invite members who have any leads about voluntary work to inform Board of Directors. - TIME SHARES CONDO/VACATION HOMES - Members who have extra/unused time-shares on condos/vacation homes to inform Mandick. - Mandick to inform the Board and after approval from the Board will post the time-share info on our web site. - BIMONTHLY DINNER - Next bimonthly dinner to be around late Jan/early Feb of 2010. - Venue is Little Mongolia Hot Pot in Union City. - Tentative date 1/28/2010 - DR. HINTON’S BOOK - Dr. Hinton wrote a book/biography and published in 2004. - Four copies of the book now kept by Teresa/Keith. - The board decides two copies to be kept in Southern California and two copies in Northern California. - The copies will be on display during the Association’s functions and AGMs and also available for loan. - Members interested to have the book on loan to them may contact the Board of Directors. - Crystal to ask Keith/Teresa to mail two copies of the book to her for N. California. - Mandick to post a brief introduction of the book on our web site. NEXT BOARD MEETING - Next Board Meeting is Saturday, 1/16/2010 at 12:00 noon in Philip’s place in Union City.