Followup Meeting - March 5, 2011 from 12-3PM for 12th VPA National Convention

Here is a brief summary of the meeting held on March 5, 2011 at Dr. Anuradha and Dr. Ganesh Reddy's House.
Attendees:

Dr. Anasuya Swamy - National VPA President, vpap.anasuyas@gmail.com
Dr. Anjanappa - VPA Convention Chair manjanappa.vpa@gmail.com
Dr. Anuradha Reddy - CME Committee Chair anured2005@yahoo.com
Dr. Gayathri Prabhakar - Co-convention chair gayathrivpa@gmail.com
Mr. Nagaraj Reddi - Convention Treasurer mnreddi@msn.com
Mr. GopalaKrishna - Finance Committee chair gopala56@gmail.com
Mrs. Swarup and Dr. Seetharam Gowda - Program Committee chair gowdasr@gmail.com
Mr. Ramesh Reddy - Facilities Committee chair rameshvreddy@yahoo.com
Mr. Prabhu Gowda - Food Committee Chair prabhugowda@yahoo.com
Mr. Muddappa Rangappa - Hospitality Committee Chair mrangappa@vsu.edu
Mr. Srisai Gowda - Publicity Committee Chair saigowda@gmail.com
Mr. Sreenivas - Awards and Recognition Committee Chair vmail9000@yahoo.com
Mrs. Meena Gowda - Women's Forum Chair gowdameena@yahoo.com
Dr. Cheene gowda - VPA-East President chnngowda@gmail.com
Dr. Ganesh Reddy - Host
Dr. Vijayalakshmi Reddy - CME Committee member reddyvij@yahoo.com
Mr. Raghu Ramappa - Food Committee member raghuramappa@hotmail.com
Mr. Sreeranga Shivaiah - Publicity Committee member sreeranga@gmail.com
Mr. Prakash Bhadraiah - Program Committee member prakash_bhadraiah@freddiemac.com
Mr. Babu Prabhakar - Meravanige committee member babuprabhakar@gmail.com
Ms. Ashwini Anjanappa - Youth representative ashwinia@gmailo.com
Ms. Mala Ramaiah malaramaiah@hotmail.com
Mr. Srinivas Gowda - National VPA Secretary (on conference) vpa2011@yahoo.com
Mr. Deepak Budhaguppe - Regis Committee co-chair(on conference) deepsbs@gmail.com

Pictures from the meeting:

Dr. Anjanappa requested all the Committee chairs to give updates on the committee activities

Mr. Prabhu Gowda -Food Committee Chair

• Informed everyone that he has received the menu form Mr. Vittal Gowda for the function. He along with his committee members will finalize the menu by March 26th.
• Mr. Vittal and his cook want to come down to Baltimore to visit Sheraton hotel to see the kitchen facilities. They can only come on Sunday's, Gayathri will make arrangements for their visit.

Dr. Seetharam Gowda and Mrs. Swarup - Program Committee

• Dr. Seetharam informed everyone that he has made few changes to the program.
• He will work with different committees to choose the rooms in Sheraton
• There was a discussion on what talent people are looking for and who should we bring from India
• Consensus was first to try Vokkaliga talent and then go for other talent.

Mr. GopalaKrishna - Finance Committee Chair

• Mr. Gopala Krishna informed that they are making good progress, they have received 11 commitments so far and the committed amount is $20,000.
• They have received 2 or 3 exhibitor sponsor; he will follow up on that.
• On -line registration will open up in a week's time
• The possible sponsor list has been sent to all the Committee chairs, he requested for people to choose at least 5 people from the list and call them for sponsorship.

Dr. Srisai Gowda - Publicity Committee chair

• The registration form, Dr. Anasuya's letter along with the covering letter will go out to all the VPA members by the end of the week.
• The overseas liaison committee will be contacting the overseas VPA committees and will send the VPA convention information to them
• He informed that the VPA Convention website looks very simple; his suggestions were if we decide on the Chief Guest, and artists from India we can put their information on the website and make it more attractive for people to come to the function.
• Dr. Anjanappa informed everyone that the committee has received at least 10 nominations for Chief Guest and said he will wait for another week, he requested people to send more nominations
• Dr. Srisai will work with Ms. Anu Rangappa to invite local delegates.

Mr. Ramesh Reddy - Facilities Committee Chair

• Mr. Ramesh Reddy informed that so far he received 4 quotes. The company who worked for Houston VPA conference is interested and his quote is around $46,000. The company is PSAV. Ramesh will be visiting Sheraton hotel along with PSAV representatives next Sunday (March 13th) to show him the facilities
• Mr. Ramesh will work with PSAV for final price quote

Dr. Anuradha Reddy - CME Committee chair

• Anu informed that 99% of the CME topics and speakers have been selected. By the end of this month she will finalize the topics.
• Dr. Anuradha also informed that she has raised $3000.00 in sponsorship.

Mrs. Meena Gowda - Women's Forum - Chair

• Mrs. Meena informed that she has 3 to 4 hours of program, so far she has selected 4 topics and will be finalizing them by the end of the month
• The topics she has so far is
  
  • Health and fitness
  • Long term care or similar to that
  • Parent and Child communication
  • Elder abuse or similar to that

Mr. Sreeranga Shivaiah - Representing the Publicity Committee

• He requested information from Program Committee on how people can submit for programs.
• The Registration committee will also send the approved Registration form to the Publicity Committee.
• Requested Logo's from CME, Business forum - if they have one.

Mr. Deepak Budaguppe - Registration and Reception committee co-chair

• Deepak gave an update on the Registration committee since Mrs. Sujatha Gowda was in India
• He will come up with a budget for the expenses for the registration bags and all the items to put in the bags.
• Everyone in the meeting gave Deepak some suggestions on what to include in the bag. Some of them were water bottle, mints, some brochures on Inner Harbor and etc.

Ashwini Anjanappa - Youth Committee -co-chair

• Ashwini mentioned that Ms. Jhanavi sent out a survey for youth committee members and 20 to 30 responses have come back. The survey was on what activities they are interested in and etc.,
• They are planning activities for 3 different age- groups. Dr. anasuya Swamy informed Ashwini that she has been in touch with the Science Center in Baltimore and they will are giving free admission for VPA Convention youth members
• She requested all the parents to send email address of their kids to Ashwini

Meeting Adjourned

On behalf of the VPA convention committee we would like to thank Dr. Anuradha and Dr. Ganesh for hosting the meeting in their house.