la onda at Ocean

The third CoCuMu general meeting came afloat at Ocean. First up, Jim tested the waters with a recap on the 40th anniversary exhibit at the CCPA (where attendees will get grub and revel in PC photos and artwork after the ceremony). Anyone interested in helping us install the exhibit is welcome to join us in the late afternoon/night of Sunday, August 19th. Please reply to this email so we can keep you posted of the plan.

Then we launched right into the Ahecha Paraguay participatory photo project discussions. Jason was on hand to give us his support and insights. He will help us look into the possibilities of getting funding through Partnership, or at the very least, setting up fund transfer via Peace Corps if we end up soliciting outside funding. Ashley will send Jason an example of how a similar project was run in another PC post. Other people to contact are Ceci (PCO grant guru), Washington (I believe that refers to PC Partnership Washington staff), G18er Walid (who did a stellar social photo exhibit with Kodak´s support) and the ambassador (later down the line for support, collaborations). Jason suggested that we think about project timing and sustainability. Since funding could potentially take a long time to come through, we may want to look at short-term work-arounds for launching the project before we establish the official camera kits.

One giant leap toward sustainability came in the form of ICT Coordinator Dan Westerhof´s agreement to plunge fearlessly into the responsibility of camera kit caretaker and administrator. Ideally, Dan will set the precedent for ICT coordinators to come to manage the camera kits while at the PCO.

To cap off the meeting, we organized ourselves into focus teams-
Funding - Ashely, Allison, Jim
Resource Gathering - Claudia, Kelly, Jen, Ashley(2)
Policy and Procedures - Orlando, Jim(2)
Asuncion/PCO go-to guy - Dan Westerhof
Stateside cheer squad - Hannah (COS-ing soon)

If anyone not at the meeting is willing to dedicate some time now and in upcoming months to an Ahecha focus area, please come to the next Ahecha Paraguay sub-committee session on Monday, August 20th, at 2PM at Freddo (2 for 1 helado!) at the Las Carmelitas shopping location on España (after 40th anniversary at CCPA, easy to get from CCPA by bus).

Orlando will be emailing out the updated drafts of the proposal and policies this week.

The radio resource improvement project has been put aside for the moment unless someone wants to take lead to get it going.

Stay tuned as the resident designers duke it out for the rights to best Ahecha logo, which we´ll be able to use for auxillary fundraising efforts like Ahecha tees, hats and bags.

I´m not going to sign off with ¨until the ocean waves¨because you know I´m not into cutesy cliches,
Jen Cheng
for CoCuMu