What: IESAF Ry Annual General Meeting
Date: Thursday the 18th of February 2010
Time: 17.30
Place: Arkadia International Bookshop
More details viewtopic.php?f=28&t=4314

Are you planning to attend? Do you have ideas for what IESAF should do next year? Do you want to be on the committee or run for the Presidency or want to nominate someone to do so? Discuss it here. Hope to see you all there!

Hello

Just too start of this discussion, I will put myself forward once again too be president of Iesaf, there is still alot of work too do for Iesaf , and with the work that myself and the other board members have done this year, I feel we are strong and we are now heading the right way.

Cheers

Does anybody have any suggestions on how to improve the role of IESAF?

What should we aim for in 2010?

Don't be shy!

As I see it Mr Butcher, we have done really well in 2009 to get new members, get events up and going , with good turn outs, This week 19 teams at the quiz for a normal month, cannot be bad. And all the time we are handing out out information on Iesaf.

I think we need to do somthink with the website, we need a group of us, to start updating the information on the site and maybe get away from being just a forum, maybe add a few pages like a fresh looking home page and a couple of other pages of information, like a events page.

I have been in touch with people from different cities around Finland and trying to get them to start up Iesaf wings there, but so far not working :-(

I think this is the way forward

Although the pub quiz has been a run away sucesss it puzzles me why more of the qiz players do not post on this board.

I can think I can see what Asa is concerned about...
I also think that we should re-look at our objectives and ask, are we achieving them?

about.php
The main one:
Founded in February 2004, IESAF has continued to build upon its original aims of offering information and assistance concerning everyday life in Finland, providing networking opportunities and social contacts, and exploring different cultures.

IMO very few come onto this board for "information and assistance etc" they go to FF because FF is much more active/lively. Not alwaysthe best place to go, some times they just get miss treated (put down and made to look stupid).
This board has (had) much more accurate information.

Collecting members who only use IESAF for one night a month seems to be a bit too narrow an achievment.

Taking Richard's comment.
I have been in touch with people from different cities around Finland and trying to get them to start up Iesaf wings there, but so far not working.
I think this is the way forward

Is this really the way forward?
Pub Quizes (tietokilpailu) are run all over Finland, but in Finnish, you will find it difficult to get enough international English speakers to copy the success of Molly's quiz elsewhere.

Collecting members who only use IESAF for one night a month seems to be a bit too narrow an achievment.

Peter I think this comment is way out of order, we do have other events that these people come too, in the summer etc we have the family days out. We get together more than just once a month.

People do not use this forum,

1) Because there is so many sites now in English that there is no need to ask the question, look at infopankki
2) because some of the info on this site is out of date.

I now have two guys willing to help up date links and info for a couple of hours a week, I have not moved on this yet because I am waiting for the AGM. People go on about FF, but to be real 99% of the posts are a waste of space

Hi

I think IESAF is not really anymore centralised around the forum. There are so many other ways to communicate these days (facebook etc) that the forum is not used so much. We still get quite a lot of visitors reading stuff but not many postings. FF is all fair and well but as mentioned the majority of posts are not that interesting and is not something I think IESAF should aim to be like.

I agree with Richard that the website should be improved with some additions. I think that we should not try to add to many complex things but use the tools available on sites like facebook and jd to advertise our events and perhaps somehow embedded the facebook event into our page rather than have a separate calendar of our own.

The increase in members has been really good in 2009. Now I think we do need to engage them in more things. The pub quiz, curry/thai/chinese/german dinners, family events etc have gone really well thanks to good promotion by Richard and others. I think now we have this bigger audience then we can try again to start organising the information events (working in finland, housing, finance etc). It isnt exciting but it is definitely helpful to people and inline with the objectives of IESAF.

Tony

It was not intended as a criticism of the committee but an opinion that the IESAF needs to be more than just a pub quiz. Sorry if I offended.

I feel that the success of the pub quiz is fantastic, and I am proud to have been involved in it's conception. As I was also one of the first committe of the original IESAF I would like to see more successes.
Unfortunately (other than Hank) I do not see other founders as often as I would like to.
Pub quiz is not their scene..what would be I wonder?
I know they all read this board so I am fishing for ideas and I was only answering Asa's post where he asked...

"Does anybody have any suggestions on how to improve the role of IESAF?
What should we aim for in 2010?"

One last point...Richard says regarding those who fill Molly's.
"we do have other events that these people come too"...
IMO not many of them...

There is close 20 teams, and that could mean possibly up to 100 members who are pub quizers..but how many are only pub quizers, and what would attract them to other things?
Why not ask the question at the next quiz?
Ideas on the back of the answer sheet.

Yes Peter you have a good point , and we did ask the question about a year ago, but I do not know what happened too the sheets of paper, Tony did you have them??

I think the pub quiz works well because it is a nice night out with your friends and its a bit of fun in English, and it does not mean you have to turn up every month.

So it looks like we have an idea on what people like, nights out with something to do. I did have the idea of the horse racing on a big screen, or bingo, but this all comes down to the gambling laws, which means we cannot do these.

Ideas anyone please?? we really have to work on what Tony said working in finland, housing, finance etc

Unfortunately I cannot attend the AGM.
I am hopping about on one leg waiting for a hip replacement and it is struggle to get even to the pub with the ice and snow... (but I do it).
Looking for a proxy that can use my vote and also that I can give them any ideas/suggestions.
Someone who is not standing for president.
David J C can you do it?

a topic to discuss..

what about Google Adsense adverts? should we place more than one.. now that we have activity on both the header and footer area?... we can have up to three different adverts styles on a single page ... why not utilize it to the full potential..

we should look into this ....

I am not yet a member but intend to join but I agree that a new website should be put in place thats easier to find and more user friendly. One thats a bit more appealing which can contain this forum as this does have its uses. Also maybe more social events would be great to get people introduced to more people. I have attended a quiz night and have found that being in a team limits the social abilities and the friendmaking ability as right after completion most attendees leave. Ideas could be sports events, ie 5 a-side mini tournaments, hiking, trips away to places, etc. Just a few suggestions.
Thanks

Hello Mccreai

Thank you for your message, We are working all the time to make more events, and as you can find on our Facebook group page, we have around 6 events coming up in the next few weeks. We are always looking for people who are willing too host events, so if you think you could then please let me know. That is what we need new people willing too put the time into Iesaf.

As for your idea of sports events please see these two links below , I posted them in the last few days.

Empire Cricket Club – Come and Join Us! viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4341
Kannelmäki FC Players wanted viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4336

As for the pub quiz, that is a problem and there is not much we can do about it because most people have work or school the next morning, we do have the breaks in the quiz for people to move around and chat, and it works , I myself have made loads of friend this way, the other way is not too stick to your own team and join other teams. Every month I have new faces on my team and its fun.

Many thanks

Richard

Hei Peter, sorry for the delay but of course I can handle your proxy.

One thing I wanted to bring up is our finances. We have reached the stage now where we are in good shape and don't need to worry every month if we can pay the bills. I had my doubts about removing the membership fee but I'm happy to say that I have been proved wrong. Our auditor Penelope suggested that at the AGM we should make a decision on what to do with our surplus every year. In December we made a contribution to the Ronald McDonald House charity with a portion of our surplus from the raffle, but we still had a surplus for 2009.

I think it would be a good idea to decide at the AGM that if we have a surplus in 2010 it should go to X charity. Personally I would prefer some charity that deals with immigrants or language training or something of the sort. Alternatively we could do it ourselves: for instance, we could provide scholarships to people who want to take the Finnish for Foreigners classes. These are just ideas that I came up with, but I'm interested to hear others.

Now keep in mind that we aren't talking about thousands of euros of surplus each year - it is more like a couple hundred - so the decision should be made carefully to make it worthwhile.

The other option is to increase our expenses, such as more advertising, fancy websites, buying expensive pub quiz prizes or whatever. Personally, I would rather see the surplus go to worthwhile causes than increased spending. Our expenses are high enough, I think. They have increased rather dramatically because of all the free membership cards and mailings we had to do.