Jan 17, 2026 | J-KOA National Board January Meeting

Attendees: Koya, Toni, Danielle, Oscar, Andrea, Eric

Notes

• Icebreaker (15 min): What's one New Year's Resolution you did not make and why?

  • Oscar: 

    • Does not make new years resolution; finds it psychologically challenging to make a day one goal

    • Will usually set a resolution of sorts later in the year

    • status: okay, keeping tabs on family with people they personally know getting taken in the LA area

  • Eric: 

    • goal sets around spring

    • Resolution not made: about physical activity because he’s maintained that consistency since last year 

    • status: very tired, new things for work is high pressure/personal hell, otherwise doing good

  • Andrea:

    • Has never made resolutions because if you want to change something, you can do it whenever

    • Status: terrified of starting classes next week because they are EARLY early; enjoying last few days before chaos

  • Danielle:

    • Doesn’t make resolution because she can’t be bothered to write them down BUT sets general life goals

    • Status: overwhelmed, tired, cold; recovering from being sick; went from cancun to philly so makes sense lol

  • Toni: 

    • Usually makes resolutions but since last year switched from beginning of the year resolutions to “quarter quests” (3-4 goals per quarter)

    • Resolution not made: travel more

    • Status: trying my best, things have been rough with my dad being in and out of the hospital

  • Koya:

    • Doesn’t make resolutions so much anymore 

    • Resolution not made: hobbies because he found his spaces

    • Status: doing okay, lab going a little slower than usual; visiting with family in LA right now and 

• National board member updates - (30 Min 10 min/member) 

  • National President

    • All TEKS Mentees registered for the science fair

    • Working on role definition and guidelines for future TEKS programming

    • Meeting with Kevin to talk about where the ball dropped with registration

  • Aurora KOA - Oscar

    • Shout out to everyone that helped put out the “fire” of registration deadlines for the fair

    • Wishes we had earlier access to the registration portal to work with students better

  • Bay Area KOA - Andrea

    • Not a lot of updates with everyone being on winter break

    • Planning and restructuring on the Bay Area KOA side

    • A lot to look forward to but enjoying break right now

  • National Treasurer

    • Working through writing SOPs but not doing much since last meeting because of the holidays

    • Will reach out to branch treasurers to get on the same page

  • National Historian

    • Website editing underway, but no major edits published yet

    • Personal family issues kept Toni from working more thoroughly; hoping to get more done in the upcoming week

    • Haven’t looked at creating SOPs for historians yet

    • Needs: collection of articles, J-KOA published works, monthly updates, etc. to upload onto the blog side of the website; HISTORIANS UPLOAD YOUR MEETING MINUTES PLEASE I’M BEGGING

• National Director updates (10 min)

  • APS wants our help training teachers in mentoring students through the fair

  • Met with the Advisory Council; excited for the opportunity and suggests accelerating creating an SOP for our model that can be shared with teachers to run their program on their own; less strain on us

  • Advisory Council members recommend we pilot this project first (try it out with the Aurora District Science Fair bc it’s low stakes)

  • Question: could we possibly charge the district to lead this training or like, for materials? Funding struggles across the district for science funding so may not be possible, but also if we feel like we need to create a line of income to support our mission we can discuss at a later date

  • Legacy Program: allow a funding pool for people to use J-KOA funds to attend conferences, science events, etc.

    • Fully develop project first and then implement after when full structure is defined

  • Recommended: Fundraiser and Donation Campaigns

    • Recommendation: 1 minute campaign video interviewing board members and why they serve

• Financial strategic planning for FY 2026 (20 min)

  • Aurora KOA operating under budget so we won’t be as strapped for cash next year!

  • Funding Pools: Grants, donations, fundraisers

    • Suggestion: using grants to cover our absolute basic needs as an org (supplies, science fair needs, etc.)

    • Suggestion: donations for legacy program

    • Suggestion: fundraisers for all additional funding needs

  • Need to update budgets across branches to figure out how much funding is needed 

  • Suggestion: looking into office space for rent to give us that “permanent address” (could make that our storage space so that we don’t need to rely on a storage unit but also use it to hold meetings, establish as J-KOA HQ, etc.)

  • Grant application for Spark Office out of Jeff Co (will confirm name)

    • Base numbers per program

    • What is on your org wishlist? If you could do anything with your role, what would you want to do?

    • Whatever numbers we can come up to demonstrate how much it would cost to get one student through the fair would help with our business pitch

• Business pitch overview (15 min)

  • Koya will send over slide deck, computer crashing out and doesn’t want him to share screen