Meeting notes for meeting on 1/17/09.

Attendees: John Downey, Jimmy Wong, Frank Chan, Nellie Chan, Dan Hurley, Wendy Chan, and Betty Yau

Meeting was called to order at 10:15am by co-chairmen, Jimmy Wong & John Downey.

In the discussion of our role:

We should act as a liaison body between the City Hall and the community to relay messages and to give advice/ opinion particularly on Asian affairs.

Reviewed major accomplishments during the past year:

-          Learnt and relayed messages about changes in the State law on Asian Body Work.

-          Recommended a member to join the Zoning Task Force at the Mayor’s request.

-          Organized a volunteer team to join the Cleaner, Greener Quincy event.

-          Met with community groups/ members to get to know the community concerns, issues … etc. (Visited the United Chinese Federation Headquarter, Held two community meetings to invite participation)

-          Reviewed public hearing procedure, Raised awareness about the importance of quality interpretation.

-          Created and maintained a web site to inform community members of community happenings, such as snow emergency, trash pick-up delay, events, city council mtgs …

Interpreting Services

Resources/ INFO about local and national organizations that provide interpreter services is posted on quincyasian.org. Information includes services for health care, legal, education/ training and diversity matters. More resources will be added later.

About how we can engage/ empower Chinese-Americans to be more involved in civic matters:

Service gaps:

We talked about service gaps: Cell phone for low-income seniors, Tax information, … etc.

Once again, we realized that we don’t have the capacity to organize/ provide direct services. We can make suggestions to community service organizations for their reference and review.

On recycling matters:

The City Hall contact person is John Sullivan. The programs run by John are efficient, informative and resourceful. His phone contact is 617-376-1953.

U.S. Census Jobs:

Joe Wong of the US Census had contacted the Clerk’s Office of the City Hall and the regional US Census Office in Brockton. Test centers to recruit census workers are set up at the Thomas Crane Library and in the Koch Park Department.

For more information: http://2010.census.gov/2010censusjobs/howtoapply.php

Or call 1-866-861-2010

Media/ outreach plan:

We will attend the New Year Event organized by QARI for Feb 8. Dan Hurley and Michelle Lydon of the Lydon Funeral Home will donate small gifts to give away. Labels with our web site address will be printed and pasted on the small gift items.  We also planned to collect as many email addresses as possible during the event.

Mandarin classes:

Due to bad weather, we decided to postpone the classes to spring or summer. All people signed up will be informed of the changes.

Web site:

The domain name of quicnyasian.org has been renewed for one more year. Betty Yau donated the renewal fee ($10.00).

Next meeting:

Sat., Feb 14, 2009, 10:00am 

at N. Quincy Community Center,

381 Hancock St., N. Quincy

next to the N. Quincy Thomas Crane Library

Meeting adjourned at 11:30am.

Respectfully submitted,

Betty Yau