Mar 14, 2025 | J-KOA March 2025 BOD Meeting

Attendees: Koya, Toni, Oscar, Andrea, Alexi, Amy

Excused: Alexandria, Eric

Meeting Minutes

• Icebreaker (5-10 minutes): What do you envision J-KOA doing in the future now that we are past the Fair?

  • Koya: A well-deserved break for everyone! Getting better established (shoutout to Oscar for orchestrating a CUPS collab; getting $6k for next year!!)

  • Toni: Keeping kids excited for science and engaged in learning about science, social media things, mentorship foreverrrr

  • Oscar: Well-oiled machine, making sure kids can expand on the things they’ve learned during the science fair

  • Andrea: Echo Toni, expand and reach more communities! If we can make it happen then we should!!

  • Alexi: More outreach opportunities, better planning leading up to outreach events, improving based on our past experiences!

    • Stephanie has brought up training sessions for outreach opportunities to help keep everyone prepared

  • Amy: Improving our programming to hone our capabilities better! Digging into the “why” in what we do

• TEKS debrief (5-10 minutes)

  • 8 out of 16 of our students took home an award

  • Total of $200 in prize money across students

  • We have a student who qualified for the State Fair!!!

    • State Fair is in Fort Collins (go rams!!)

  • Question: would J-KOA be supporting the student financially?

    • Cannot, but may be supporting in other ways

  • If we want to do anything fun with our students in May we can, but for now we are taking a much deserved break (Tabled for now, will revisit in April)

• Vote on fund allocation for CSEF project (5 minutes)

  • $100-200 for that project

  • Opposed: 0

  • Idea: Having Diego/CSEF Project presented to “earn” the money for that project

    • Good idea for future projects with not so tight of a time crunch

    • Get funding Shark Tank style

• Election updates (5-10 minutes)

  • The Nomination Portal is OPEN!

    • Make nominations for the new boards here: J-KOA Nomination Portal

    • Yes, you can nominate yourself for positions!

    • Nominees will be notified but not told who notified them.

  • We will be nominating folks for 3 boards this upcoming election:

    • Flagship (Aurora): 

      • All Board positions up for nomination, per bylaws

    • California (Bay Area): 

      • President, VP, Treasurer, Historian + other roles

    • National: 

      • Available Positions: President, Vice President, Treasurer and Historian

    • All nominated candidates will be notified via email prior to the election.  

      • All current nominees (except nominees for TEKS Mentorship Director and Outreach Activities Director) will receive a nomination email Today at 6 PM MST from the J-KOA email (scheduled emails)

    • Please reach out to Amy with any questions you may have!

• Bylaw draft review and 501(c)3 planning (30 minutes)

  • Access to the draft can be found here: 501(c) Bylaws Rough Draft

  • We will need a PO Box!

  • Advisory Council

• Storage unit planning (5-10 minutes)

  • Previous Meeting Storage discussion

    • April: setting time aside to move stuff into new storage unit

    • Storage unit key tag is not fun and Koya’s car is not a sustainable storage option

    • Inventory everything first!! Move things into unit second

    • Kayla has inventory sheet! 

  • We need to set one person as the coordinator to get this centralized!

    • Amy volunteering as tribute (*salute emoji*)

    • Annual Budget for the Storage unit: $500-600 (according to December Meeting Notes)