Minutes of the Executive Committee of African Proverbs Working Group Meeting held on 15 August, 2015 at the Maryknoll Society House, Nairobi, Kenya
Present
- Fr. Joseph Healey – Moderator
- Cephas Agbemenu – Chairperson
- Elias Bushiri – Member
- Margaret Ireri – Secretary
Opening
The meeting started with a prayer said by Margaret.
Review of Full Meeting held on Saturday 1 August 2015.
The Committee member evaluated the meeting as below:
- Meeting was good with a quorum of 12 attending.
- New members, both male and female, attended.
- Communication was poor before the meeting especially with the secretary’s sickness.
- Punctuality was not good; five members were late creating a feeling of our having two meetings (repeating information twice).
- There was no presentation of the content of the proverb proposals by members due to the limitation of time.
Website postings
Posting new materials on the website had not been done by 31 July, 2015. The Website Administrator has been sick.
Grants
Several people received a half grant for their proposals:
- Laur Mwapu
- Elias Bushiri
- Gabriel Odhiambo
- Hondi Placide
- Margaret Ireri
It was noted that Angela Katabarwa had received the first half of her grant but failed to pay her 2015 annual membership fees.
Active Membership
An active member of the African Proverbs Working Group should:
- Attend all meetings.
- Pay annual membership fee of Ksh.1,000 by choice/desire/willingness.
It was noted that Elize had changed her proposal from a Luba Proverbs collection to the Tetela (DRC) proverbs. Elize had been inactive, had not presented a proposal in order to be allowed to do the collection. Neither had she attended the previous two meetings as required of a member. These requirements would have to be met in order for the work to be accepted by the group.
Tyty Mukendi had moved to Canada but was communicating and would continue as an active member.
Proverb of the Month
Elias would have to complete the work on 100 Luba Katanga proverbs before he could be allowed to present and print the Holoholo proverbs.
Presentation of proverbs
The committee observed that sexism in wording is not acceptable. We should use gender free and politically correct language. Margaret would assist with this and would inform Fr. Healey and Cephas.
Changes on the Board
Alan Babunga had been inactive for over one year and had therefore been removed from the list of board members as a Facebook Moderator and member. It was agreed that the titles of the African Proverbs Working Group Board members should be officially updated.
Mother Tongue Website
The Nanetya Foundation’s founder Eti Dayan requested to hold a meeting with Fr. Healey and Cephas on 13 August 2015. She was provided with the Sukuma Proverbs in soft copy to post on the Foundation’s website: http://nanetya-foundation.org Cephas would coordinate the communication between all those concerned, to facilitate the documentation of these Sukuma proverbs. This is a wonderful opportunity to expand our work and develop The Sukuma Legacy Project.
Date of next meeting
The next meeting of the Working Group will be held on Saturday, 10 October 2015 at the Kenyatta University Arts Department.
Closure
The Moderator thanked the members for attending the meeting.