City of Lawrence

Lawrence Sister Cities Advisory Board

December 11, 2013 minutes

 

MEMBERS PRESENT:                                       Jon Josserand, Ken Albrecht, Michael Kennedy, Billy Williams, Kathleen Hodge, Kelly Herndon, Billy Williams, Jon Niccum, Curtis Barnhill, Carrie Lindsey

MEMBERS ABSENT:                                         Stacey VanHouten, Dennis Christilles, Tim Bateman, Ione Unruh

STAFF LIAISON PRESENT:                              Cynthia Wagner

PUBLIC PRESENT:                                              

                                                               

Chair Josserand opened the regular monthly meeting at the City Commission meeting room at City Hall at 5:30 on December 11, 2013.

 

Membership – Josserand (chair)

·         A request to approve the November minutes was made, and passed unanimously. 

·         The 2014 membership letters will be mailed out soon.  There are approximately 500.

·         Jon thanked the Board for their time during his term as chair of the board

 

Scholarship Committee – Herndon (co-chair)

·         The Hiratsuka group turned in 6 applications for a need based scholarships.  4 awards were made totaling $4,800

·         The Eutin group has yet to form a delegation, and have potential scholarship requests.

·         There are challenges in making awards based on:

A.       The variety of circumstances that can occur, and that don’t fit into the current application.

B.      Information that is requested that the parents don’t submit

C.      Information that is submitted, but is incomplete

·         Discussion ensued

·         The Hiratsuka application has been improved to better communicate monetary penalties for a family if there child withdraws from the trip after a certain date.

 

 

FoE (Friends of Eutin) – Albrecht

·         An itinerary has been received for the trip to Eutin.

·         The delegation is still being finalized.  It looks like 16-18 people as of now.

·         The FoE is still looking into having artist Stephen Johnson; create a gift of art for the delegation to present to the mayor of Eutin in honor of the 25th anniversary.

 

FoI (Friends of Iniades) – Barnhill

On Saturday, November 23rd several members of the 2012 Greek delegation party met with the Friends of Iniades group at the Christilles residence. Also in attendance were quite a few prospective students for the upcoming KU Summer Theatre in Greece trip.

               

Bob Schumm, Ken Albrecht and Curtis Barnhill shared their memories of their 2012 trip to Greece. Ione Unruh also shared her experiences with her and Del’s travels in Greece.

 

The students were impressed with the history and importance of the Greek program. The students came away from the meeting with a commitment to participate.

 

·         The 2014 KU theatre group that will be travelling to, and performing in Iniades in late July, looks to be the largest group to date totaling 18 KU students.

 

The meeting adjourned at 6:45 PM.