conference call set
the notice that began an effort to reform and revive MYNA:
"just wanted to let all of you know that the conference call has been set for 7:00pm CST on Sunday Oct. 2, 2002...If you have any problems or cant make the call, please let me know...Take Care. Allah Hafiz. Monem"
followed by:
"Assalamu Alaikum, ok, first let me begin by apologizing on behalf of the conference call chair....(he got sick) Ok, I wanted to start off this discussion with a conference call but because of time, I will not wait another week. Let me tell you who is on this list and how we can proceed:
Naeem Mohammed
Asad Siddiqui
Riyad Shama
Nada Unus
Hana Unus
Lubabah Abdallah
Monem Salam
Does anyone know how to set up a yahoo groups? Also, we have no one on this list from the West Coast.......anyone know of anyone? is there anyone else we should consider for this list?
What I think we should do to begin this discussion is to ask Naeem to give us a background as to why we are meeting.......just to get everyone up to speed. If there is discussion, lets keep it lively but action oriented. I will try my best to give input but also moderate the discussion.
Naeem -- its all you dude?
Take Care. Allah Hafiz
Monem"
posted by Asad Siddiqui @ 5:17 PM
13 comments
13 Comments:
Salaams, I hope all are doing well. I am having a very hard time writing this because there is so many reasons why this meeting is being called. We all feel MYNA's absence. When you go to a national convention, local eid function, or your own masjid you probably feel like I do. And you say to yourself, if they only had what I had. And what we had growing up, was MYNA. We all have ideas on what went wrong, why things are they way they are, and how they can be fixed. Opinions very, but there is one thing I know we all can agree on. The issues concerning Muslim Youth and Muslim Youth work deserves a FULL-TIME effort. And along with that, the welfare of Muslim youth have to remain paramount on the minds of our leadership. So this is the crux of our meeting. A FULL-TIME youth effort, with a mandate and contributing support from our leadership, to make it a success. That's it. That's all I am asking. What ever form MYNA should take, let's do it! But it must be a FULL-TIME effort, with a mandate to achieve success from our leadership. I spoke to monem about this very briefly not knowing his affiliation with ISNA, and he ran with it. Since that time, the conversations have spread like wild fire. Once someone mentioned MYNA to a person who knows what it once was, you can see the despair in their eyes, and immediately their response is "we have to do something." Well I want to stop talking, and start working. Inshallah the discussion being held on tonight's call, will be echoed at the next ISNA Shura Council meeting. With the people assembled on this call, and with Allah's assistance, I know we can make the case for all to understand, and start the momentum for REAL change. salaams and keep the faith.
Assalaamu alaikum, Insha'allahm this message finds you all well.
I just wanted to quickly brief you on what came out of the majlis ash-shura meeting this weekend and were i think we should go from here.
Alhumdulillah, at the meeting (though i know it is not exactly what we had expected) we made the point to isna that the myna money from the past two conventions needed to be released for myna to use. as well as recieving $25,000 to use for the full time director and a $10,000 dollar loan to begin a fundraising campaign insha'allah, that can really be pushed during ramadan. In addition to that isna changed the requirement of having the director work at the headquarters to only a preference. and we have people in a few different areas who have
volunteered to help with office space and supplies.
Insha'allah, what I think needs to happen from here is the following,
1) a director needs to be put in place IMMEDIATELY! isna is giving us one year to proove that this will work from any other place then the headquarters. Thats not a lot of time at all. Brother Monem, now that the position has been approved do you think we could talk about the names you had in mind. I think br Waheed Mustapha might be a good person for the job. I honestly dont know him that well but the amount he's given to myna is huge and regardless of if he takes the position or not it would be a terrible thing to not try to learn from him. If I'm not mistaken he is retired and knows isna well. He was a part of the proposal from three years ago and i deffinately think we should give him a call.
2) we need to start bringing our youth and advisors back. I was telling Brs Riyad and Naeem that I might be able to go out to california during the isna
conference in a couple weeks and collect people from there. i was hoping to have the help of some of the old myna workers in california to present myna to the youth and parents there. im am currently trying to contact br shariq from isna to see if they had any sort of myna program planned at all for that weekend. if they do then we can certainly try to take advantage of this oppurtunity. Br
Monem, what do you think of trying this? Do you think it will be worth it, insha'allah? I have not bought the ticket yet because by the time i got to call br riyad
the ticket i found was gone and i've been having a little trouble getting a good price since then. So if anyone thinks its not worth going then let me know.
3)FYLTP ASAP!
insha'allah, isna is having a conference in florida and they were trying to plan a myna program as well. Unfourtunately they did not inform us of this, i just found out when i went to visit the isna website. In anycase that was brought up at the shura meeting and we now have the program in our hands. Isna will provide the space. all we need are the people. Alhumdulillah, we were able to
collect a few people from the isna convention who would insha'allah, make good officers. and insha'allah, with a few more calls we can collect a few more. perhaps
we can make some phone calls to people we know in different areas and recruit the active youth from those areas. Again this all has to be done right away because people need to make plans for their winter breaks. and advisors, i have no idea about. i dont know how to collect them but i can imagine that advisors would be a little harder to find because they know what they're getting into :).
any ideas? I dont think that we will be able to collect reps from every state by the december conference but i think we should go ahead collect who we can and
train them. and when insha'allah, we find the youth from the rest of the states we organize another training conference. The way i see it is that too many oppurtunities for helping myna have already slipped though my fingers and heres another chance; we have to take! i really want to get this going right away. MYNA in a few states is better than MYNA in no states!
Okay, yet again i have spent all my time that i should be reading, on the computer. so, insha'allah, i think thats it. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to call me, --- --- ----.
If i have said anything that offended anyone, it was not my intention and i pray for your forgivness. May ALLAH SWT Bless each of you for ALL you have done
and continue to do for myna.
wasalaamu alaikum
your sister in Islam-
Assalamu Alaikum, I think it is good news that we were able to get some money from the Shura for this cause, alhamdulillah. Insha Allah, we will be able to use the funds in a wise way that will benefit this Ummah.
Ok, let me try to take your comments and give some of my own:
1) Although I think that a Director(s) is important, we need to have a mandate for him to act upon, i.e. goals, etc. As such, I think it is better to begin the collection of interested names and simultaneously create the Board of
Advisors. This Board will then not only come up with the mandate for the Director(s), but also choose one after interviews.
2) I think your enthusiasm for travelling cross country to recruit advisors and youth is great, however, it is a little premature. Besides, I am convinced
that with the contacts that all of us have, finding the advisors and youth will not be the problem. Keeping them motivated, interested, and working will be.
As such, point # 1 is critical for us to finish ASAP.
3) The FYLTP in Orlando, FL has been thrust upon us and I think we can still pull this off. My recommendation is to have the Board and Director solidified
by the end of October. I think November should be spent in contacting masajid and recruiting youth to come to this event; if proposed correctly, i think the
bigger masajid will be willing to sponsor the youth to come. In November, we should also recruit advisors. At the same time, we should work on the Program of this event.
Now, i think we should use email as a discussion tool and then finalize results over a conference call. We should schedule these conference calls every Sunday
evening.
LET THE DISCUSSIONS BEGIN!!!!!!
Take Care. Allah Hafiz
Salaams, This is all great news. And like the others said, let keep the momentum going. I deffinantly agree with Monem on focusing on creating the board and accumulating potential candidates for the director position.I have some concern about this isna winter camp. FYLTP's are a little difficult to just muster up in a month. A weekend retreat maybe feasable but that will also take some doing. Asad is it possible to get your regional guys to move on this? I don't like last minute programming for a camp. Lectures and workshops need nuturing to make sure participants get the most out of them. But at the same time, ISNA is saying put up or shut up I guess(sorry to be so blunt).
I've attached the proposal to this e-mail courtesy of Mr. Aimen Mir. Everyone take a good look at it. I am about to read it over lunch. I'll have more to say later. I really want to put all efforts on the board and search for this director. I want to put our best foot forward. And I am glad we are willing to get agressive with this thing. So i'll be in touch inshallah.
salaams and keep the faith
Assalamu Alaikum, I hope everyone has been getting the emails, cause I have only heard from Naeem. Before commenting, I would like to set up a conference call this Sunday at 5:30pm CST If this is too early, please let me know.
Ok, I had never actually read the proposal that Naeem had sent out but I can tell that alot of time was spent in putting it together.
I feel that we can begin to implement this proposal in stages, as it is suggested therein. I think we should immediately implement there comments on the
structure of MYNA in which they cut out the zonal reps and focus on regional ones. And to go ahead and start looking for an Board of Advisors and Exec. Dir.
The mandate given to us by ISNA was not a completely separate organization, but rather a revamp of MYNA. Lets work on MYNA, prove it will work, and then approach ISNA again with MYS. What so ya'll think?
Take Care. Allah Hafiz
Monem
PS: as we are thinking of names for the Board of Advisors, I think it is important to keep in mind that not only should these people be commited to devote time to this, but also to help raise funds for MYNA. This way, the Exec. Director can focus on other task.
Salaaams, One thousand apologises for missing last night meeting. I was on my way back from recording my radio show, and I didn't have my cell phone on me. Please if someone could fill me in on the happenings, I would really appreciated this.
And as far as names for Director I wanted to add Inayet Sahin's name to the pot of potentials. Her record speaks for it's self, and she is a committed Islamic Worker for over decade. I know she'd be interested in the position as well. One more thing, I was talking with mehmood kazmi, and he was asking would we advertise this in a newspaper to get more candidates? What do you guys think?
salaams and keep the faith,
Assalamu Alaikum, I don't know what happened. Unfortunately, no one was on except for me. We need to seriously get moving on this. We are on a deadline. There will be no hard feelings if someone on this list says they are too busy, but just let Naeem know that you can't do it.
That being said, I had a good conversation with Abdalla Idris this weekend. He is all in favor of this new MYNA initiative and will help as much as he can. I am not suggesting he be on the Board, but he can help in raising funds. Anyone have any suggestions?
I think Mahmood Kazmi and/or Jawad A. Rahman are good candidates? what do yall think
Take Care. Allah Hafiz
Oct. 15 7:28 am
Salaams, Ok guys I feel like the momentum is slowing. It's very typical in MYNA that we do one thing successful and we stop working. Let's keep things going guys. We need to put his board together, and we need to get names for possible directors. So let's get going again. We Need names. Personally, I feel for the director, we need a person who truly understands and has a history with MYNA, ISNA, and Islamic work in the US. Now the board I think can be more broad, so we have a source of NEW ideas, that go OUTSIDE of the normal MYNA WAY of thinking. So come on. Let's get cracking.
So far we have:
Board Candidates:
Monem Salaams(ISNA Officer Seat)
Mehmood Kazmi
Jawad A. Rahman
Waheed Mustapha
Aimen Mir
Youth Work Director:
Waheed Mustapha
Inayet Sahin
Nada Unus
Anjum Mir
Salaam Alykum, OK, here's my thoughts on the three topics we have to decide on (Board, Director, winter conf.)
Board:
There needs to be at least one sister on the board. I'd suggest my mother, Freda Shamma, Amina Assilmi, Selma Djukich and/or Nadifa Abdi, all previous MYNA activists and supporters. Other board possiblities would be Anwar Khan (IR guy), Habib Qadri, Amjad Qadri Also, we haven't discussed size, but I'd say either 5 or 7 is ideal, perhaps 7. More tend to be too cumbersome and hard for them to coordinate meeting times, less limits creativity and if they are going to be responsible for fundraising, puts too much work on these busy people.
Director:
I'd suggest Amjad Qadri, Muzzamil Nawaz, and Selma Djuckich.
I don't know that I'd be in favor of advertising at this point because it will prolong the process and open the door for people who don't really have any concern about MYNA to question why we choose who we did and how we went about things etc. This is exactly what happened with the proposal Aimen did. The more people who got involved, the longer things took and the more people were divided about things. For starters, I think we should make the appointments to the board and select the director and after that, the board can decide how it wants to select future canidates.
Winter Conference:
Hanaa and I had discussed making this a leadership training (but not FYLTP). The goal is to invite the amir and amira of each youth group in the country to the conference. In this way we can select the new "mini-zonal" reps and up and provide the basic format and methodology for MYNA. Asad, you can have some say in the program, it's not finalized by any means. Question Monem: when you say the venue is fixed, what do you mean? We need to start a little earlier (couple days) so Hanaa can be there the whole time. Also, do you know what the layout is as far as rooms, space, etc.? In any case, we'll need to have a couple of parallel sessions since we'll be force to have a few extra youth, either local or brought by parents. Most sessions will be appropriate for them, but a few will be directed at "you the youth amir/a" and their responsiblities.
Salaams,
Riyad
PS. Fundraising: The idea that I had was to get 1000 families to each donate $85/month, which would generate $1M a year which would be enough to establish a waqf within 10 years so we'd be self-sufficient. Initially, if we get just 150 families, we've covered our budget. I think the first 150 should be easy, just by approaching MYNA grads. They already know it works and what we do, we should just have to send them the autodeduct form.
Assalamu Alaikum, ok, now we are getting somewhere!!!! I have taken Naeem's email and added Riad's on there. So if anyone has more suggestions, please take this email and add more. Two more thoughts I had:
1) Since all of us are working on this thing, I think we should add ourselves to the list of Board candidates. Call it an interim Board, appoint for 6 months, at the end of which, we either remove ourselves and find a replacement, or stay on.
2) It think for many people, supporting a family on the salary that we have for the director is impractical. As such, I would recommend 2 part-time positions, where the country gets divided down the middle (BTW, are we including Canada?) This way, even an active MYNA worker, who is now a mom can do this part-time. They both can leverage off each other's time. If one can't make it somewhere, the other might.
>Board Candidates:
Monem Salaams(ISNA Officer Seat)
Mehmood Kazmi
Jawad A. Rahman
Waheed Mustapha
Aimen Mir
Naeem Mohammed
Riyad Shama
Asad Siddiqui
Sumiya Khan
Lubabah Abdalla
Freda Shamma
Amina Assilmi
Selma Djukich
Nadifa Abdi
Youth Work Director:
Waheed Mustapha
Inayet Sahin
Nada Unus
Anjum Mir
Iman Salam
As for the winter youth camp, please speak with Br. Shariq at ISNA for the details on location, space, dates, etc.
Take Care. Allah Hafiz
Salaams, I agree with Monem on us being the interm board. At some point we have to be a little "dictatorial" to get things done and moving. If anyone has major objections let me know, otherwise, let's assume we're it and move forward with that responsibility on our shoulders. I would also suggest that we add Said Salah as he is the current treasury advisor.
As to the two part time positions, I'd rather have one so we can get dedication and consistent development. Two part time is fine if we can't get the one, and let's raise the salary, say $40k? If we go with the fundraising idea I mentioned, we'll be able to use existing money for the first few months, and have the rest in place shortly. We can position some mom's to be part time volunteer for now, with the idea we'll paythem within a year once the funding is in place, and they can be a part-time assistant to the director.
Also, I think we should draft a letter of inquiry to these people right away and find out who are real potential candidates are. The letter can include the estimated salary amount and rough job description. We'll find out who we ultimitely have to chose from and what the necessary criteria will be for them (is money the real issue? time? career stability? etc.) All refusals will have to be detailed as to why so we know what we need to do to get a QUALIFIED person in place.
Finally, yes, Canada must be included, it has always been a part of "North America" ;) A part time person for Canada might be ideal as well.
Oct. 29 5:55 am
Salaams, I wanted to start getting letters drafted up for the potential board members and myna director. I guess we'll go with the list of names we've accumulated. If the board members petitioned would like to add names to the list we'll accept that. I may need assistance with drafting the letters. The board letter should not be that hard, because their basic duty is to oversee MYNA operations as well as assist with overall fundraising efforts. The Director letter is the one that's going to be a beast, since we do not have the complete scope of duties defined for the position yet. I think this will have to be a working document we all put together. So inshallah hopefully I'll get some feed back from you guys this time, unless the flame has completely fizzled out.
salaams and keep the faith,
Dec. 30, 2002 , 5:30pm
Assalamu Alaikum, I just wanted to let all of you know that alhamdulillah, myself, Riyad, Asad, Hana and Altaf Hussain had a good 4 hour meeting during the ISNA conference in Orlando.
Riyad, please send out the minutes so we can all see what was decided. Please do this by Thursday morning.
Also, with the help of Hana, Asad, and Zubaid (on program) the MYNA program went well from what I heard. Jazakallahu khair for everyones help. Lets keep up
the momentum and make 2003, insha Allah, the rebirth of MYNA.
As a heads up, ISNA CZ conference will be memorial day weekend this year and I will talk to someone to do MYNA CZ during the same weekend. Also, on July 4th weekend, ISNA is doing a regional conference, and we are definitely, bi idhnillah, doing a MYNA then.
So for now, Riyad, please email the minutes and our next conference call will be on Thursday January 9 at 9:00 pm EST. Please respond to this email with your RSVP.......... I will send you the details of the conference call number.
Take Care. Allah Hafiz
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