Engineers Without Borders

3-6-08 Board Meeting

March 5, 2008 at 9:39 pm | In Meeting Minutes |

• March 6th, 2008, 7:00pm

Kelley 2057

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Members in Attendance: Aparna, Aracelli, Malia, Jessica Varin, Kati, Kendra, Carl, David, Jesse, Dr. Sessions, Doug, Brad, Rob, Kelly Kibbler, Kelly Wilson, lindsey C

I. Requests for Conference Funding - David

There are currently $2475 from departments and $2475 from COE. Reimbursements will be made with receipts. Total cost of trip was ~$500 a person covering food, conference registration, hotel etc.

II. Review of Spring Break Travel Proposal

The project team believes its necessary to go to El Salvador Spring break to

1. secure site for construction
2. assess water levels during dry season as well as soil analysis
3. Begin work on attaining access for beginning construction
4. explain properly to Aaron and community about horizontal wells and infiltration Gallery
5. identify more locations for future rain water catchment system

They received an email from Aaron O confirming that Easter day will be the end of the holiday. The week before easter is the holiday. Transportation into the communities on Sat or Sun could be difficult. They have meetings set up with people to begin working on land ownership issues. At this point Aaron feels uncomfortable doing any of the soil/other assessments. It might be inappropriate to ask Aaron to come up to the US. It would probably be out of his scope of project.

At this point the water system is projected to not be an annual system. If any of the 5 sites come up with water that would be above expectations. If no water is found during dry season, soil analysis will give information to help this decision. It could take 1-3 days to complete these assessments at 1 or 2 sites per day. The 5 sites came from observations from the Dec trip. Also kept in mind head lost and proposed flow to determine range of area where the site would be. Our project may require artificially raising the water table because the area has lots of bedrock.

Malia gave us an overview of a project in Oaxaca that she and her husband participated in. They constructed a filtration gallery that would have a lot of pertinence to our project.

As of Monday tickets were at $1400. Aparna found a special for tickets $400 each way. Aaron O is meeting with Rotary this upcoming Monday. Potters for Peace distribution could occur during the trip if money can be transfered in the next week. The rationalization was made the the fee for the transfer would be worth being present for and associated with the distribution.

There will be a meeting the first week of April to get a jump start on the master plan. The idea is to complete assessments during construction trips in the future. Hopefully this assessment will be the last assessment where we are just gathering information and not dividing time between construction and assessment. The NGO fones may proceed with construction of rainwater catchment systems.

Rob moves that the Board provide funds for three travelers for the Spring Break Trip. Passed 4-0-0.

III. Ideas for Communication between the Project and Board

- Have some board members at project meetings to keep information flowing between both parts of the group

- Have the people approved to distribute large amounts of funds expanded to include people from the project team.

- Each week have someone from project team designated to go to board meeting.

- Have clearer minutes for Project meetings

- Have Project Coordinator become elected position- with voting rights

- Change system - Select travelers after TAC submission and submit TAC paperwork earlier on.

IV. Travelers

Doug made the motion, rob seconded, a motion to exchange Janice as a traveler for Alfonso on the Spring Break trip.