<p>After two small business meetings and several focus group sessions, the Bangla Business Network (BBN) had it's first large group meeting on February 9th 2013 at the St. Patrick Hall.</p>
<p>Based on previous meetings 5 facilitators were chosen, representing Community Health Works, Youth, Elders and Men's and Women's businesses. Moblization for this meeting was done by these facilitators.</p>
<p>The 165 Business that attended the meeting consisted of:</p>
<ulclass="simple">
<li>Water - 6</li>
<li>Transportation - 2</li>
<li>Hardware - 1</li>
<li>Soap - 1</li>
<li>Services - 17 (including tailoring, clobbering, manual laborer, house builders, salons, mechanical and electronic repairs, and porting)</li>
<li>General Shops - 23 (Selling a variety of local and non-local items)</li>
<li>Food Services - 49 (Selling cooked or processed food, on the road or in restaurants)</li>
<li>Energy - 21 (including charcoal and lamp oil)</li>
<li>Education - 1 (Primary and nursery school)</li>
<li>Clothes - 4</li>
<li>Drinks - 3 (including alcohol, soda and fruit drinks)</li>
</ul>
<p>The Agenda included:</p>
<ulclass="simple">
<li>Plenary</li>
<li>Welcome and introductions</li>
<li>Warm-ups.</li>
<li>Brief Introduction to the program.</li>
<li>Reading of an information sheet. (<aclass="reference external"href="http://grassrootseconomics.org/sites/koru.or.ke/files/BBN-meeting-flyer-swahili.pdf">Here in swahili .pdf</a> )</li>
<li>Discussing design of vouchers.</li>
<li>Open for initial thoughts and questions.</li>
</ul>
<p>Small group demonstrations and discussion</p>
<ulclass="simple">
<li>People were broken into five groups. Each facilitator described the program and facilitated a demonstration.</li>
<li>Each demo participant was given 200/= of Bangla Pesa (represented by colors paper 2-5's, 3,-10's, 3,-20's 2,-50's)</li>
<li>Each demo participant was also given white cards where their goods and services were listed along with the cost.</li>
<li><olclass="first arabic">
<li>They should try to buy and sell as much as possible but stay within trading limits</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><olclass="first arabic"start="2">
<li>When they have less than 200 they should sell more</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><olclass="first arabic"start="3">
<li>When they have more that 400 Banglas they should buy more.</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Plenary Discussion.</p>
<ulclass="simple">
<li>Registering the BBN. It was decided that the current 5 facilitators should continue as an interim board and register the network.</li>
<li>Moving forward. Business registration would start in the next month with a launch after the National Presidential Elections.</li>
<li>At the launch each business will be given vouchers representing 400/= Bangla Pesa and half of this will be retained as a membership fee.</li>
<li>Membership fees will facilitate the 5 board members with a monthly allowance.</li>
</ul>
<p>TheBoard of Directors (5 people): 1 Youth Representative, 1 CHW Representative, 3 Business Representatives (1 man 2 women) will perform the following functions:</p>
<ulclass="simple">
<li><olclass="first arabic">
<li>Accounting and Administration</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><olclass="first arabic"start="2">
<li>Networking</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><olclass="first arabic"start="3">
<li>Care Taking</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>Organizing Community Service Work</li>
<li>Security printing of the vouchers for businesses will take place in March 2013, and distributed publicly at the Launch event.</li>
