Spring 2019 Workshop
March 15, 2019 - South San francisco, CA
Bruce Wright of the Rotary Club of South San Francisco spoke about how his club has partnered with the South San Francisco Sister City Association to promote and support student exchanges.
On March 15, 2019, CJSCN held our Spring 2019 workshop and networking event in South San Francisco for all California sister city members. Approximately 20 people representing a variety of sister city programs and supporters across California attended.
Following a pre-event networking reception, the workshop began with welcome remarks from South San Francisico Mayor Karyl Matsumoto. Then the CJSCN Board shared a number of new resources and support services that we have already implemented this year, such as:
Private CJSCN Facebook Discussion Group only for sister city organization members (request to join here now)
Monthly CJSCN e-newsletter that will begin April 1, 2019, and contain updates from CJSCN, as well as news from sister city organizations (submit news here now)
CJSCN event calendar on our website (submit event items here now)
Sister City relationship location map resources (see maps here now)
There was also discussion regarding CJSCN’s proposal to divide the 100+ CA-Japan sister cities into regions to facilitate better communication and networking. Currently, we are focusing on Northern California, and have proposed five regions: North Bay, East Bay, Central Valley, Peninsula, Silicon Valley and South.
Details about all the information presented by CJSCN can be found in the workshop Powerpoint presentation here.
After the presentations by CJSCN Board members, we introduced a panel discussion session about “strategies for success”. Meg Mizutani of Sebastopol World Friends spoke about her organization’s success in working with their local government to promote sister city activities. Mark Kato of Sunnyvale Sister City Association spoke about his organization’s success in soliciting financial sponsorships and volunteers. And Bruce Wright of the Rotary Club of South San Francisco spoke about how his club has partnered with the South San Francisco Sister City Association to promote and support student exchanges.
After the panel session, attendees split into two groups to speak freely about their own organizations’ successes and obstacles, and to exchange ideas. Feedback from these smaller discussions was shared with the full group.
Thank you to everyone who was able to attend this event! CJSCN is proud to facilitate important opportunities for sister city members to share common struggles and achievements. Our next workshop event will be held in Fall 2019; please keep an eye out for more news closer to that time.