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ICC Board of Directors Meeting (3 Pages)
BOD13
Date: December 14 th, 2021
Attendees:
Moslem Noori(1), Amir H. Ghaseminejad(2),
Reza Namdari(3), Arezou Khadir(4), Ahmad
Ehsandar(5), Mohsen Khaniki(6), Younes
Zangiabadi(7), Saman TabasiNejad(8).
Absantees: Keyhan Razavi
Absentee:
Saman Tabasinejad (7) Arezoo
Khadir (2) Kayhan
Razavi (3) Younes ZangiAbadi (2) Mohsen
Khaniki (2)
Meeting Agenda:
1. Discussing the timeline and steps for
upcoming AGM
The meeting of the Board of Directors (BoD)
was called to order at 8:14 pm eastern time
by Moslem Noori.
● Minutes of this meeting were taken by
Ahmad Ehsandar.
The meeting started with discussion
regarding the upcoming AGM
➢
The first order of business was to change
the meeting date to accommodate Saman
Tabasinejad’s work schedule. She missed some
of the meetings due to legitimate reasons
(illness and work schedule) and moving the
meeting dates from the first Tuesday of the
month to the first Thursday of the month
removes the time conflict with her work
schedule. Thus, It was decided to move the
meeting days from Tuesdays to Thursdays.
➢
There was a discussion about when the
audited 2020 financial statement will be
ready. Mohsen Khaniki (treasurer) continued
that he has collected the required documents
for the 2020 fiscal year and he and Reza
Namdari have talked to Mr. David Chemtob,
the accountant approved by the ICC members
in the previous AGM to audit the 2020
statement and provided him with documents to
prepare the audited financial report for
2020.
➢
It was pointed out by Mohsen Khaniki and
Reza Namdari that Mr. David Chemtob, the
accountant approved by the ICC members in
the previous AGM to audit the 2020
statement, is going on vacation for a couple
of weeks which delays the preparation of the
2020 financial report. The accountant has
also asked to have the financial records in
a specific format that requires additional
work and may results in further delay.
➢
Moslem Noori opened the discussion of the
upcoming AGM with talking about postponing
the AGM. He provided the following reasons
to support his proposal:
1. To give enough time to members to study
the 2020 financial report after it is
published.
2. To allow the board to prepare the 2021
financial report and
3. To give time to members to study the
by-law amendment proposed by organizational
structure and content development committee.
➢
He also informed the board that he got in
touch with a volunteer to see if we can have
our 2021 financial report done free of
charge.
➢
Moslem Noori also suggested that we move the
deadline for candidacy and membership to
vote in the election.
➢
Moslem Noori and Mohsen Khaniki both
suggested postponing the AGM to the end of
January 2022.
➢
A motion was moved by Mohsen Khaniki to
postpone the AGM because of the reasons
mentioned above to January 30, 2022. The
motion was seconded by Moslem Noori.
o Attending: 8, in favor: 8,
o abstention: --
o Against: --
The Motion was adopted.
➢
The second motion was moved by Moslem Noori
to postpone the deadlines for the candidacy
and membership to the end of the day on
January 9, 2022 (Eastern time) in response
to the change in AGM date. The motion was
seconded by Mohsen Khaniki.
o Attending: 8, in favor: 8,
o abstention: --
o Against: -- The Motion was adopted.
Updates from all committees and departments:
Administrative and Finance Department:
(Secretary: Ahmad Ehsandar)
● Following up with membership requests.
● Working on websites and emails to our
supporters.
● Preparing minutes of the board meetings.
(President: Moslem Noori)
● Get in touch with one of
our interns
to study CivicRM and investigate the
possibility of migrating from Nationbuilder
to CivicRM. If we can migrate from
NationBuilder to a more cost-effective
option, it can save the organization a
significant amount of money.
(Treasurer: Mohsen Khaniki)
• Progress on the payment to the ICC
interns employed Canada Summer
Jobs program
• Including these payments in the 2021
financial statement.
Amir H. Ghaseminejad updated the board in
regard to the progress of developing our new
website and showed a demo of the new
website. He stated the as of now he is
transferring content form the current
website. He also mentioned that migrating
some of the data (regarding the interaction
of members, financial, …) need some
technical work before we can export and
import it into our new website.
Ahmad Ehsandar left the meeting at 9:36 pm.
⮚
A motion was moved by Amirhassan
GhasemiNejad to find a way to properly
export the whole NationBuilder database and
import it into our new website. The motion
was seconded by Moslem Noori.
o Attending: 7, in favor: 7,
o abstention: --
o Against: --
The Motion was adopted. Meeting was
adjourned at 9:51 PM ET.
ICC Board of Directors Meeting (2 Pages)
BOD12
Date: November 11th, 2021
Attendees:
Moslem Noori (1), Amir H. Ghaseminejad(2),
Reza Namdari(3), Kayhan Razavi(4), Arezou
Khadir(5), Ahmad Ehsandar(6), Saman
TabasiNejad(7).
Absentee: Younes
ZangiAbadi, Mohsen Khaniki
Absentee:
Saman Tabasinejad (7) Arezoo
Khadir (2) Kayhan
Razavi (2) Younes ZangiAbadi (2) Mohsen
Khaniki (2)
Meeting Agenda:
1. Discussing the timeline and steps for
upcoming AGM
The meeting of the Board of Directors (BoD)
was called to order at 8:38 pm eastern time
by Moslem Noori.
● Minutes of this meeting were taken by
Ahmad Ehsandar.
The meeting started with discussion
regarding the upcoming AGM
➢
Moslem Noori prepared a document and shared
with board members about the steps we need
to take to hold our next AGM. He continued
that one of the documents to be provided is
the financial report for 2020 and 2021.
Preparing the 2021 report is easy since all
receipts are available. However, documents
need to be collected from the previous board
2020 report. We are in touch with Ms. Soudeh
Ghasemi to collect all the required
documents for the 2020 report. It was also
mentioned by Kayhan Razavi that in general
ICC’s financial reports are not required to
be audited and that we should avoid the cost
(around $2000 CAD) if possible.
➢
It was decided that we look for a volunteer
accountant to prepare the financial report
and in parallel consult with our lawyer to
confirm we are legally allowed to employ
another accountant for the job.
➢
Moslem Noori mentioned that based on our
by-laws we need to have 37 days before we
can actually hold the session. This means we
can have our AGM from Dec 16 to Dec 31.
➢
Reza Namdari mentioned that it is wise to
make the call for election in this year and
give more time to the board to figure out
the logistics of the AGM.
➢
Moslem Noori also mentioned that he has been
in touch with two volunteers (Habib Ghaffari
and Reza Sohrabi) for election committee and
he is still looking for more volunteers.
➢
Amir H. GhasemiNejad suggested to hold the
AGM in 2021 preferably Dec 30th .
➢
All agreed to contact our treasurer who is
out of the country at the moment to follow
up on the financial report.
➢
Reza Namdari mentioned that we also need to
send the Article one amendment for members.
Moslem Noori added that we can have the vote
for article one amendment in the same ballet
as the main election.
➢
Ahmad Ehsandar asked the board when the best
time is to change the membership fee in our
website and how we can perform this task. He
suggested that it is better to have a
separate email for those who ask for a
discount. We will provide a link for a
discounted fee to the person asking for it.
➢
Reza Namdari asked Amir H. to send the
result of the survey regarding the
membership fee to be sent to our members and
also published in our website.
Updates from all committees and departments:
Administrative and Finance Department:
(Secretary: Ahmad Ehsandar)
● Following up with membership requests.
● Working on websites and emails to our
supporters.
● Preparing minutes of the board meetings.
(President: Moslem Noori)
● Prepared a document listing the steps for
upcoming AGM.
● Getting in touch with previous board to
acquire all documents and receipts for 2020
financial year.
● Consulting with lawyer to figure out if we
can have different accountant from previous
year. Also looking in parallel for a
volunteer to prepare the report to save the
cost.
Public Relation Activity and Cyberspace
Committee
(Chair: Reza Namdari)
● Planning a few sessions for health
committee which Arezou is following up.
Culture and Health Committees (Chair: Saman
Tabasinejad, Arezou Khadir)
● Working on the third phased of Art project
with Reza and other volunteers.
● Planning to hold a session regarding
mental health topic.
Meeting was adjourned at 9:51 PM ET.
ICC Board of Directors Meeting (3 Pages)
BOD11
Date:
October 5 th, 2021
Attendees:
Moslem Noori (1), Amir H. Ghaseminejad(2),
Reza Namdari(3), Mohsen Khaniki(4), Kayhan
Razavi(5), Younes Zangiabadi(6), Arezou
Khadir(7), Ahmad Ehsandar(8).
Absentee: Saman
Tabasinejad (7)
Absentee: Saman Tabasinejad (7) Arezoo
Khadir (2) Kayhan
Razavi (2) Younes ZangiAbadi (1) Mohsen
Khaniki (1)
Meeting Agenda:
1. Updates from board members and work
progress in Committees.
The meeting of the Board of Directors (BoD)
was called to order at 8:18 pm eastern time
by Moslem Noori.
● Minutes of this meeting were taken by
Ahmad Ehsandar.
Updates from all committees and departments:
Administrative and Finance Department:
(Secretary: Ahmad Ehsandar)
● Preparing campaign via Do-gooder for
opening counsellor service for Iranian
Canadian.
● Following up with membership requests.
● Working on websites and emails to our
supporters.
● Preparing minutes of the board meetings.
(President: Moslem Noori)
● Progress on the service website for ICC
● Get in touch with other not-for-profit
organizations to explore the possibility of
shipping medicine to Iran.
Public Relation Activity and Cyberspace
Committee (Chair: Reza Namdari)
● Finished the second round of art project
and announced the results.
● Preparing a bilingual (Farsi and English)
brochure of ICC’s activities which can be
used for fundraising or applying for
government funding.
● Planning a few sessions for health
committee which Arezou is following up.
● Planning a session with Mr. Hamraz
regarding immigration and visa process which
can be helpful for our community.
Culture and Health Committees (Chair: Saman
Tabasinejad, Arezou Khadir)
● Second phase of our art project in
connection with health committee was
finished.
● The third phased of Art project is being
planned right now and will be announced
soon.
● Planning to hold a session regarding
mental health topic.
Services and Research Committees (Chair: Mohsen Khaniki, Younes Zangiabadi)
● Supervising the current summer job interns
and looking for more interns. Hold a session
with government official to manage the fund
and provide the plan for our employment of
interns.
● Planning to reach out MPs with high
Iranian population in their constituencies
● Prepared two official letters to Air
Canada and Canada Border Agency asking Farsi
language to be added to list of languages of
operation they are providing now.
Organizational Structure & Content
Development Committees (Chair: Kayhan
Razavi)
● The fifth newsletter is published.
● The amendment of article one are also
prepared and sent to the board for approval.
Policy Development Department (Chair: Amir
H. GhasemiNejad)
● Sent the last reminder for our second
survey and voting will be close soon.
● Helped in promoting our campaign for
opening counsellor service for Iranian
Canadian.
Younes Zangiabadi left the meeting at 9:00
pm.
At 9:05 pm the updates of board members were
finished, and the meeting was entered into
discussion time.
The results of the second survey regarding
the increase of membership fee was discussed
in detail. Majority of participants in the
survey agreed to both increase in the fee
and provide a discount for those who request
it.
Amir H. Ghaseminajd
argued that majority of the respondents
agree with the increase in the fee and the
$20 membership fee has the most support
among the proposed $15, $20, $25, and $50
fees. Note that those who voted for $25 or
$50 can be counted as supporters of the $20
fee. A $10 fee cannot be an option, because
the majority of the respondents disagree
with it and approve an increase in the fee.
Now, to consider members vote on providing a
discount, we can offer a discounted fee of
$15 as it has the absolute majority support.
Moslem Noori argued that since less than 50
percent of respondents have voted for the
$20 option, it does not have the absolute
majority support. On the other hand, the $15
option has the absolute majority support and
should be the membership fee. Now, to
consider the members vote on providing
discount, we can offer a discounted fee of
$10 to those who request it. Mohsen Khaniki
suggested to increase the fee to $15 since
it has the absolute majority support and
increase the fee to $20 in the future. After
further discussions, three options were put
into vote:
1. Offering a
membership fee of $15 or a membership fee
plus voluntary donation of $20
2. Offering a membership fee of $15 or a
membership fee plus voluntary donation of
$20 or a discounted membership fee (through
sending a request) of $10
3. Offering a membership fee of $20 or a
discount membership fee (through sending a
request) of $15
Mohsen Khaniki, Reza
Namdari, and Arezou Khadir supported the
first option (3 votes for option 1). Moslem
Noori supported the second option (1 vote
for option 2).
Amir H. Ghaseminejad, Kayhan Razavi, Ahmad
Ehsandar, and Reza Namdari supported the
third option (4 votes for option 3).
Thus, it was decided to
increase the membership fee to $20.00 and
provide a discounted fee of $15.00. Meeting
was adjourned at 9:42 PM ET.
ICC Board of Directors Meeting
BOD10
Date: August 17th, 2021
Attendees:
Moslem Noori (1), Ahmad Ehsandar(2), Amir H.
Ghaseminejad(3), Reza Namdari(4), Mohsen
Khaniki(5), Kayhan Razavi(6), Younes
Zangiabadi(7), Arezou Khadir(8).
Absentee: Saman Tabasinejad (6) Arezoo
Khadir (2) Kayhan
Razavi (2) Younes ZangiAbadi (1) Mohsen
Khaniki (1)
Absentee: Saman
Tabasinejad (6)
Meeting Agenda:
1. Updates from board members and work
progress in Committees.
The meeting of the Board of Directors (BoD)
was called to order at 8:10 pm eastern time
by Moslem Noori.
● Minutes of this meeting were taken by
Ahmad Ehsandar.
Updates from all committees and departments:
Administrative and Finance Department:
(Secretary: Ahmad Ehsandar)
●Following up with membership requests.
● Working on websites and emails to our
supporters
● Preparing minutes of the board meetings.
(President: Moslem Noori)
● Informed the board that we have prepared
the required material to start the campaign
regarding the reopening of the counsellor
service for Iranian Canadians. It was agreed
that do-gooder service will be used for this
campaign.
Policy Development Department (Chair: Amir
H. GhasemiNejad)
● He suggested that we can prepare a session
to increase awareness of our community about
structure of voting system in Canada and how
tactical voting can help. It was emphasized
and agreed by all board members that these
topics should remain completely impartial.
At 8:45 pm the updates of board members were
finished, and the meeting was entered into
discussion time.
Kayhan Razavi suggested that ICC can help
our community in the upcoming federal
election in September 2021 by collecting and
sharing the views and perspectives of
political parties regarding the priorities
of our community. It was decided that a
questionnaire should be prepared by Policy
development department based on the results
of our latest survey and sent to all
political parties.
Meeting was adjourned at 9:22 PM ET.
ICC Board of Directors Meeting
- 2 pages
BOD8
Date: July 6 st, 2021
Attendees:
Ahmad Ehsandar (1), Moslem Noori (2), Arezou
Khadir(3), Saman TabasiNejad(4), Amir H.
Ghaseminejad(5), Reza Namdari(6).
Absentee: Saman Tabasinejad (5) Arezoo
Khadir (2) Kayhan
Razavi (2) Younes ZangiAbadi (1) Mohsen
Khaniki (1)
Meeting Agenda: 1.
Updates from board members and work progress
in Committees.
The meeting of the Board of Directors (BoD)
was called to order at 8:14 pm eastern time
by Moslem Noori.
● Minutes of this meeting were taken by
Ahmad Ehsandar.
Updates from all committees and departments:
Administrative and Finance Department:
(Secretary: Ahmad Ehsandar)
● Following up with membership requests.
● Send a courtesy email to those whose
membership expired in the last 30 days.
(President: Moslem Noori)
● Talked with several charity organizations
on how ICC can help them raise more funds
using services such as “Benevity”.
● Following on our advocacy plan, we want to
contact MPs of ridings with a significant
Iranian-Canadian population to communicate
priorities of the Iranian Canadian
community. Emails have been sent to a few
MPs to ask for a meeting.
● Following up on difficulties of child
adoption from Iran that one of our community
members brought to our attention, we have
reached out to media to cover the story and
bring it to the spotlight.
Public Relation Activity and Cyberspace
Committee
(Chair: Reza Namdari)
• Reza Namdari informed the board of the
progress of our social media on reaching out
to the community members.
• Planning for two more sessions on finding
jobs.
• Planning another session with help of
Kayhan and another volunteer on start ups
and how to bring funding to small start ups.
• Continue to work on our exhibition and
post the arts on our social media.
Culture Committee
(Chair: Saman Tabasinejad, +Arezou Khadir)
● Held two talks about the indigenous rights
in the last month.
● We are creating more content and podcasts
on those subjects.
● Talked with a few volunteers about holding
sessions on Farsi language.
Policy Development Department
(Chair: Amir H. GhasemiNejad)
● Held a session to inform the members about
the results of our last survey.
● Preparing a qualitative analysis of the
results of our survey with the help of an
intern we recently hired.
At 9:15 pm the updates of board members were
finished, and the meeting was entered into
discussion time.
⮚
A motion was moved by Ahmad Ehsandar to
adopt the first section of the principle and
statements document prepared by Amirhassan
Ghaseminejad.
The motion was seconded by AmirHassan
GhasemiNezhad.
o Attending: 6, in favor: 6,
o abstention: o Against:
The Motion was adopted.
Meeting was adjourned at 9:32 PM ET.
ICC Board of Directors Meeting (7)
3 pages
BOD7
Date: June 1 st,
Attendees:
Ahmad Ehsandar (1), Moslem Noori(2), Mohsen Khaniki(3),
Amir H. Ghaseminejad(4), Reza Namdari(5) and
Younes Zangiabadi (6)
Absentee: Saman Tabasinejad (5) Arezoo
Khadir (2) Kayhan
Razavi (1)
Meeting Agenda:
1. Updates from board members and work
progress in Committees. The meeting of the
Board of Directors (BoD) was called to order
at 7:08 pm eastern time by Moslem Noori.
● Minutes of this meeting were taken by
Ahmad Ehsandar.
Updates from all committees and departments:
Administrative and Finance Department:
(Secretary: Ahmad Ehsandar)
● Helped Arezou to run campaign on DoGooder
in support of students in Quebec.
● Negotiated with NationBuilder about
the monthly fee and reduced our monthly fee
to $230.00
● wrote an article for forth issue of
Newsletter and provided it to Kayhan.
● Prepared the minutes for April and
sent to board for review. The minutes of May
will be sent to board next week.
● Participated in other meetings
(policy, structural, …) (Treasurer: Mohsen
Khaniki)
● He is also working on financial
report that he will present next meeting.
(President: Moslem Noori)
● Moslem Noori informed the board the
has searched for two volunteers to work on
service website ICC is developing.
● He is talked to a friend to hold a
virtual fundraising concert.
● Worked on the ICC emails.
● Worked on Youtube account of ICC
and uploaded several files.
● Worked on document explaining the
scope and duties of departments and
committees. Public
Relation Activity and Cyberspace Committee
• Reza Namdari informed the board that he
found 5 volunteers to moderate the ICC
Forum. Several meetings were held to bring
everyone to the same page.
• Several social media pages have
been created for new Art project – New
beginnings.
Policy Development Department
(Chair: Amir H. GhasemiNejad)
● Amirhassan Ghaseminejad informed
the board that the policy department has
prepared a document for organization’s
policy toward issuing statements.
● The result of our first survey has
been prepared and will be sent to the board
for review. A copy has also been sent to
Kayhan for Newsletter.
● An intern will be employed to work
on the qualitative results of the current
and future surveys.
Research Committee
(Chair: Younes ZangiAbadi)
● Younes ZangiAbadi informed the
board that he employed the first intern and
completed the required documents. His report
will be presented to the board soon. He is
working on our advocacy plan and preparing
to contact MPs soon.
● Preparing to hold a few discussion
panels regarding the result of our last
survey.
Services Committees
(Chair: Mohsen Khaniki)
● Mohsen Khaniki Informed the board
that he is preparing for vaccination unit on
Saturday June 5th in Iranian plaza in
Toronto.
● Reza Namdari informed that he had
held a virtual meeting for finding job with
Dr. Beheshti and two other meetings are
being booked for next month.
At 8:15 pm the updates of board members were
finished, and the meeting was entered into
discussion time.
• It was decided by the board the
minutes of each meeting will be reviewed and
accepted by the board members on beginning
of each meeting.
• Reza Namdari proposed the following
amendment to Forum rules to protect the
volunteers who moderate the group.
⮚
A motion was moved by Reza Namdari to add
the rule #12 about the moderation of the ICC
Forum. The motion was seconded by AmirHassan
GhasemiNezhad.
o Attending: 6, in favor: 6, o
abstention: o Against: --
The Motion was adopted.
• Moslem Noori Suggested the board needs to
decide about a date to hold the next public
session with our members. It was decided
that all board members will vote on the date
soon.
• Ahmad Ehsandar raised the issue of
increasing the membership fee and explained
that the fee has not been changed for a long
time. It was decided by the board that we
include this topic into our next survey and
let members to decide.
Meeting was adjourned at 8.53 PM ET.
ICC Board of Directors Meeting (7)
3 pages
BOD7
Date: May 4 st, 2021
Attendees: Ahmad Ehsandar(1), Moslem
Noori(2), Mohsen Khaniki(3), Amir H.
GhasemiNejad(4), Reza Namdari(5), Kayhan
Razavi(6), Younes ZangiAbadi(7) and Arezou
Khadir(8)
Absentee: Saman Tabasinejad (4) Arezoo
Khadir (1)
Meeting Agenda:
1. Updates from board members and work
progress in committees.
The meeting of the Board of Directors (BoD)
was called to order at 7:15 pm eastern time
by Ahmad Ehsandar.
● Minutes of this meeting were taken by
Ahmad Ehsandar and reviewed by all board
members.
Updates from all committees and departments:
Administrative and Finance Department:
(Secretary: Ahmad Ehsandar)
● Response to all membership inquiries
● Prepare the list of in active people in
our NationBuilder database.
● Working our database in NationBuilder.
(Treasurer: Mohsen Khaniki)
● The financial report of the first quarter
is being prepared.
● Had a meeting to arrange for a COVID
vaccine clinic for the Iranian community in
Toronto.
● Designed several posters for the other
groups.
(President: Moslem Noori)
● Worked with two volunteers to make some
changes in our website.
● Contacted Relief international to
cooperate on future charity and humanitarian
campaigns and sending medications to rate
disease patients in Iran.
● Talked with a friend to arrange for an
online fundraising concert.
● Looking into our info email and helped
other committees with Microsoft service we
are using.
● Worked on service website with
Mohsen and Reza.
● And arranged a meeting about child
adoption challenges.
● Sending out
fundraising emails.
Public relation activity and cyberspace
committee
(Chair: Reza Namdari)
• We held our first workshop on finding
employment. A report was prepared, and the
record of the meeting was uploaded on our
social media and website.
• Arranging for the Art project 1400 to be
launched in July 2021.
• We launched a Facebook webpage for
Alberta, and we will have similar pages for
other provinces.
• We are updating our twitter and Instagram
account and making them more active.
Policy Development Department
(Chair: Amir H. GhasemiNejad)
● We concluded our first survey, and the
first draft of the report was provided to
the board members.
● The final report will be prepared soon.
● Our survey showed that our members are
interested in developing a guideline for ICC
on how to approach government officials. The
first draft of this guideline has been
prepared in the policy development meetings.
● Amirhassan officially asked the board to
clarify the mandate and scope of the policy
development committee.
Organizational Structure & Content
Development Committees
(Chair: Kayhan Razavi)
• The third newsletter is published.
• We had another round of our organizational
structure, and we have started to work on
the ICC by-laws.
Culture Committee
(Chair: Saman TabasiNejad, +Arezou Khadir)
● Working on a poster with a volunteer for
the second exhibition of Art project 1400.
● We are inviting more people to our culture
committee.
● Talking with a specialist to hold sessions
regularly about mental health.
● We are also preparing poster for such
events.
● Preparing an official letter for our
campaign to support international students
in Quebec. We are hoping to launch our
campaign soon.
Services Committees
(Chair: Mohsen Khaniki)
● Mohsen Khaniki suggested that we might be
able to help Iranian Canadian who are in
line to get their vaccination with the
registration process.
Research Committee
(Chair: Younes ZangiAbadi)
• Following up on internship positions and
arranged for all communications with
provincial government regarding their
employment.
• Working on advocacy plan for ICC based on
the survey results.
At 7:50 pm the updates of board members
were finished, and the meeting was
entered into discussion time.
• The first topic about our account with
NationBuilder was raised by AmirHassan that
ICC should move to open-source software. He
emphasized that we should not spend any
money on Nationbuilder service where we have
access to free open-source ones. This topic
was discussed in depth. It was concluded
that Ahmad will provide a report on the
NationBuilder features. This report will
help the board to make an informed decision
about the possibility of migrating to a
different, and potentially open-source,
platform.
• Moslem Noori suggested that ICC should
develop the infrastructure for a website,
serving as a database as a directory for
different Iranian Canadian organizations
across Canada.
• The issue of having moderators for ICC
Forum was brought into the floor by
AmirHassan. He emphasized that we need a
clear policy for the Forum as soon as
possible and we must respond to all
inquiries we receive in the Forum.
• The topic of increasing membership fees
was raised by Moslem Noori and he suggested
that we can run a survey. It was decided to
continue discussion on this topic on the
next board meeting.
• Ahmad Ehsandar suggested that we should
prepare a document explaining ICC’s policy
regarding taking positions on different news
and events, including those related to Iran.
Meeting was adjourned at 9.13 PM ET.
ICC Board of Directors Meeting (6) –
4 pages
BOD6
Date: April 1 st, 2021
Attendees:
Ahmad Ehsandar(1), Moslem Noori(2), Mohsen
Khaniki(3), Amir H. GhasemiNejad(4), Reza
Namdari(5), Younes Zangiabadi(6), Kayhan
Razavi(7), and Arezo Khadir(8)
Absentee: Saman Tabasinejad (3) Arezoo
Khadir (1)
Meeting
Agenda: 1. Updates from board members
and work progress in Committees.
The meeting of the Board of Directors (BoD)
was called to order at 8:12 pm eastern time
by Ahmad Ehsandar.
● Minutes of this meeting were taken by
Ahmad Ehsandar.
Updates from all committees and departments:
Administrative and Finance Department:
(Secretary: Ahmad Ehsandar)
• Ahmad Ehsandar mentioned that currently
ICC has more than 37000 contacts on Nation
builder database, and he has focused on
cutting unsensitive data from Nation Builder
to reduce the monthly cost.
• He further explained that enough more work
needs to be done on our database since there
are several issues such as duplicate
contacts, incomplete profiles etc.
• Ahmad Ehsandar also mentioned that he has
made some changes to membership and
registration pages in our website so that
people know who they should contact for
membership purposes.
(Treasurer: Mohsen Khaniki)
• Preparation of the financial report for
the last quarter of 2020.
(President: Moslem Noori)
• Moslem mentioned that he has asked two
volunteers to work on the website. And they
will start with some modification on the
menus and a few pages to make the navigation
easier for end users.
• He also updated the board that he has
contacted the Relief International regarding
help import medicine for EB disease for
children.
• He also has taken care of the organization
IT tasks, including how to migrate from
Google service to Microsoft and how to
transfer files and emails safely.
• He also worked on organizing the meeting
with members as well as sending fundraising
emails.
• Moslem also worked with Ahmad and Mohsen
to prepare the financial report for the last
quarter of 2020.
Policy Development Department
(Chair: Amir H. GhasemiNejad)
● Amirhassan updated the board that he has
sent the last email for the participation in
the survey and soon the survey will be
closed. He explained that we have over 1000
opening the survey so far and he will
prepare the result in a few weeks.
● Regarding the Forum Modification, he
explained that policies in place are not
enforced completely. He suggested that we
need to dedicate resources to implement and
enforce the policies in the Forum.
● The importance of ICC actions regarding
integration Iranian immigrants and Iranian
Canadian Professionals was emphasized.
● Policy department will discuss methods of
implementing the community priorities as
identified in the survey and will conduct
follow up surveys as well.
● Amirhassan feels the use of paid
proprietary software such as Nation Builder
should be limited to the minimum necessary
levels
Organizational Structure & Content
Development Committees
(Chair: Kayhan Razavi)
● Kayhan informed the board about the
challenges he is facing in preparing the
newsletter - first and the most important
one is the delays on receiving content and
second the revisions people ask to be done
after the layout is designed. He explained
that all work is done by volunteers, and he
cannot push them to more than they already
spent.
● He also mentioned that the third issue is
underway and will be published soon.
● Kayhan also informed the board of the few
sessions that he held for organization
structure committee. He informed that
several ideas have been proposed and all are
being discussed between committee members.
● He emphasized that the best way forward is
to transform the ICC into an organization
with a focus on services for the community
so all Iranian Canadian community can
benefit from it.
Culture Committee
(Chair: Saman TabasiNejad, +Arezou Khadir)
● Arezou Khadir updated the board about the
continuation of their work on Beginning
project. She also informed the board about
the legislation in Quebec that makes the
immigration process harder for students and
workers. She suggested that the ICC should
take action on this matter since it is
directly in the interest of our community.
● She also informed that she is planning to
hold workshops and sessions for health
committee.
Research Committee
(Chair: Younes Zangiabadi)
● Younes Zangiabadi informed the board that
he has acquired insurance for the
organization. He also mentioned that he is
exploring the possibility of conditions
where members can pursue their complain
through a more constructive process rather
than suing the organization. One idea was to
look around what other communities has
developed for this matter and learn from
them. ● He also updated the board about the
inquiries ICC has requested from RBC bank
regarding the closing of accounts of many
Iranians.
● Younes mentioned that he has send the
applications for summer internship to
Ontario government and we are now hoping
that we can get them.
● He also has this suggestion that we can
collect statistics of Farsi speaking
population in different ridings and once the
result of our survey is ready, we can
approach MPs to discuss the priorities of
our community with them.
Services Committees
(Chair: Mohsen Khaniki)
● Mohsen Khaniki suggested that we might be
able to help Iranian Canadian who are in
line to get their vaccination with the
registration process.
At 9:015 pm the updates of board members
were finished, and the meeting was entered
into discussion time.
• Moslem pointed out that after Mehrnoush
resignation, according to the bylaws, we
should invite the next person with the
highest vote in the election to join the
board. Thus, it was decided that Mr. Reza
Namdari will be approached and invited to
join the board.
• Another topic was to assign a chair to the
health committee. Arezou Khadir was
suggested by Moslem Noori for this committee
based on her expertise and experience in
medical field.
⮚
A motion was moved by Moslem Noori to assign
Arezou as the chair of the Health Committee.
The motion was seconded by Kayhan Razavi.
o Attending: 7,
in favor: 6,
o abstention: Amir Hasan GhasemiNejad o
Against: --
• The third topic was again raised by Moslem
Noori to review the membership fees. Moslem
argued that the membership fee has not been
changed for a long time and although the
idea to increase it was first introduced in
2016 buy never actually implemented.
o Mohsen Khaniki explained that because of
the lawsuit, organization was not able to
change this fee for the past two years. He
continued that we need to be careful since
any increase in the membership fee would
have direct impact on the number of members
but $20.00 is a reasonable fee.
o Moslem suggested that we can run a survey
and ask our members about changes in the
membership fee.
o Ahmad Ehsandar said that $20 is too much
and it can have negative effect on the
number of members. Besides, the survey might
provide a feedback to us but does not
necessarily avoid the negative impact of
this increase.
o Arezou Khadir mentioned that she supports
$15 option, and she suggested we can change
the membership to have three different types
for students ($10), regular ($15) and
supporters ($50).
o Mohsen Khaniki answered that the board
cannot decide on the type of membership, and
it needs to be decided in the AGM.
o The topic was left for more discussion in
the next meeting.
Meeting was adjourned at 10.33 PM ET.
ICC Board of Directors Meeting
(5) – 6 pages
BOD5
Date: March 4, 2021
Attendees:
Ahmad Ehsandar(1), Moslem Noori(2), Mohsen
Khaniki(3), Amir H. GhasemiNejad(4),
Mehrnoush Ahmadi(5), Younes Zangiabadi(6),
Kayhan Razavi(7), Saman TabasiNejad(8), and
Arezo Khadir(9)
Absentee: Saman Tabasinejad (2) Arezoo
Khadir (1)
Meeting Agenda:
1. Updates from board members and work
progress in Committees.
The meeting of the Board of Directors (BoD)
was called to order at 8:12 pm eastern time
by Ahmad Ehsandar.
● Minutes of this meeting were taken by
Ahmad Ehsandar.
Updates from all committees and departments:
Administrative and Finance Department:
(Secretary: Ahmad Ehsandar)
● Ahmad Ehsandar mentioned that he has
received the NationBuilder password in the
meeting with court appointed monitor, Marvin
Huberman. He continued that he has started
to respond to the membership requests which
was delayed since December 2020.
● He continued that he has made some minor
changes to the website to direct people to
communicate through secretary email to
reduce the email traffic from info email.
● Ahmad stated that he has participated in
the process of preparing the survey
questions with Dr. Ghasseminejad and has
paid around $200 CAD for acquiring the
hosting to mount the survey software.
● He also raised the issue of 9000 contacts
in the nation builder database that can be
off loaded from the
database and saved in other platforms. The
cost of bookkeeping for these contacts is
around $150 USD per month.
(Treasurer: Mohsen Khaniki)
● I prepared the financial report for the
past months and presented the report to
Moslem and Ahmad for their review. We are
confident that all donations and expenses
are counted for in this report.
● We will hold the first session of the
Service committee next week and I have
already invited volunteers. All board
members are also welcomed to participate.
● Mohsen also asked Dr. Ghaseminejad to
create an email account in .net domain for
the service committee to facilitate the
communication with volunteers.
(President: Moslem Noori)
● I was in touch with most of the board
members.
● I had a meeting with two volunteers to
design a new website for the ICC. We
discussed the structure of the site. They
agreed to prepare and initial design and
board members comment on their work as we go
further. Once ready we will transfer the new
site on the domain.
● The legal case was also completed, and we
signed all required documents. Our lawyer
has sent us the invoice for his service for
the legal case. We currently owe $7254.00
CAD to him.
● We are eligible to use Microsoft services
for free. Their software has the potential
to manage membership and financial matters.
Me and Ahmad had several meetings with their
representative and as part of the non-profit
organization program, we will receive 5 free
Dynamics 365 licenses. There are third party
companies to develop the required software
in their platform. Me and Ahmad are
investigating the possibilities to migrate
from NB to Microsoft.
● I also talked to our volunteer lawyer
about protecting members personal privacy
and was told that legally we are only
required to provide name and address of
the members. Another topic that was
discussed was possibility of disclosing the
name of the parties who received the
membership list. Based on his recommendation
we can publicly disclose this information
and one good place can be our newsletter.
● We are also working to transfer our data
from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365. We
have received the instruction to perform
this migration.
● I contacted ScotiaBank and talked to the
bank representative from the office of
president about the closure of bank account
of some Iranians. He asked for those who are
affected to contact the bank for further
follow up.
Policy Development Department
(Chair: Amir H. GhasemiNejad)
● Dr. GhasemiNejad requested to be a member
of every committee, including IT
infrastructure group and organizational
structure committee.
● He also requested to become a member of
mental health committee.
● I can contribute 10 hours per week.
● Iccongress.net has been set up. The domain
belongs to ICC. The hosting was done by the
help of Ahmad. The security modules and
email servers and survey software were
installed. The system is ready to provide
email addresses for other sections.
● The first survey of ICC priorities went
through many revisions in the committee in
which Ahmad and Kayhan and others were
regularly participating. The final version
has been prepared and will be sent to board
for confirmation. We have lunched the survey
and received good feedback people from some
members. So far we have the highest
participation so far.
● We will also have the English version of
the survey soon and those who are interested
can request for the English version.
Organizational Structure & Content
Development Committees
(Chair: Kayhan Razavi)
● Kayhan informed the board the work for
second issue of the Newsletter is
progressing and he is trying (with the help
of volunteers) to improve the theme to a
more attractive and professional design. He
also mentioned that more volunteers have
been added to the group.
● He also added that he is still waiting for
a few committees to send their report.
● He mentioned that some work has been done
in the organizational structure committee
and they are ready to start their first
public meeting. More than 15 people have
been invited to this meeting and he is still
accepting suggestions to add anyone who has
expertise related to this subject. Once the
group is formed, the goal is to prepare a
report for the board in the 3 to 4 months.
Mental Health Committee
(Chair: Mehrnoosh Ahmadi)
As I mentioned before I have not started any
activity in this committee, but I have a few
questions after we are done reporting our
updates.
Culture Committee
(Chair: Saman TabasiNejad)
● Arezou informed the board about an article
on the effect of the art as a therapy in the
society and they will send it to a newspaper
soon.
● The cultural committee had its first
meeting last week and a few people
volunteered to create a blog to educate the
community about topics such as environment,
LGBT community, animals rights.
● Arezou is also added that she is working
to make network between different
organization across Canada. And she is
actively looking for governmental grants for
cultural projects.
Research Committee
(Chair: Younes ZangiAbadi)
● Younes reported that the first subject
that he finished was preparing the
announcement regarding the Canadian
government’s support on JCPOA.
● The second subject that we are still
working on with Moslem Noori is following up
the closure of bank accounts of some
Iranian. We are in touch with people who are
affected and trying to establish talks with
banks to determine the next steps.
● Another topic that I am interested in is
to find out the riding with majority of
Iranian Canadians through Statistics Canada
database and then get in touch with the
member of parliament representing those
ridings to hold sessions with them. We can
show them what the priority of our community
is especially with our survey done by Dr.
Ghaseminejad.
● Younes also mentioned that he is looking
to purchase an insurance for the ICC will
update the board about the cost and its
terms.
Moslem Noori asked all board members to
provide an estimate of the hours they are
planning to spend on ICC.
At
9:02 pm the updates of board members were
finished, and the meeting was entered into
discussion time.
• Mehrnoush started by asking a question
from Younes ZangiAbadi that what questions
will be send to the ridings?
• Younes answered that we will communicate
survey results with the representatives, and
this is a common approach in other
communities.
• Mehrnoush recommended that board take the
points in the email she sent before further
actions (referring to the outsource the
survey to an independent company).
• Younes ZangiAbadi answered that he is
still in the research phase to find ridings
with most Iranian population but eventually
he will go forward based on the result of
the survey to talk to the MPs about
priorities of Iranian Canadians in those
ridings.
• Mehrnoush suggested that its better to
have an independent party to perform the
survey.
• Moslem Noori commented that we don’t have
the financial resources to outsource this
job given the $11k price tag of an
independent survey. Arezou Khadir responded
that it is waste of money and we should not
pursue this path. Ahmad Ehsandar continued
that before we move to outsource this job,
we need to address the problems and show
that we cannot solve those issues.
• AmirHasan GhasemiNejad responded that the
group that designed this survey includes 3
board members plus those who volunteered. We
also asked for volunteers again and no one
has volunteered yet. For all volunteers we
will check their experience and expertise
and if they have good intentions to
cooperate, we will be more than happy to
have them in our group.
• Mehrnoush mentioned that she knows one
person who has good expertise that can be
used in survey group. And she was wondering
how he can join the group.
• Amirhasan answered that person needs to
officially send an email to us and once his
resume is reviewed, we will contact him.
• Kayhan said that we tried to design the
surveys to include all views. But it’s not
possible at this point to spend this money.
He continued that it is our goal to include
community as much as possible, but we do not
wait for those who do not want to take any
step in helping us and just complain.
• Amirhasan mentioned that this survey
includes all questions/topics in both
Pouyesh and Karzar platforms. All questions
is shown in random. We have left comment
boxes for the people to leave comments so
that we make sure the survey is not biased
in any way. We will send many reminders, so
no one is excluded from our survey.
• In response to these comments and the fact
that ICC is planning to use the results of
this survey to contact MPs in future,
Mehrnoush said that she expects that a big
group of members will leave the organization
soon.
• At 9:37 pm Amirhasan GhasemiNejad left the
meeting.
• Moslem Noori moved to the next section of
the meeting to present and discuss about the
motions in hand. He pointed out that based
on his conversation with our lawyer, ICC can
publish the name of the people that has
gained access to the membership list after a
certain date. Moslem suggested November 1
st, 2020 may be a good date.
• Mohsen Khaniki, Ahmad Ehsandar suggested
that we choose Dec 1st, 2020 is a better
choice since it is after all AGM activities.
• Kayhan Razavi suggested we can publish
this decision in our Newsletter and from
that point start publishing the names of
these individuals.
• Younes Zangiabadi also agreed that it
should be Dec 1st since this is a decision
made by this board.
➢
A motion was moved by Moslem Noori to allow
ICC to publish the names of the people who
gained access to the membership list after
last AGM.
The motion was seconded by Kayhan Razavi.
o Attending: 8, in favor: 7,
o abstention: Mehrnoush Ahmadi
o Against: --
➢
A motion was moved by Moslem Noori to start
the process to acquire insurance for the
organization by Younes Zangiabadi. The
motion was seconded by Arezou Khadir.
o Attending: 8,
in favor: 7,
o abstention: Mehrnoush Ahmadi
o Against: --
• The topic of advisory group was mentioned
by Moslem Noori. Kayhan Razavi stated that
this advisory group is important for many
members specially among our members from
Karzar and suggested that we start looking
into the process of establishing this group.
• Mehrnoush Ahmadi agreed with Kayhan and
mentioned that it is a good idea since she
might not be in the board in near future,
and she want a couple of her supporters to
be in this advisory group before she leaves.
She also volunteered to work towards this
purpose.
• Mohsen advised that the responsibility of
moderating this group is on president’s
shoulder. He continued we should not
overload ourselves at this stage.
• Mehrnoush responded that if we had this
advisory group, ICC would not face many
complaints on many issues such as this
survey.
• Saman and Younes mentioned that this topic
requires more time, and we cannot decide on
it right now.
Meeting was adjourned at 10.33 PM ET.
ICC Board of Directors Meeting (4) – 8 pages
BOD4
Date: February 4, 2021
Attendees:
Ahmad Ehsandar(1), Moslem Noori(2), Mohsen
Khaniki(3), Amir H. GhasemiNejad(4),
Mehrnoush Ahmadi(5), Younes Zangiabadi(6)
and Kayhan Razavi(7), Saman TabasiNejad(8)
and Arezo Khadir(9)
Absentee: Saman Tabasinejad (2) Arezoo
Khadir (1)
Meeting Agenda:
1. Updates from all committees and
departments.
2. Matters requiring the board discussion
and/or approval: ICC Forum, members list
access fee, ICC's newsletter, ICC's website
3. Members personal information protection
and privacy concerns
4. Fundraising
5. Scheduling the first meeting with the
members
6. Processes and workflows for the
organization's operation
The meeting of the Board of Directors (BoD)
was called to order at 8:00 pm eastern time
by Ahmad Ehsandar.
● Minutes of this meeting were taken by
Ahmad Ehsandar
Updates from all committees and departments:
Research committee:
(Chair: Younes ZangiAbadi)
● Research committee has been actively
looking for internship/job positions for
Iranian-Canadians and have found two
internship opportunities in the last month
offered by the government of Canada
parliament and Legislative Assembly of BC.
This activity will be continued. Once ICC
has gained its access back to its website
and we can have a separate page for this
purpose.
● Canadian government has an annual summer
job program which allows small companies and
nonprofit organizations to hire youth.
Salaries of the interns are paid through
this program by the government. We applied
for this opportunity.
● Regarding the banking issue, we have
distributed a form in the ICC facebook and
about 30 people shared their experience. We
had a meeting with them to hear the stories
of those who are affected. ICC is to prepare
a formal letter asking financial
institutions to provide our community
members with the reasons behind this action.
● One volunteer is also added to the
research committee.
2 Policy Development Department
(Chair: Amir H. GhasemiNejad)
● Several introductory meetings have been
held in the last couple of weeks. Our first
recommendation in the Public Relation Policy
Committee is to advise the board to hold
general meetings with its members at least 3
times a year.
● Our first survey about the ICC priorities
is in its final steps and will be sent to
our members in near future.
● The change in the function of ICC Forum on
Facebook is suggested and The Public
Relation Policy Committee has proposed the
rules of behavior in that forum to the
board. It is advised to open the page to the
public as soon as possible.
Content Development and Organization
Structure
Committees (Chair: Kayhan Razavi)
● We gathered more information about the ICC
Forum facebook page and experiences of the
previous board. We decided to open the
Facebook page with good heart to let our
members communicate with us.
● I also suggest that the PR department
acquire a separate website, especially now
that we don’t have access to ICC’s website
through NationBuilder.
● For the time being, we thought the best
way to get in touch with our members is to
publish a monthly report and update our
audience about the progress of each
committee.
● Regarding the organizational structure
committee, I have reached out to a few
people from both Pouyesh and Karzar and also
others who have experience in this field to
make sure we have diverse opinions for this
job.
● We need a professional Zoom account in
order to hold our sessions in this
committee.
● We also need a lawyer who can advice us in
this committee
● We will have our first public meeting in
February.
Mental Health Committee
(Chair: Mehrnoosh Ahmadi)
● I have talked with two people who are
founders of a charity organization offering
mental health services. I didn’t have any
sessions with volunteers yet. For now, I am
structuring the MH committee into four
strategy groups: Youth, Women and LGBT
group, elders, and general groups. Each
group will have at least one mentor.
● We will try to have panels or make short
informative movies around the mental health
issue. We can also hold panel discussion,
and get in touch with related organizations
such as LGBTQ organizations like qmunity and
Canadian Center for victims of torture etc.
and ask them to be our consultant or
exchange clients with us in matters related
to ICC.
● One general issue that I want to raise is
that until the new board of directors take
very serious and transparent steps to build
trust between ICC and people who support me,
unfortunately, I have no choice but to keep
the work of the Mental Health committee on
hold since I am not in an environment that I
can start to work in this committee.
Culture Committee
(Chair: Saman TabasiNejad)
● Saman, Arezou, and another volunteer
propose an art project and want to ask
people to submit their art projects related
to our topic (new beginnings). Saman said
they have prepared the website page and hope
to launch it tomorrow. Saman shared the link
to the webpage with other board members for
their review.
● Saman also talked about another topic
related to Language support in schools and
wants to make sure young iraninan-Canadians
have the language support in school. This
program has two sections, one panel session
and the other is like a campaign.
Service Committee
(Chair: Mohsen Khaniki)
● I haven’t formed a team yet since I was
busy with the treasury work. But we are
planning projects to work on issues of the
Iranian-Cananian community.
Executive Department
(Chair: Moslem Noori, and Ahmad Ehsandar,
Mohsen Khaniki and Arezo Khadir) Steps taken
so far:
● Moslem Noori updated the board about the
steps taken in regards to ICC’s form one
update, bank account and finding a new
virtual office.
● Cost reduction measure:
○ An application was submitted for the
Microsoft nonprofit program. It was approved
today.
○ Reducing the cost on ICC’s google G suite
service.
○ Negotiating with Nation builder to waive
the next three payments on our account.
○ Finding a more budget friendly virtual
office
○ Projected total saving in 2021 is about
$1900.
● Talk with ICC’s lawyer and provide a
payment plan to pay our debt to him. We have
about $6000 of debt and with the remaining
cost to finish the settlement work, the
total debt will amount to $7500. Our plan is
to pay out the debt over five months. We
need a strong fundraising campaign to
achieve this.
● Some of our members are concerned about
their privacy and personal information,
especially after receiving email from email
addresses other than ICC’s email address. We
are seeking legal consultation on ways that
we can better protect our members' privacy.
● Minutes of the last three Board meetings
have been prepared.
Work in progress:
● Developing an internal process for ICC
workload.
● Fundraising
● Applying for a credit card for ICC
Amir H. Ghaseminejad left the meeting at
9:00 pm.
Financial updates:
● Mohsen Khaniki updated the board about the
ICC’s financial position at the moment. As
of today ICC has an outstanding balance of
($-6,726.00 CAD). Please note the minus sign
shows the debt of the organization.
● Ahmad Ehsandar asked Mr Khaniki to prepare
the balance sheet and income statement for
the last four months of 2020 and report it
to our members.
● Mehrnoosh Ahmadi: asked about the source
of the payments of the cost of lawyers
related to the both ICC’s legal cases. She
also asked how it has become the
organization’s debt (and not personal debt
for the previous board members) and why ICC
should have a fundraising for this debt. She
mentioned that as far as she knows that cost
of the legal cases was not supposed to be on
ICC’s shoulder.
● Mohsen khaniki stated that all debts have
always been ICC’s debt. About 80 thousand
dollar cost that ICC declared last year was
related to a legal fee which after
negotiation most of it was cut down. Big
part of this cost was covered by the
membership fees that ICC received in late
2020. And the rest was covered by the
fundraising ICC held. For instance in one
fundraising session we could raise around
10000 donations from our supporters.
● Mohsen continued that the previous board
spent about $20,000.00 from their own pocket
that later all board members decided to
waive that for the sake of organization.
● Younes Zangiabadi stated that the current
debt that has been transferred to the new
board is mostly related to the second legal
case. And although the ICC won the legal
case, the other party was ordered to cover
only about %60 of ICC’s cost. So the rest of
the cost remained as a debt to the ICC
account and transferred to the new board.
● Younes Zangiabadi emphasized that this
cost is not related in any way to the cost
the previous board members individually
spend to defend themselves in the court. He
mentioned that since the legal case was
brought against ICC as an organization, the
legal fees for the case are due to be paid
by the ICC and it’s an organizational cost.
● Moslem also explained that some of this
debt occurred since the current board was
appointed. For example, one of the members
contacted the ICC lawyer shortly after the
election asking for the members list.
Because of the lawyer’s involvement and
several back and forth conversations, it
cost the organization a couple of hundred
dollars.
● Arezoo Khadir also stated that the current
structure of the ICC is not compatible with
work we are doing and hoped that we can
change the organisation structure in the
future to NGO. She also suggested that
Kayhan Razavi include this topic in the
monthly report he is preparing.
● Younes Zangiabadi suggested that every
board member should send a fundraising email
to cover ICC’s debt as soon as possible
similar to what Ms. Ahmadi did to raise
funds for her group (Karzar) by providing
drawing pictures for donors.
● Mehrnoosh Ahmadi asked board members to
first consult with members and then continue
with their plan for fundraising otherwise it
will become an issue for the members.
● Ahmad Ehsandar mentioned that fundraising
by itself is not an issue for our members
and everybody should feel free to make
contributions if they want to.
● Ms. Ahmadi stated that the applicant [4
people who sued the organization] gave you
all necessary warning and they before they
took you [the ICC] to court. They also
advised you to talk to a proper lawyer. She
mentioned that the reason behind both legal
cases was that the previous board didn’t
provide access to the membership list, they
didn’t publish minutes of the board meetings
along with one or two other unlawful actions
and she continued that it is because of
those cases that today, the new board is
preparing minutes and providing membership
list. Ms. Ahmadi explained that the
applicant didn't know what the board members
wanted to achieve in two consecutive SGMS
[in two days apart from each other.] The
applicants thought the board members wanted
to dissolve the organization since suddenly
they scheduled two consecutive SGMs. Ms.
Ahmadi continued "I wish they [the former
board members] had done it [meaning
dissolved the organization]."
● Moslem responded by saying that it is an
insult to me and other board members to
claim that only because of the legal cases
we are providing minutes of the meetings and
certainly is not true. We are doing this
because this is our standard to follow the
rules and we believe this is the right thing
to do. And it is very discouraging to hear
one of the board members wishes the
organisation would be dissolved. Why one
work in it if he/she thinks so.
● Arezoo Khadir stated it is not acceptable
to spend hundred of thousand of dollars for
just minutes of non for profit organisation.
This money should have been spent on
community problems not on such issues.
At this point (9:35 pm) Moslem Noori moved
to the next topic in the agenda list.
Matters requiring the board discussion
and/or approval: ICC Forum, members list
access fee, ICC's newsletter, ICC's website
● Moslem shared the prepared guidelines for
the ICC forum with all the board members the
day before the meeting. He asked everyone to
turn on their cameras before the motion is
presented.
● Mehrnoosh Ahmadi mentioned that it was
better if ICC consulted the community first
before preparing the guidelines. And some
parts of the guidelines are not clear.
⮚
A motion was moved by Moslem Noori to open
the ICC forum based on the guidelines shared
with the board members. The motion was
seconded by Younes ZangiAbadi.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by the
attending board members.
● Moslem Noori moved to the next
topic of fees for accessing the
organization’s members list. He started by
mentioning that the law requires the fee
list access fee to be a reasonable amount.
The $40 cost was decided when the members of
the ICC were very low. The number of ICC’s
members has grown substantially over the
past couple of years and consequently the
cost of bookkeeping has increased as well.
Moslem Noori suggested that the fee for
acquiring the list should be increased and
the board should discuss the new amount.
● Ahmad Ehsandar mentioned that the
cost of bookkeeping the members information
is currently around $500 CAD per month and
it is the highest cost compared to other
services ICC is paying for. We should take
into account that this $40 is set when ICC
had only a few hundred members and its
operational cost was a lot less. Ahmad
mentioned that assuming we will have around
20 people applying for the list annually
(same as last year) and the fact that we are
paying around $5000 annually the $250 is a
reasonable amount for acquiring the list.
● Mohsen Khaniki stated that the publicity
of the ICC has grown in the last couple of
years and as such its cost has increased and
it is fair to increase the fee for accessing
the list. Also, the amount of this fee
should be as such to discourage spamming
attempts by those who want to abuse this
right. He mentioned that with around 3500
members the list access fee should be $500
CAD.
● Kayhan Razavi mentioned that other non
profit organizations also consider such fees
simply because all require money to provide
service to their community. He mentioned 500
CAD might be too high and no one will be
able to pay that much. But 250 CAD that
Ahmad suggested is reasonable.
● Moslem emphasized that we cannot put any
monetary value on the private information of
our members and we are only asking for a fee
just to cover the cost of its bookkeeping.
We also don’t want to increase it too high
to raise any suspicion that the new board
doesn't want to provide the list to our
members. Moslem suggested a fee between 150
to 200 CAD.
● Mehrnoosh Ahmadi said that just the price
will not discourage those who are determined
to get the list. The cost should not be that
high that only wealthy people can afford it.
She also explained that emails [Regarding
Mehrnoush's meeting as board member with
other ICC members to discuss ICC related
issues.] sent to members were not sent from
her but if we have ICC forums available for
members, there would be no need for such
emails in the future.
● Saman TabasiNejad stated that the $250 may
be a reasonable price especially with many
emails she received complaining about random
emails distributed recently. However, we
don’t want to make it hard for those who
want to campaign during the election period,
we can come up with a plan to reduce the
cost close to election.
● The board unanimously agreed that this fee
can be changed in future when we get more
feedback from our community.
⮚
A motion was moved by Ahmad Ehsandar to
increase the fee of acquiring the list to
$250. The motion was seconded by Kayhan
razavi.
o The motion was adopted by six votes in
favor, one abstention (Moslem Noori) and one
vote against (Mehrnoosh Ahmadi).
o Mehrnoosh Ahmadi mentioned that she needs
to discuss it with her supporters. But she
thinks that this number is too high.
● Moving to the next topic Kayhan Razavi
announced that the PR department has decided
to publish a newsletter to inform the ICC
members about the ICC activities in a
monthly frequency. It will have different
sections to cover activities of the ICC
along with updates of each committee.
● Mohsen stated that we can make this a
short and weekly newsletter to better engage
our audience and be able to publish it in
our social media as well.
⮚
A motion was moved by Moslem Noori for the
ICC to publish a newsletter monthly. The
motion was seconded by Younes ZangiAbadi.
○ The motion was adopted unanimously by the
attending board members.
● Moving to the next topic, Moslem Noori
talked about the ICC’s website and the fact
that we have a very limited access to the
website since it is part of NationBuilder
software that we don’t have access to at the
moment before the settlement is completed.
In the meantime we can start to design a new
look for ICC’s website.
● It was discussed that ICC will use
volunteers for this purpose.
● Kayhan mentioned that this issue has been
raised in the PR department and Amir H. has
suggested that the PR department control
this website for the time being for the
purpose of communicating with members.
⮚
A motion was moved by Moslem Noori for the
PR department to start to design a new look
for the ICC website. The motion was seconded
by Ahmad Ehsandar.
○ The motion was adopted unanimously by the
attending board members.
● Items 3 and 4 of the agenda were already
discussed within previous topics. Scheduling
the first meeting with the members
● Molsem Noori suggested that the board have
a meeting with the ICC members and asked
others about the dates and times of the
meeting. He thought weekends close to Nouroz
would be a good time.
● It was decided that we have several time
slots and board members vote which time they
think is better for such a meeting.
● Younes Zangiabadi suggested that
considering the financial situation we are
in, each board member should try to send one
or two fundraising emails to members and he
will send the first one soon.
Meeting was adjourned at 10.58 PM.
ICC Board of Directors Meeting (3) – 1 page
BOD3
Date:
January 18, 2021
Attendees:
Ahmad
Ehsandar(1), Moslem Noori(2), Mohsen
Khaniki(3), Amir H. GhasemiNejad(4),
Mehrnoush Ahmadi(5), Younes Zangiabadi(6)
and Kayhan Razavi(7)
Absentee: Saman Tabasinejad (2) Arezoo
Khadir (1)
Meeting
Agenda:
1. Changing
the address of the corporation.
2.
Discussing required online platforms for
conducting committee meetings.
The meeting
of the Board of Directors (BoD) was called
to order at 8:30 pm eastern time by Moslem
Noori.
● Minutes of
this meeting were taken by Ahmad Ehsandar
Background:
Moslem sent a written message to all board
members on January 17, 2021, explaining that
the contract with our current virtual office
landlord is over and we can take this
opportunity to find a more cost-effective
option. On the other hand, we need an
updated form 1 for our meeting with a TD
bank representative to change the signing
officers of the ICC’s bank account. To
update the ICC address along with the
information of the new board of directors in
form 1, Moslem asked all board members if
they can join this meeting to approve the
address change.
All members
present in the meeting confirmed their
availability for this meeting.
Changing the address of the corporation:
Moslem
reiterated the situation as he explained in
his written message. It was mentioned that
this needs to happen before we fill Form 1
and change the signing officers of ICC’s
bank account. He also mentioned that Mohsen
and he have searched and identified a
virtual office with a reasonable price.
Mohsen then explained further details about
the new location.
⮚ A motion
was moved by Mohsen Khaniki to change the
current address of ICC to 180 West Beaver
Creek Road, Richmond Hill, ON, L4B 1B4.
The motion
was seconded by Moslem Noori.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by the
board members
ICC Board of Directors Meeting (2) - 2 pages
BOD2
Date: January 11,
2021
Attendees: Ahmad
Ehsandar(1), Moslem Noori(2), Mohsen
Khaniki(3), Amir H. GhasemiNejad(4),
Mehrnoush Ahmadi(5), Younes Zangiabadi(6),
Kayhan Razavi(7) and Arezoo Khadir(8)
Absentee: Saman
Tabasinejad (1)
Meeting Agenda:
1. Right of signature for ICC bank account
2. Using online platforms (email, Telegram,
...) to vote on urgent motions.
The meeting of the
Board of Directors (BoD) was called to order
at 8:00 pm eastern time by Moslem Noori.
● Minutes of this
meeting were taken by Ahmad Ehsandar
Right of signature
for Bank Account:
Moslem: A
meeting was held between ICC executive team
(Ahmad, Arezoo, Moslem and Mohsen) and
Soudeh and Pouyan of the previous board to
facilitate the transfer of documents and
assets of the ICC to the new board. Soudeh
stated that she will transfer all passwords
for all accounts that ICC currently holds.
The ICC’s bank account requires two
signatures and the TD agent (ICC’s bank
account is with TD) suggested that two board
members that reside in the same city be
assigned for this purpose.
⮚ A motion was moved by
Moslem Noori to assign three board members
as signers (Mohsen Khaniki, Younes
Zangiabadi and Moslem Noori) of which any
two signatures are sufficient to withdraw
funds from the ICC’s bank account.
The motion was seconded
by Younes Zangiabadi.
o The motion was
adopted unanimously by the board members.
Using online platforms to vote Moslem Noori
suggested that the board can use online
platforms such as telegram or email to bring
a motion and acquire votes on urgent matters
in the future.
Ahmad: suggested
that for any urgent case brought forward for
online voting, all board members should
first agree (by means of the same online
platform) to have the online vote otherwise
the motion should proceed its regular path
determined by ICC’s by-laws.
Arezoo:
mentioned she does not have access to email
on some occasions but she agreed to have
online voting.
Amir Hasan:
mentioned that this should be checked
against the by-laws to make sure it does not
go against our constitution. It was decided
to leave this issue to future meetings to
provide times for everyone to think about
it.
The meeting was
adjourned at 9:23 pm.
ICC Board of Directors Meeting (1) - 7 pages
BOD1
Date: January 4, 2021
Attendees:
Ahmad Ehsandar(1), Moslem Noori(2), Mohsen
Khaniki(3), Amir H. GhasemiNejad(4), Saman
TabasiNejad(5), Mehrnoush Ahmadi(6), Younes
Zangiabadi(7), Kayhan Razavi(8) and Arezoo
Khadir(9)
Absentee: (0)
Meeting Agenda:
1. Introduction.
2. Assigning positions
3. Meeting time schedule
4. Members’ Privacy issue
5. Statement for PS752 anniversary
6. Point of contact for ICC Lawyer.
7. Insurance for ICC
8. Action plan for the next meeting
The meeting of the Board of Directors (BoD)
was called to order at 8:05 pm eastern time
by Mohsen Khaniki.
● Minutes of this meeting were taken by
Ahmad Ehsandar until 9:23 pm where he left
the meeting. Younes Zangiabadi took the
minutes afterward.
Assigning positions:
⮚
A motion was moved by Mohsen Khaniki to
assign Moslem Noori as the president and was
seconded by Ahmad Ehsandar.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by the
board members.
⮚
A motion was moved by Kayhan Razavi to
assign Arezoo Khadir as the vice president
and was seconded by Amir H. GhasemiNejad.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by the
board members.
⮚
A motion was moved by Moslem Noori to assign
Ahmad Ehsandar as the Secretary and was
seconded by Mohsen Khaniki.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by the
board members.
⮚
A motion was moved by Arezoo Khadir to
assign Mohsen Khaniki as the treasurer and
was seconded by Younes Zangiabadi.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by the
board members.
Mehrnoush asked to be added in the process
of decision making in the future, since she
was not included by other board members to
discuss the positions and the committees
prior to this session.
Amir H. Ghaseminejad emphasized that
according to the ICC bylaw, the
Communications and Public Relations (PR)
section is a department, and he suggested
that its chair and vice chair positions are
better to be held by the president and vice
president of ICC.
⮚
A motion was moved by Mohsen Khaniki
to assign Moslem Noori as the president of
the Communications and PR Department and was
seconded by Amir H. GhasemiNejad.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by the
board members.
⮚
A motion was moved by Mohsen Khaniki
to assign Arezoo Khadir as the vice
president of the Communications and PR
Department and was seconded by Kayhan
Razavi.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by the
board members.
⮚
A motion was moved by Moslem Noori to
assign Kayhan Razavi as the chair of the
Content Development Committee in the
Communications and PR Department and was
seconded by Amir H. GhasemiNejad.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by the
board members.
⮚
A motion was moved by Kayhan Razavi
to assign Amir H. GhasemiNejad as the chair
of the PR Policy Committee in the
Communications and PR Department and was
seconded by Ahmad Ehsandar.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by
board members.
⮚
A motion was moved by Ahmad Ehsandar
to assign Saman Tabasinejad as the chair of
the Social Media Committee in the
Communications and PR Department and was
seconded by Kayhan Razavi.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by
board members.
⮚
A motion was moved by Moslem Noori to
assign Mehrnoush Ahmadi as the chair of the
Mental Health Committee and was seconded by
Amir H. GhasemiNejad.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by
board members.
⮚
A motion was moved by Ahmad Ehsandar
to assign Younes Zangiabadi as the chair of
the Research Committee and was seconded by
Ahmad Ehsandar.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by
board members.
⮚
A motion was moved by Mohsen Khaniki
to assign Amir H. GhasemiNejad as the chair
of the Department of the Policy Development,
defined in the ICC by-laws, and was seconded
by Younes Zangiabadi.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by
board members.
⮚
A motion was moved by Moslem Noori to
assign Saman Tabasinejad as the chair of the
Culture Department, defined in the ICC
by-laws, and was seconded by Ahmad Ehsandar.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by
board members.
⮚
A motion was moved by Younes
Zangiabadi to assign Kayhan Razavi as the
chair of the Organizational Structure
Committee and was seconded by Amir H.
GhasemiNejad.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by
board members.
⮚
A motion was moved by Kayhan Razavi
to assign Mohsen Khaniki as the Chair of the
Services Committee and was seconded by
Moslem Noori.
o The motion was adopted unanimously by
board members. It was also stated by Kayhan
Razavi to initiate the process to form the
advisory group in the near future.
Board Meeting Time Schedule It was discussed
and decided that all future meetings of BoD
to be held on the first Thursday of each
month from 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm Eastern Time
unless otherwise decided by the board.
Members’ Privacy Issue Amir H. Ghaseminejad
emphasized that ICC does not have access to
the membership database (Nation Builder)
because of the ongoing settlement and as a
result, cannot take any measures at this
moment. However, the board will actively
pursue this matter through consulting with
ICC’s lawyer and members to find out a
solution as soon as possible.
At 9:23 pm Ahmad Ehsandar left the meeting.
I, Younes Zangiabadi, started to take
minutes at 9:23 after Ahmad left the meeting
due to a personal matter.
The topic of discussion:
The Use of Nation Builder - Questions and
Complexities Around Settlement Mohsen: I am
in touch with the former board and from what
I understand, we don’t have access to the
Nation Builder and Pouyan is the only
person, based on the terms of the
settlement, that has access to the Nation
Builder until the legal case is fully
closed.
Mohsen: Taking this into the
consideration, we are not able to send bulk
emails to our email list, given that the
list is only accessible via the Nation
Builder.
Note: The current members along with
other people including interested
individuals and former members are included
in the ICC’s email list.
Mohsen: We can still contact our
current members using the same members' list
available to the board members, which was
retained after providing an affidavit prior
to the elections.
Moslem: Some may have cancelled their
membership ever since.
Amir Hassan: So, we can basically use
other platforms other than Nation Builder to
communicate to the ICC members using the
list we have already access to.
Amir Hassan: Can we use the website
given it’s on the Nation Builder platform?
Mohsen: I think we face the same
scenario here. Pouyan is the only person who
could access the Nation Builder.
Amir Hassan: Therefore, we need to
communicate this to our members so they know
what kind of situation we are dealing with.
We have heard that some of our members are
saying that we haven’t done much work. We
need to keep them in the loop.
Kayhan: I agree; we need to
communicate with our members about our
roles, responsibilities, and ask for help
and more participation in the ICC’s
activities so that we can keep them engaged.
Moslem: As instructed by the ICC
lawyer, Daniel Fridmar, we need to wait for
Justice Haney’s court order to officially
close the settlement in order to access the
Nation Builder ourselves. This may take up
to a few weeks, according to Dan’s (the ICC
Lawyer) suggestion.
Action plan: - We need to revisit
the settlement to see if Pouyan can send
emails and update the website on our behalf.
- Moslem will prepare an email to be sent to
the members in order to communicate the news
about the first board meeting and the roles
of the BoD members.
The topic of Discussion:
Statement on the Anniversary of Downing of
Flight PS752 Background information:
Saman Tabasinejad volunteered to
craft the statement. She reached out to all
BoD members on January 2, asking them to
pass her their suggestions for the
statement.
Mehrnoush Ahmadi also prepared her
own statement and asked the board members to
read it prior to the first official meeting
of the ICC. Merhnoush mentioned in an email
that the statement should address the
following points:
“1. It was not a crash or an accident etc.
It was a downing by IRGC.
2. We request that the Government of Canada
pressure the Islamic Republic’s authorities
and international bodies such as
International Civil Aviation Organization
(ICAO) more actively and resolutely to
conduct a comprehensive investigation of
this tragic event.
3. We commit to fully support you [families]
in your endeavour to seek justice for your
loved ones.”
After taking all the suggestions from the
board members, Saman Tabasinejad prepared a
draft and shared it with all other board
members prior to the meeting.
Mehrnoush: She doesn’t support
Saman’s statement for variety of reasons
listed below:
- The term used “encourage” is not forceful
enough when addressing the Islamic Republic.
There needs to be a tougher language used in
the statement.
- The terms used “Iran” should be changed
into “Islamic Republic of Iran” to highlight
the difference between the regime and the
Iranian people.
- The term “justice” must be added to the
fourth point in the statement
- The term “crime” must be included in the
statement.
- The part about the Prime Minister’s
statement about the escalations in the
region, contributing to this tragedy must be
removed as it releases pressure from the
Islamic Republic and it distorts the
messaging needed to pressure the government
in Iran.
The board as a whole agreed to add the word
“justice” one more time in the second
paragraph of the statement as agreed by
Mehrnoush Ahmadi.
The term Islamic Republic was also
extensively discussed to be used in the
statement among the board members. However,
it was later agreed that the use of the term
“Islamic Republic” would make it complicated
as it would make it odd to use the full name
of other governments involved in this tragic
event.
Younes: I think it makes the
statement longer if we use “Islamic Republic
of Iran throughout the statement. Also, are
we going to also call Afghanistan, the
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan” or Sweden,
the Kingdom of Sweden? It won’t flow well in
the statement. If we resort to what
international leaders and organizations use
in their statements, “Iran” is the right
term to use especially when used in the same
sentence as the term “international
community.”
The 7 members of the board excluding Ahmad,
who left earlier due to a personal matter
and was in absence, and Mehrnoush,
ultimately agreed to use the term “Iran” in
the statement.
Mehrnoush: As mentioned earlier, I
like to say once again, I oppose this
statement despite changes made and
discussions held by the board. And, I would
like to put out my own statement on social
media so that the Karzar (name used in her
campaign) supporters know where I stood on
this matter.
Younes: It’s important for everyone
to sometimes inform the secretary to note
what they said exactly, given that the
minutes of this meeting will be published.
So, if you really want your words to be
heard in the same way it was said, it’s best
to tell the secretary when you make your
points in the meeting.
The statement for Flight PS752 was passed
with 7 board members including Mohsen
Khaniki, Moslem Noori, Amirhassan
Ghaseminjead Tafreshi, Younes Zangiabadi
,Saman Tabasinejad, Arezou Khadir and Kayhan
Razavi voting in favour,
Mehrnoush Ahmadi voting against, and Ahmad
Ehsandar in absence.
Saman:
Everyone please share the links of the
events that are planned on the anniversary
of the downing so that we could share it
under our public statement.
Subject of discussion:
Point of Contact for the ICC Lawyer
It was discussed and decided that as
President, Vice President, and Treasured,
Moslem Noori, Arezou Khadir, and Mohsen
Khaniki will be the point of contact with
the ICC lawyer.
Subject of discussion:
Insurance for the ICC
Moselm:
We need to find an insurance for the
organization as the previous insurance has
expired. Moslem put forward a motion to
conduct research on finding a good insurance
company to work with. Younes seconded. This
motion was unanimously passed.
Action Plan:
Younes and Mohsen agreed to work on this and
report to the board on this matter.
Subject of Discussion:
Emails to Members Asking for Volunteers for
Each Committee
Side note raised by Moslem: We
need to come up with a 3 to 6 month plan for
the committees that we lead.
Kayhan: We need to ask our members
what committee they like to volunteer for
and we need to create a volunteer form or
something that members can share where they
want to work or be more active.
Moslem: I agree with this
idea. However, let’s not share our personal
emails and use the ICC email. Then, we can
always use the info@iccongress.ca to inform
the board members how many volunteers are
interested in working with them within their
committee.
This motion was put forward by Moslem and
seconded by Younes. It was unanimously
supported by the board.
Amirhassan
put forward another motion, asking for him,
Saman, and Mohsen to work together on
researching and finding a hosting company
server (cloud sub-domain) to reduce the cost
and increase the efficiency and
effectiveness for our website and emails.
Amirhassan believes there are many other
online services available that are much
cheaper and for some of ICC needs are better
than Nation Builder. Younes seconded this
motion and it was passed unanimously by the
board.
Saman
put forward a motion to adjourn the meeting
and it was seconded by Mohsen, which was
unanimously passed by the board.
Note:
Ahmad Ehsandar left the meeting at 9:23 PM.
Therefore, when the term, “unanimously” is
used in the minutes, it refers to everyone
but Ahmad Ehsandar who was absent from the
rest of the meeting.
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