AAA Board Meeting – September 5th, 2017
In attendance:
Jordan Karabinov, Simona Parvanova, Georgi Malchev, Boriana Zaneva, Avgustina Pasheeva, Daniel Secareanu, Todor Karaivanov, Petar Svarc
Agenda Items:
- Better AAA meetings organization
- The Pledge
- The Pledge Boost Event
- AUBG Alumni Community Update
- Briefing of meeting with Sullivan
- Alumni membership fee
- Shared folder
- BoT Alumni Nominees
- Communication efficiencies
- AAA President as BoT Member
- ABF Cocktail Invitation
- Former President Plevneliev Appointment as Special Envoy
Better AAA meetings organization
For better meeting organization, AAA members present agreed on the following:
- To provide the meeting agenda one week in advance to allow more time to add/edit items. The agenda will be drafted by Petar Svarc.
- To send out a calendar invite/meeting request on week in advance. Invites to be sent by Petar Svarc.
- Minutes from the previous meeting to be approved for publishing on the AAA website at every meeting.
At the next meeting AAA will approve the minutes of all previous meetings of the current AAA Board. These will be provided by Petar Svarc. Georgi Malchev and Daniel Secareanu to determine the best way to post minutes on the AAA website and share them with the alumni community (probably once in 2-3 months via FB).
The Pledge
The Pledge will be ready for launch technically and as an announcement on September 7th. The initiators already started pledging. The goal is to get a total of $250K pledged for the first year. More details available at https://aubgalumni.org/pledge. The announcement will go out through the Facebook group and the mailing list. It will be sent by Daniel Secareanu.
The Pledge Boost Event
The Pledge Boost event preparations are already in place. The live meeting with the alumni communiity and guests will be held on September 28th. Simona Parvanova briefed us about possible options for location. She will finalize the details this or next week and confirm the location.
The announcement of the event will be sent on September 14th after the live stream meeting by Deyan Vassilev. There will be an entrance fee of 10BGN to cover the cost of the event. AAA will initially cover the cost from the funds available in AAA’s bank account. Jordan Karabinov will extend an invitation to the US Ambassador, ABF, faculty and students. The goal is to have around 100 alumni in attendance.
The program will include a brief presentation by Deyan Vassilev, as Pledge organizer, and Jordan Karabinov, as AAA President. Any other speakers are welcome.
AUBG Alumni Community Update
The AUBG Alumni Community Update was announced publicly through the Facebook group and the mailing list. The event will take place on September 14th. All AAA Board members are encouraged to be present either at Melon’s office or online at 5:30pm, Sep 14th. The stream starts at 6pm.
Petar Svarc will organize the technical setup, compile questions from the alumni body and moderate the meeting. In attendance we will also have Nikolay Nikolov, Elvin Guri and Vladimir Borachev, all former members of AUBG’s BoT. They will share their experience in working with the board and their vision of the alumni role in AUBG’s governing body.
Briefing of meeting with Sullivan
Georgi Malchev will post a brief announcement about AAA’s meeting with AUBG President Sullivan.
Alumni membership fee
We reviewed and discussed Jordan Karabinov’s proposal for membership fees. AAA Board agreed that before presenting it to the alumni community, the following steps need to take place:
- Research of possible options for value-added services the AAA can provide for alumni
- Defining the value proposition
- Polling the alumni community on the value proposition and the fee
- Setting up fee collection mechanisms and services, with the help of a kick-start donation
No action points were put in place on the subject, as those present decided that the AAA should first focus on successfully delivering several projects to gain alumni trust before initiating the membership fee and related services.
Shared folder
Avgustina Pasheeva will look into setting up a shared folder available for reading/writing by all AAA Board members. All documents compiled so far will be moved to that location.
BoT Alumni Nominees
Jordan Karabinov will compile a list of all current alumni considered as nominees for AUBG’s BoT, as well as their status (confirmed participation by the nominee, CV submission, cover letter submission). The list of at least 10 confirmed and ready nominations needs to be ready by September 15th in order to submit it to AUBG’s BoT for review via Rumyana Trencheva. Jordan will share the list ASAP with the rest of the AAA Board. Boriana Zaneva will discuss the status of the possible US-based alumni nominations with the NY group.
Communication efficiencies
The board agreed that in order to make announcements more efficient, the draft of an announcement should be sent to the AAA Board via e-mail and request feedback within 1-2 business days. If there are no comments, the draft is considered as approved and can be sent.
AAA’s President as BoT Member
The discussion on AAA President taking his place on the AUBG BoT as an ex-officio member has been postponed until after the October 2017 meeting. This will also be discussed in the strategy workgroup headed by Jordan Karabinov.
ABF Cocktail Invitation
Jordan Karabinov has been invited to a cocktail organized by ABF during their board meeting on September 18th.
Former President Plevneliev Appointment as Special Envoy
Former Bulgarian President Rossen Plevneliev was appointed as Special Envoy of AUBG. AAA Board decided not to take any action at this point, although a meeting with Mr. Plevneliev is likely to happen in the near future.