The American University in Cairo

Volunteers In Action

Presidential Plan 2012-2013

To: Dr. Dina Rateb

High Board, Advisory Board 2011-212

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Table of Contents I. Personal Information: ................................................................................................................... 3

II. Previous Activities: ..................................................................................................................... 4

III. Self-Evaluation: ......................................................................................................................... 4

IV. Why am I applying for President: ............................................................................................. 5

V. What I want to change in VIA generally: ................................................................................... 6

VI. Last year’s evaluation: ...................................................................................................... 7

VII. Vision, Objectives, high board structure, and time Plan for VIA's Presidential year

2012 / 2013:................................................................................................................................... 10

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I. Personal Information: Name: Karim Medhat Gad.

Date of Birth: 16-08-1989.

Address: Villa 516 Zayed 2000, El Sheikh Zayed, 6 October.

Major: Mechanical Engineering.

Class: Senior.

Cell Phone Number: 0105378385.

E-mail:k.medhat@aucegypt.edu

High School Education: Thanaweya-Amma with a score of 93.5% from “Collége de

la sainte-Famille” “Jesuites.”

Language Skills: 1. English: Fluent in spoken and written.

2. French: Fluent in spoken and written.

3. Turkish: fair

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II. Previous Activities: 1. One of the organizers of sports tournaments in my high school.

2. One of the organizers of my high school prom. (I got Mobinil as a sponsor)

3. A member in “ROAH” NGO since 2009.

4. A member in SIFE in Fall-07. (we worked in dipping rice-chaff and planting

Mushroom)

5. A member in Help club in Fall-07.

6. A member in VIA “Fund-raising committee” year 2010-2011.

7. A Fund-raising Head in VIA year 2011-2012

8. A Radio presenter and team leader in Radio Nos El Kobaya October 2011-

present.

III. Self-Evaluation:

1. Advantages:

a. Former Fund-raising head.

b. Intelligent.

c. Creative.

d. Good leadership skills.

e. Punctual.

f. Very patient till I get what I want.

g. Diplomatic

h. A good negotiator.

i. A good listener.

j. Discreet.

k. Well organized.

l. Friendly and appreciate working in teams.

m. Likes challenges.

n. Self Confident and Independent.

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2. Disadvantages:

a. Lose temper if something went wrong.

b. Stubborn.

c. Mysterious.

d. Doesn’t get along easily with new people.

IV. Why am I applying for President: I chose to apply for president of VIA, because I strongly believe that I have

many ideas and projects to do and I consider developing VIA as my mission. However, I

also want to get over last year’s weakness. I have a certain vision in mind of a new nature

for the committees in VIA that will guarantee a fixed high performance through the

whole year. I chose to continue working in VIA the upcoming year because I am

impressed by the various programs executed to help orphans, by projects helping orphans

all year round and by the powerful spirits that VIA members have that I wish to be part of

as long as I can. My plan is to encourage and enlarge this spirit. In addition, the VIA

community is very welcoming, hardworking and cooperative community in which and

through which you can help, learn and develop your character towards more

responsibility, creativity and persistence.

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V. What I want to change in VIA generally: 1. I want to add an Organizational Committee Director position who will be

responsible to manage the human power of the OC effectively and will be

responsible for making workshops of brainstorming before any event to

ensure the team work.

2. The logistics committee should work more effectively and efficiently to avoid the

mess that happened in all the past events.

3. Internal PR need to work more in order to gain more publicity and recognition

compared to other community service clubs by doing more campaigns and

increase the campaign’s period.

4. The website should be used in a creative way, because I do believe that this

tool is so strong to impress others.

5. The use of flyers and posters are ineffective as at the end of the day they became

just torn papers on the floor which I see as a waste of both money and time .Also,

many posters were put in the BEC and too little were in the SSE.

6. VIAns need to be taught certain things about VIA, like the function of the OSD,

how the different contracts are made and the functions and needs of each

committee

7. using our booth more often in order to guarantee that AUCians do not forget us.

8. educating AUCians more about VIA through articles in the university's news

papers and making a small VIA-publication that comes out each month (an idea

that was suggested by the former PR head, however this could be sold.

9. Motivating VIA’s team to be more cooperative

10. Last year’s Eskenderalla’s concert was very unorganized, there was time

management, the organizers who were dealing with guests do not know who to

solve problems and grasp people’s anger, and how VIAian celebrated at the end

of the concert was really very bad.

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VI. Last year’s evaluation:

a) Strengthens:

1) All the events that VIA launched this year, Tamween Ramadan packages,

children’s day, Annual wedding, and the two annual concerts, were successful

concerning the quantity (target) but not the quality .

2) As being heard, a remarkable success in junior development program and

Maho Ommya program has been achieved.

3) Internal PR has improved slightly through on campus campaigns, booth,

publications.

4) VIA took several proactive and successful initiatives this year such as painting

an orphanage and collecting donations for supplying orphanages with their

needs.

5) The Iftar to go campaign was successful as the quality of food has improved a

lot this year.

b) Weaknesses:

1) Almost all the last year’s events was done without any logistics

preparation such as:

i. Packing

ii. Group wedding

iii. Eskenderalla’s event

iv. Hamza Namira’s Concert

2) Since the main cause for VIA is “painting a smile on orphans’ face”, more

dedication and focus are needed on this area. This has been started this

year, but in order to fully reach this, more effort in this area is needed.

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3) Management between the different committees in VIA this year was not

successful. Not all the committees know what other committees do. Each

head concentrated more on his/her work. Consequently each committee’s

members were somehow isolated from what the other members in the

other committees do.

4) General meetings were very few. They were only held before events,

which should not be the case because usually meetings raise the spirit and

strengthen the relationships between the members. This have its impact on

the members performance.

5) Some high board members were doing more than what they can do, and on

the other hand others were not performing their work as it should be. This

led to the failure of certain programs in VIA.

6) The selection of some of the members, including high board members,

was not very wise. This resulted in hassle undesirable delegation. This is

one of the unavoidable mistakes and no high board or organization has the

perfect members, but flexibility in taking decisions and changing people’s

positions could have been a solution for such problems.

7) Human resources were not enough in many of VIA’s events. Shortage in

members has caused more stress and work load during events.

8) Punctuality is one of the weaknesses that all VIA members agree upon.

Punctuality may seem a very simple problem, but it really affects the spirit

and performance of the members.

9) Depending greatly on graduates and outsiders which should not be the

case for a student organization launched at AUC. It is undeniable that

many of these members do what they are asked to do efficiently, but the

fact that both graduates and outsiders are not always available as AUC

students make it essential to look at this phenomenon as a weakness that

needs to be solved.

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10) Recruitment this year was not very effective, not in terms of the number,

but interviews were not focused on the cause and weather this member

wants to join VIA for the cause or for other reasons, such as the company.

This was clear in the performance of some members.

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VII. Vision, Objectives, high board structure, and time

Plan for VIA's Presidential year 2012 / 2013:

1. Vision:

Developing a sustainable, professional, spirit based organization working

efficiently to maximize its developmental and charitable activities’ effect on the

orphans and the needy layer of the community.

2. Objectives:

a) The most important mission is to make all VIAians as one person in terms of

human power considering the activities and the mental strength in decision

making.

b) Establishing a new rewarding and motivating system to choose the Head and

the member of the month by giving them:

a. Certificate of merit.

b. Parents thank you letter.

c. Putting their picture and a small word about their achievement on the

fan page and the website.

c) Making a new sub-committee in PR which will be ONLY responsible for

(preferable CS students) :

a. Developing a new database software for the members, fundraising, PR

databases.

b. Maintain VIA’s fan page and end up with this inefficient closed group on

Facebook.

c. Maintain VIA’s account on Twitter.

d. Maintain the latest updates on our STRONG weapon www.via-auc.net.

d) Great focus of the core of our club which is the development of orphans

concurrently with the fundraising events.

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e) publicizing for VIA’s image among other on campus activities and to the whole

external community and ensuring to establish the concept of “Once a VIAn,

Always a VIAn” among the organization.

f) More campaigns directly serving orphans.

g) Provide the whole club with many EFFECTIVE trainings.

h) The “iSaver’ Project.

"Ukful Yateem" Campaign with Corporation of “ROAH” NGO :

We will arrange connection between students or faculty members on campus and

orphanages in order for those students or faculty members to sponsor individual

orphans through paying a monthly donation of at least 30 LE (relevant to

improving VIA's internal PR).

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3. Structure of VIA 2012 – 2013:

I. Vice President: Can replace the president anytime as decided upon between each

other. In his capacity he/she will be reporting to the president.

a. Organize trainings for the high board members

b. Human Resources controller

II. OC Director: responsible for managing all the OC committees and distribute

the human resources in the OC equally. Also, distribute the work load effectively

before the events.

III. Financial Coordinator:

a. Planning for the financial budget of the year 2011-2012

b. Handles all financial related issues

c. Controlling a balanced distribution of funds among all development programs

d. Recording all the in and out financial transactions in VIA’s account and

separately.

e. Issuing any required letter and cheque collections

f. Database of the donors, ex-vians, etc who usually donate in projects and

events

IV. Fund Raising:

a. Contacting sponsors on a frequent basis not before events

b. Planning for donation campaigns

c. Creating a good image of VIA for sponsors

d. Preparing fundraising trainings and benefit packs for sponsors

i. Events: Annual Charity Event, Wedding, in kind for support of

campaigns for the club during the year

V. Public Relations:

a. Publicize internally on campus through various printed and non-printed means

b. Publicize externally through

i. Media coverage in newspapers of all our events

ii. Media coverage in a variety of media channels

c. Approaching celebrities for any of our events

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d. Posting videos regularly on Facebook with the club achievements on other means

of communication and publishing websites

e. Take good care of VIA official website

VI. Media:

a. Designing and Printing publications needed throughout the year.

b. All the designs should deliver the right message in the right way

c. Training for new members on Photoshop and other used tools to design the

different handout

VII. Logistics:

a. Time management between all events causing harmony and organization

b. Negotiations, bookings, and other communication to the Office of Student

Development in AUC

c. Booths are the full responsibility of logistics committee in the capacity of design,

bookings and creativity

d. Planning for the events and its decoration.

VIII. Children Program:

a. Interesting weekly visits with a variety of orphanages

b. Planning for two Children’s Days one in Ramadan and one in Second semester

c. Weekly sessions in an orphanage

d. Database for Keswa and Ramadan projects

e. Events: weekly visits, 2 children’s day, 2 Iftar in Ramadan in orphanages,

distribution of Meals and Keswa, orphans fair

IX. Micro Projects:

a. Providing needy families in Meet Okba, Masr el Adeema and Basateen

with small projects that can help them financially

X. Housing and Supplies:

a. Keswa

b. Batateen campaign

c. Preparation of orphan brides

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d. Planning for the Group Wedding.

e. Events: Group Annual wedding, Keswa, Batateen campaign

XI. Mahw Omeya:

a. Weekly sessions (Meet Okba and Basateen)

b. Mahw Omeya trip

c. Iftar Ramadan in Meet Okba

XII. Junior Development:

a. Weekly sessions in Meet Okba

b. Competition at the end of the year for the kids

c. Junior Development Trip

d. Iftar Ramadan in Meet Okba

Board Selection Criteria:

Dedicated

Good leadership skills

Enthusiastic and work with a high spirit

Able to work under pressure

Creative & Innovative

Have an experience in extra-curricular activities.

Know the committee’s problems of last year

Initiated new applicable creative ideas to eliminate the inefficiency

Organized

Seeking to help in charity more than having a position

Dependent

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4. Time plan:

Event Month

High Board recruitment May

Spring Members recruitment May

High Board Trainings June

Orientation June

Tamween/new implementaiton June/July

Ramadan’s Children’s day August

Keswa August

Opening Event (on campus) September

Fall members recruitment September

Painting October

Group wedding November

Batateen campaign November

Children’s day January

VIA-Camp January

Annaul Charity Concert February

Painting

JD and Mahw trips

March

Closing Event April

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“It is nice to be important, but it is very important to be nice”

„Roger Federer‟

“You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what

you give”. „Winston Churchill‟

Thank you for your time and I hope I will be an effective member in VIA;

Karim Medhat Gad.