08/01/2020

University of Toronto Grad Minds

Executive Meeting Minutes
The Grad Room
8 January 2020


Attendees:
Jeffrey Lynham Co-Chair
Aleksandra Uzelac Co-Chair

Samantha Chang Co-event Team Lead
Helen Jin Secretary
Thomas Murphy Treasurer
Lexi Ewing Mental Health Policy Advisor
Karthik Ganesan Community Liaison
Mashal Ahmed Voting Member
Sarah Member


Regrets:
Alanna Bateman Marketing and Social Media Manager
Erin Remai Co-event Team Lead



Actionables from the Meeting:
- Thomas to write the Student Initiative Fund application
- Aleks to send Thomas the Conference budget breakdown
- Aleks to create a draft of the promotional banner for Selah and Karthik
- Erin and Samantha to determine if MultiFaith Centre will allow booths in the hallway
for other groups
- Jeffrey to look into varying the schedule Share Circle meetings
- Lexi to contact three mental health services about setting up an explanatory infographic


1. Meeting Comes to Order at 5:34 pm:

a. Introductions
- Jeffrey introduced all members present

b. Adoption of Meeting Agenda
- No new items were added to the agenda
- Motion to approve the meeting agenda carries by unanimous vote

c. Approval of Minutes

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- Motion to approve the previous meeting minutes carries by unanimous vote

2. Financial Business:

a. Grant Application Updates
- Student Iniative Fund (SIF) is due January 13th
- Will be applying for the Conference
- Thomas will finish this weekend
- Aleks will send Thomas the budget breakdown that has been approved
- Thomas will send it to Erin and Samantha to review before submission
- Jeffrey is also applying for Elemental, worried about conflict since won’t fund two
initiatives by the same group
o Jeffrey will look into whether Elemental can be considered a separate entity
o Can say that Elemental and Grad Minds collaborate together
o Elemental can be applied under an individual, rather than as a group
- Hart House Good Idea Fund due January 26th

b. Promotional Material Update
- Aleks can have a draft of the banner by the end of the week for Karthik and Selah
- A standing banner will be around $150, and need 5 business days to make – comes with
stand and carrying case
- Will ask Selah about quote for the partner supplier
- Need banner for conference, so have plenty of time for printing

3. Events Updates

a. Event Coordinator
- Have 7 event coordinators to help with running events and workshops
- Will send up sign up sheets for the events soon
- Will also help with other events (eg. launch party, MindFest) and general promoting (eg.
social media, posters, etc)
- Once Samantha has finished making the posters, can give to event coordinators who can
put them up around campus

b. Conference
- Have all rooms, workshops, and speakers booked
- Looking for groups that are similar and ask them to share their listservs to reach out to
people
- Can send out email to departments around 2-3 weeks before the conference itself
o Need to get numbers beforehand to order food
o But can’t start too early or people will forget
- Mashal can add CUPE (to put in their digest) and MHPC
- Should reach out to groups about setting up promotional booths at the conference
o Need to ask whether we’re allowed to set up tables in the hallways –
MultiFaith Centre concerned about us taking over the entire space

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o Need to see whether there’s space, whether we’ll lose chais for the tables,
and whether there’s any additional costs
o Erin to ask, will update on Google Doc documents
o Maybe have 3-4 groups there

c. Winter 2020 Workshops
- Uoft Let’s talk need more people for the roundtable discussion (Jan 29th at the MultiFaith
Centre Main Activity Hall)
- Need around 6 faculty/staff to be involved
- Already have 2 professors from the Social Sciences
- Karthik has asked Faculty of Engineering to reach out to people – looking to get 2 people
from the sciences
- Who should be the facilitator? Should be someone from Grad Minds
o Can maybe ask Jacalyn, she’s done something like this before
- Mashal recommends 3-4 speakers maximum to keep conversation focused and limit time
(if panel discussion)
- Roundtable discussion or panel discussion?
o Depends on the objective of the event
o Panel is good for creating awareness for certain issues, smaller group
discussion is for consensus building
o Smaller group discussions with focused discussion topics?
- Objective is to inform professors and students about the other party’s perspective
- In smaller groups, safer space and encourages people to talk more
o Brings faculty and students on the same level, rather than separated as
presenter and listener
o Don’t have people rotate between tables, people won’t talk to everyone, but
maybe have some time at the end to bring everything together
o With smaller groups, gives more people time to talk rather than in one big
group
- Should gather feedback from the event – facilitators take notes about the discussion and
make infographic from the topics
- There’d be a facilitator at each table
- People to ask professors in their department; can provide more information about the
event to distribute if needed

d. Share Circle
- Aimed at building more of a sense of community – an hour of talking about one topic
mental health related, share stories and get to know other people in the community
- Share Circle is tentative name, copied from UTSC
o Sounds comforting and inviting
o Don’t use “talk” since it’s overused and doesn’t imply conversation, more like
lecture
o Will keep this name for now
- Have reached out to UTSC to learn how they run these events – will set up a meeting soon
- Possible to do different times so that people who can’t make it for one time, can come for
another time?

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o Jeffrey will look into it

- Want to keep topics of conversation more positive and open ended – will advertise the
topic for each conversation beforehand so people know

4. Community Outreach

a. Vice Dean Working Group
- Haven’t decided on a next meeting time yet

b. UTSC and UTM Contact Updates
- Meeting end of December
- Interested in collaborating
- Right now looking for other groups on all three campuses to work together
- Want to establish Health and Wellness contacts on all campuses to refer people to
- Sent out a poll to the Health and Wellness people to determine availabilities to meet

c. Additional Collaborations
- Mashal has been helping to coordinate the work between different mental health groups
o Want to get a consensus about priorities on campus to take forward
o Want to establish collaborations on some events to create a collective voice
o Can share information (eg about funding opportunities) and prevent
conflicting events/duplicating events unnecessarily

5. Mental Health Resources

a. Video Project Update
- Utility of video project vs an inforgraphic
- Kids Help Line has an infographic about what to expect when accessing the service
o Has a long version and short version
- Problem with making videos is difficulty of acquiring video equipment
o Videos require dedicated time to watch
- Benefit of infographic is that it can be put onto promotional material
o Easy to share through different mediums
o Easy to update
- Three resources to feature for now:
o Gernstein: has online resources we can feature
o What’s Up Walk in: not restrictive
o Grad Wellness Services: student specific
- Start with a limited few, then grow it little by little
- Everyone has different situations which can lead to different flows of the service, but we
can provide more general advice and break down possible pathways into more general
streams
- Lexi will contact each of the services tomorrow to work with them in creating the
infographic and ensuring accuracy
- Event Coordinators can help if need additional support

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6. Unfinished Business

a. UTGSU Questionnaire
- Run through the UTGSU executive
- Want to keep the group limited, while finalizing the final product
- Will come out this semester
- Jack.org Campus Assessment Tool asks similar questions but across multiple universities,
Lexi can ask for it to see their questionnaire


9. Any Other Business


10. Meeting Adjourns at 6:32 pm



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Helen Jin
Secretary