Caltech Russian Club (http://www.rusclub.caltech.edu)
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Caltech Russian Club exists to promote an active involvement of
the Russian speaking community in the Social life of Caltech. 
We draw members primarily from the Caltech Russian community of graduate
students, postdocs and alumni, but the club is open to all members of 
the Caltech community. The club has existed in various forms since early 1990's 
when first graduate student from Russia began studying at Caltech.

The club has 16 dues-paying members, 3 are alumni. 
In addition to that we serve a larger community that we stay in touch with
through our 102 member mailing list. We also keep in touch with out of 
town alumni.

Total funding requested: 800
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We receive funding from a variety of campus organizations: CAA,GSC,SIF,ISP,
Graduate Office, and collect membership dues. We use these funds to organize
events (http://www.rusclub.caltech.edu/news.html), parties, movie-nights 
approximately on a monthly basis. These help us stay in touch with alumni and other
subscribers to our mailing list. We ask the CAA for $250 to co-sponsor our 
program of social events.

Also, last year we requested and received funds from Caltech Alumni Association
to run two specific programs that directly involve alumni and

(1) Assure the continuity of the club and its mission
(2) Allow for knowledge and experience transfer to younger students

(1) In May 2004 we formed the Club Board of Directors 
(http://www.rusclub.caltech.edu/bod.html). Alumni play a prominent role on the Board.
Alexey Pankine, a Caltech alumnus is the Board Chair. 

The Board meets regularly (6-8 members attend on average) 
and is responsible for all decision making within the club. 
We have made important organizational progress (adopting bylaws and running elections
for club offices for the first time ever). CAA funding from last year has helped make 
it possible. We are aksing CAA to continue to fund refreshements for Board Meetings. 
We budget 10 monthly meetings with $15 per meeting for a total of $150. 

(2) "Meet the Alumni" program. (http://www.rusclub.caltech.edu/activities.html#alumnispeakers).
This is a series of dinner meeting with alumni speakers promoting informal interaction 
and focusing on networking and discussion of career opportunities. 

We opened the program with Alexei Pankine talking about his work experience in an 
R&D company and will continue on November 17 with Konstantin Matveev, an out of town alumnus, 
who has worked as a postdoc at Los Alamos National Laboratory and is now a Senior 
Hydrodynamicist at Art Anderson Associates, a Seattle-based company developing advanced marine
vessels. Our next speakers will be Ulyana Diudina and Dmitry Kossakovski who will talk 
about their careers in science and industry respectively.

Last year we received $300 from CAA for this program. This program is proving to be very
effective in bringing alumni and current club members together. We are asking for $400 in 
2004-2005 to help us increase its scope.