Meeting:Executive Board, 6 April 2025

Executive Board meeting

6 April 2025

The DCW Executive Board met on April 6, 2025 for the first time to discuss challenges around resources.

Participants

Aafi, Ariba, Faiz, Ikhlas, Samiya and Iflaq (honorary)

Meeting details

Time / time zone: 8:30 PM to 9:50 PM IST
Meeting channel: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83078762427 (Zoom)

Agenda

Budget concerns and compliance with the feedback received from Program Officer
Addition of an honorary member with subjective experience to the Board.
Review of April-September activity plan

Comments from board members

Subject to Chatham House Rule, no identities of the commenters will be provided. The board members expressed the following thoughts:

Maintaining the health of DCW through resource access is essential for its long-term sustainability and growth. Non-compliance with feedback will lead to the loss of mandatory resources.
The Program Management role has to be retained; however, the associated compensation may be reduced by approximately 23%. This releases over 8.57% of the resources.
We should be transitioning all communication functions to community volunteers, offering an honorarium of up to INR 200 per graphic. The paid roles should be discontinued. This is because a major component (25%) is going to communications, which adds to the challenges.
We should eliminate the Conversation Hour Lead role and integrate its duties into community volunteer positions, offering a monthly support of INR 6000. This would release upto 6% of resources.
We should also pause the Graphic Internship Program.
Heritage Lens Fellowship should perhaps be discarded "individually", and expenses be moved to generic logistics and space. This might release additional 3.5% of the resources.
Having someone with a subjective experience would strengthen the decision making processes. Aqueel Ahmad, a PhD scholar at IIT Kanpur is nominated.

Vote and adoption

The resolutions passed with the affirmative votes of Aafi, Ariba, Samiya, and Ikhlas. Faiz was absent during the vote. Meeting the quorum requirements, this is a binding resolution and can only be amended through a board vote. The Board also welcomes Aqueel Ahmad, a PhD scholar (Economics) at IIT, Kanpur, as an honorary member for a one-year term.