March 2025 – Meeting Minutes

IMIYA BOARD MEETING
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
7:30PM

ATTENDING
President: Joanne Pearson
Vice President: Rebecca Wallace
Secretary: Charlotte Hardwicke
Treasurer:  Cecilia Huisman – absent
Scholarship: Mandy Coates – absent
Scholarship: Melanie Doskocil
Membership: Kyoung Suk Kim 
Communications:  Alyssa Sikora – absent
Communications: Sara Mahowald
                       
MINUTES
BOARD

SCHOLARSHIP (Mandy Coates, Melanie Doskocil)  
Scholarship opportunity for 2025 is up on the site. No responses yet.
Sara can post announcement on IG. Alyssa can add to April Newsletter.
Could we contact senior teachers to see who is planning to go up for assessment?
Check list for Level 2 and Level 3 teachers and Mandy/Melanie can send out an email letting them know about scholarship opportunity. 

MEMBERSHIP (Kyoung Suk Kim) 
Suki will share the Vacation Google doc link to share on social.

TREASURER (Cecilia Huisman) 

YOGA AND EQUITY (Charlotte Hardwicke, Joanne Pearson) 
IYNAUS Equity wants to know if regional organizations are offering any grants directly related to equity.
Rebecca will share equity workbook for Iyengar Yoga via email. 

WEBSITE (Charlotte Hardwicke)  
Charlotte will add a banner to the home page calling out the 2025 assessment opportunity. 

OUTREACH/COMMUNICATION (Alyssa Sikora, Sara Mahowald)
Social media: Scholarship post
Social media: Survey post
Social media: Lisa Wolf post
Social media: Nancy Stechert at Park Hill post
IYNAUS “What is Iyengar Yoga” brochure?
Should we be adding workshops to IYNAUS to show what our region is up to? Sara will go ahead and see about adding workshops to IYNAUS page: https://iynaus.org/community-workshops/?fw=c2VjdGlvbj13b3Jrc2hvcHMmYWN0aW9uPWxpc3Q%3D 

Regional Rep – Rebecca Wallace
By-laws are complete. We do need to have a board vote to approve the by-laws. Once we have board approval, we do need to submit them to the Board of Governance (?) in Colorado. One change is that we need to state that we are a distinct entity from IYNAUS.
Rebecca is the new IYNAUS volunteer coordinator. 
Samachar – Regional update. When is the next one due? Rebecca will find out.

Yoga Day – Update
The goal is to raise awareness of Iyengar Yoga. We could offer it in a different format than in past years. Kelly is looking at her available dates for us. Kelly mentioned that the yoga days were a lot of work and suggested we do something smaller more often. 
Free for members and non-members could take the first class free. Kelly also suggested that we have something to offer attendees such as a handout with a small sequence and virtual attendees could get a recording of the class and a pdf of the handout. More discussion is needed. Other ideas included sharing some of Kelly’s doctoral work and hosting a local retreat in Lakewood. Rebecca shared the format from the Root Studio’s anniversary weekend. There was an Introduction to Iyengar class with each Iyengar teacher teaching a 30 minute slot. Kelly will get back to us about dates, pricing, etc. 

Yoga Gathering – Avery Kalapa 
Confirmed with Akasha/Evolition  Sept 26- 28, 2025. 
Plan for 20, 10% discount for IMIYA members.
Yoga gathering will be posted likely in May
The board discussed whether to host a gathering around this workshop, or plan another date for IMIYA gathering. If we have smaller events throughout the year, then maybe we take a different tack with the gathering. Sara suggested that IMIYA could host a movie night with nibbles (and chai!) and maybe chanting.
Board proposed having a brainstorming session at the  next meeting.
Member Survey in process – will send out for review when revised.
Purpose of the survey is to gather info from current members. Charlotte will send out a draft for everyone to review.
Upcoming events
Evolition will  also host Donna Fahri in July 11- 22, 2025 (Two Intensives)
Lisa Wolfe – hosted by Living Yoga, April 10-12,2025 
Nancy Stechert hosted by Park Hill Yoga- July, 2025

          “Whenever we find stiffness in the body, our mind should be especially supple. It is never stiffness in our bodies that limits our practice. It is always the stiffness of our mind.” Geeta Iyengar