Hawaii Together

October 26, 2001 Meeting Summary

Salvation Army in Kaimuki, 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Attendance: Kai Brown, L.A. Burke, Mervina Cash-Kaeo, Josephine Chang, Doris Ching, Rev. Frank Chong, Rev. Dan Chun, Elisabeth Chun, Susan Doyle, Mary Alice Evans, Audrey Hidano, Gail Hironaka, Elizabeth Kent, Sondra Dockham-Leong (for Kathryn Koos-Lee), Irving Lauber, Andy Levin (by phone), Chris Lima, Ron Mathieu, Caroline Oda, Jeanne Ohta, Judith Perry, Ginny Pressler, John Sabas, Oliver Schultz, Tin Myaing Thein, Dan Watanabe, Mary Pat Waterhouse, Sylvia Yuen

The members reviewed the draft meeting summary, the revised ground rules, and the Committee focus. The Committee agreed to the final form of all three documents after a change was made to the ground rules. The final form of the ground rules can be found on the Hawaii Together webpage at www.gilwell.com/HawaiiTogether/ (cap "H", cap "T", no space between, with slash after; the case-sensitive username is "Hawaii" and the case-sensitive password is "Together").

An update on the special legislative session was given by Susan Doyle, who said that the Legislature had increased the funds earmarked for food from $250,000 to $1,000,000 and had agreed to let the funds for shelter remain at $1,000,000.

The Committee discussed the timetable for its work and the indicators of success. It was agreed that the term "immediate" would refer to a 3-month time frame from the present to the beginning of the Regular Session of the Legislature, January 16, 2002; "short term" would mean 6 months, and "long term" would mean 12 months. A suggestion was also made to distinguish between the indicators of success for each of the small groups and for the Committee as a whole.

The members discussed subcommittee reports and how to communicate the progress of the subcommittees to the membership. The team leaders will meet separately before the next regular meeting to discuss these issues further. Team leaders also need to email reports about their subcommittee meetings by the following Monday to Oliver Schultz (oschultz@dhs.state.hi.us), who will distribute them to the membership.

A discussion on organizing a statewide food drive ensued. Rev. Dan Chun noted his concern that the HTC should first focus on developing a strong message about its work and goals, so that it would not become identified only with doing food drives. A consensus emerged on tabling the food drive idea and allowing the Message Team to move forward as it is recommending. To be as effective as we would like it to be, the communications effort will need to be funded properly. Dan's team is developing the costs.

Oliver will inform the membership about the location of the next meeting and continue to update the membership roster.