Grad Minds Exec Meeting 8

Online through Zoom

Wednesday, November 25th, 2020

Attendees:
Jeffrey Lynham Co-Chair
Esther Silk Co-Chair
Curtis D’Hollander Co-Event Team Lead
Mao Thao Secretary
Vineeth Raveendran Treasurer/Sponsorship Manager
Lexi Ewing Mental Health Policy Advisor
Roseanne Nguyen Communications Manager
Samantha Chang Co-Event Team Lead
Audrey Kao Co-Lead Volunteer Coordinator
Sandy Chu Marketing and Social Medial Manager
Karthik Ganesan Community Liaison

Regrets:
Tania Barrera Member-At-Large/Event Coordinator
Ian Fernandes Web Designer
Shraddha Khiwadkar Co-Lead Volunteer Coordinator

Actionable for the Meeting

• Please look over the SIF Application and review the sections in green. Share your
feedback if possible by December 8, 2020. This can be found in Slack.
• Please send Sam information about trainings that you’ve taken
• Curtis will finish writing the #SafeSocial Event Write Up and post it on Slack
• Esther will attend and write the Mindfulness Workshop Event Write Up
• Curtis will reach out to Kwame McKenzie to see if he’s interested in doing a workshop
with Grad Minds
• Esther will put Navi and UofT’s Mental Health websites on the Grad Minds Website as
links
• Karthik will email UofT’s Mental Health website to see if Grad Minds can be featured on
it
• Lexi, Jeffrey and Esther will communicate via Slack about what to do with the
Infographics with Advocacy volunteers
• Audrey will look into the Share Circle’s facilitators’ training and report back to the
Executive Team
Meeting will be called to order at 5:35 PM.

1. Meeting Comes to order

a. Adoption of Agenda
b. Ratification of Minutes from November 11th Meeting

2. Finance Business
a. Budget Update (Jeffrey and Vineeth)
i. We currently have $1,62.80 left to use for the conference and the winter
session
ii. We won’t be able to put aside gift cards for the workshop participants
due to the budget

3. Project / Event Updates

a. Student Initiative Fund Application Review (Curtis, Samantha)
i. Curtis and Sam are putting together an application for the Student
Initiative Fund (SIF)
ii. Won’t be able to do ASL and captioning without more funding
o Esther – do we need both? Yes, it’s better and we’ll be accessible
and inclusive to more people
iii. Curtis – When will the results come out?
o Deadline January 19, 2020
o Results are released 1-2 week after application deadline
o We can do a down payment/deposit for our speakers
iv. Please send Sam information about trainings you’ve taken
v. Before Dec. 8 please let us know if you have any thoughts/spelling errors
etc. on the document, this can be found in Slack
b. Workshops / Conference
i. Conference Keynote Speakers (Curtis, Samantha)
o David Grainirer – Founder of Stand up for Mental Health
a. Keynote speaker
b. Some clients will come with him and share their stories
through comedy
o Ed Mantler - Vice-President of Programs and Priorities, Mental
Health Commission of Canada will give closing remarks
o Charmaine or someone else will give opening remarks
o Chad Jankowski - Mental Health Programs Officer, Faculty of Arts
& Science will host a Workshop
o Susanna L. Harris – CEO, PhD Balance will host a Workshop
ii. Thoughts & Feedback from #SafeSocial Workshop (Samantha, Curtis)
o Only a 1/3 of the people who registered showed up, 22 people
out of 60 showed up
o Feedback was good
o Curtis will finish writing up the Event Write Up
 iii. Promotions for Mindfulness Workshop (Esther)
o Registration is blowing up, we have hit 100 participants
o Esther will be writing the Event Write Up
o Esther will not send the departmental emails
o Should we leave the registration open? Yes, if we hit 200
participants we can close it.
iv. Winter Workshops
o Workshops on unconscious bias – professors from UofT
o Kwame McKenzie – Curtis will reach out to see if he’s interested in
a workshop with us
c. Website Update (Esther)
i. Our current website is fine for now but depending on the resource list we
may want to hire someone to work on coding this.
ii. Regarding resource page update UofT has launched a resource navigator
already.
o We should have a link to what UofT has done especially the find
support and services, build your toolkit and get urgent help tabs
o https://mentalhealth.utoronto.ca/
iii. Karthik can also help with coding if needed
iv. People are emailing the Grad Minds account asking for services, so this is
a great resource for us to have
v. Have a link to Navi on our website – where you can go for immediate
help
vi. Esther will put Navi and UofT Mental Health links on our website

d. Community Collaborations / Working Groups (Karthik)

i. Karthik will email the Mental Health website to see if Grad Minds can be
featured on the Mental Health Website
ii. There are more detailed updates in the Slack Group on the three
groups/collaborations below
o H&W Peer Support Program – These facilitators are trained
o Student Mental Health Group – Group is still starting up
o MHAC Call for Nominations – First meeting scheduled in
December
e. Infographics with Advocacy Volunteers (Lexi)
i. Advocacy Volunteers – the engagement from the volunteers isn’t there
anymore
ii. Lexi, Jeffrey and Esther will work on this over Slack with the volunteers
who are dedicated
f. Volunteer Projects
i. Share Circles (Audrey)
o Racial Reckoning Workshop – waiting for the speaker who’s
currently on leave
o Start advertising the Share Circles on social media
 o Karthik mentioned that Health and Wellness Peer Support can
help facilitate if needed for the Racial Reckoning Workshop
o It’s important to have our facilitators be trained in case of
spontaneous disclosure
a. Audrey will look into the facilitators’ training and report
back
ii. Peer Support Initiative (Audrey)
o Getting the website together, hoping to launch in January
o Juliana – help her find a role in this initiative

4. Any other business

a. Logo Design Contest – Top 6 Review
i. Need to decide on Winner
ii. Each Executive will get to vote on one of the top 6 logos – we voted
through a poll on Zoom.
iii. Top three winners will be given a prize and emailed. Logo will be
announced in December
iv. In the future Esther will change the website color to light blue to match
the winner of the logo

5. Adjournment at 6:49 pm

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Mao Thao
Secretary