First 2019 ACAN Board Meeting Highlight

-By Michelle Bao

On April 24, 2019, ACAN President Peter Chao lead the first board meeting in 2019 at his residence.

He opened the meeting by summing up ACAN’s achievement in 2018. He then continued by sharing his vision for the future. According to him, ACAN has grown from a small Non- governmental Organization (NGO) to a medium sized one. To better serve the community, ACAN board needs to expand. Two new committees have been established and 12 new board directors will join once confirmed. One of the new committees is Marketing/fundraising/ promotion committee, which is crucial to any organization. In the past the function was covered by some board directors and volunteers. The new committee will surely make the effort more organized and coordinated. The other is the Culture committee which will be responsible for promoting Chinese culture, especially through engaging Chinese class students from participating high schools in the greater Austin area. Promoting Chinese culture is always at the core of the ACAN mission. We have started to engage high school Chinese class students from last year.

Most of the 12 new board of director nominees attended the board meeting. They will be elected/confirmed by the general assembly, which will be held on 5/18. During our board meeting, each of them introduced themselves. They are from various backgrounds such as PTA organizers, teachers, engineers etc. And they will join various committees in ACAN. One of the ACAN strengths is it can attract many talents to serve on the board or to join the leadership team. During the board meeting, we unanimously elected the new chairperson for three committees, Marketing/fundraising/promotion committee, Culture committee and Arts committee. After the election, the following are the ACAN committees and their officers:

President: Peter Chao

VP: Charles Qiu, CJ Zhao, Darda Chang

Secretary – Chair: Jean Shaw, Overseen by: Peter Chao

Treasurer – Chair: Wendy Wei, Overseen by: Jean Shaw

Marketing/fundraising/promotion – Chair: Debbie Wang, Overseen by: Charles Qiu

Membership relationship – Chair: Bin Zhong, Overseen by: Jean Shaw and CJ Zhao

Community Service and Outreach – Chair: Wei Liu, Overseen by: CJ Zhao

Culture – Chair: Yong Zhao, Overseen by: Peter Chao

Education – Chair: Angela Qian, Overseen by: CJ Zhao

Arts – Chair: Michelle Bao, Overseen by: Darda Chang

We have two board of directors to retire this year. One is Minqing Jin, who was the Chinese writing group lead. She was a very talented writer and dedicated editor-in-chief. She was responsible for a lot of the great articles for ACAN. The other is Kathy Liu, who served on education committee and helped on a lot of ACAN events. We are very grateful for their service and friendship. They will be missed.

One of the most important topics was the ACAN financial report for 2018, reported by Wendy Wei, our treasure committee chair. The financial balance by the end of 2018 is about 10K more comparing to the same time of 2017, which put us at a much better place financially. The ACAN operation cost of 2018 is about a little over $5K.

Next important topic was 2019 planning. Each committee chair presented their 2019 activity plan and the associated budget. Peter summarized the success of 2019 Austin Chinese Culture Festival (ACCF). He envisioned the next two major events would be the Culture Festival in February 2020 and PAG Performance event to celebrate the Mid-Autumn festival 2020.

As ACAN grows bigger and more mature, the focus of the next year will also be different from the one of the last year. In the next year, we will make ACAN more of an open platform. We will reach out, engage other NGOs (e.g., other Chinese-American groups) who have similar goals to work together with us to better serve our community. Externally, we want to make ACAN more of a facilitator, a supporter and an enabler in our community. Internally, to inspire more creativity and responsibility, ACAN will let each committee to have more autonomy. They will be responsible for planning their own activities and manage their own budget.

Although a lot of serious topics were discussed during the board meeting, the atmosphere was very friendly and fun. Nearly 30 of us, most of us know most of the people there, gathered together like a big family. I must thank the President, Peter Chao, and his wife (also our education committee chair), Angela Qian, for opening their house and providing food at their cost every time for the board meetings, which made us feel like we were at a party not an ACAN board meeting. Their kindness and generosity always inspire us to give more and serve better.