Winter Term

Hello, welcome to Winter Term!

Hello JSO members!
I hope your winter term is going wonderful! Sorry I haven't posted about JSO and everything we've been up to in awhile- which has been a lot!

New members- Welcome and thank you for joining JSO! Our meetings are weekly, Thursdays at 6:00 in Pacific 16. We'd love to have you- we usually do ice breakers and plan events and learn about Japanese and American culture from one another.

This term- we will be working on Rina's diversity forum, planning for the Spring movie series (YAY!), organizing a fundraiser at Pegasus pizza and maybe a cake walk. We also are going to talk together about maybe having specific discussions during the meetings where we can learn about certain pertinent topics regarding Japanese culture. This is just a few things among many things that we will be working on! If you have any ideas, please come talk to Kyoko and I (JSO Co-presidents) and we'll help you make your ideas/events happen!

Japan Night- Thank you tons for all your help- I've gotten so many positive comments from those around the EMU about how smooth it went and how much everyone enjoyed it! I hope you all had fun- you definitely showed UO and Eugene how awesome JSO is and none of this could have been possible without you :)

Budget Hearing- our budget hearing was last night. Thanks to Kyoko for leading the meeting and making sure we secured the funds for next year! We did not receive an increase but unfortunately no student groups received increases this year due to student group budget cuts. This means we will have to fundraise a bit of money in the coming terms to show ASUO that we are deserving of an increase next year. Thank you also TONS to ALL the JSO members who showed up! I'm sad I couldn't be there but I know that your presence at the meeting definitely helped make everything go well!

Leadership positions- Kyoko and I are graduating this spring. We need to find students who are interested in the president and vice president or co-president positions for next year as we need to start training them. If you are interested or know of anyone outside of JSO who is interested in Japanese culture and leadership, please invite them to a meeting and have them check JSO out! If you are personally interested, please let Kyoko or I know. This does not mean that you will be president, but we know who to look out for and who we can expect to step up and help us plan some events for these coming terms :)

To conclude, you're all wonderful, positive, fun loving people and I have so much respect for all of you! To all the domestic students, I'm so happy to know students who live and breath Japanese culture- something I didn't grow up with and that I'm still learning about. To all the exchange students, thank you for going on exchange and choosing UO and then also choosing to take the time to be in JSO- without you our club would not be complete! 

See you next Thursday!
Thank you again,
Hana Hiratsuka
JSO co-president