Engineers Without Borders

5-28-08 Board Meeting

May 28, 2008 at 8:36 pm | In Meeting Minutes | Comments Off

Engineers Without Borders Board Meeting

May 28th 2008, 7:00pm

Kelly 2057

Members attending in person:

Nick Moses, Kevin Boston, Malia Kupillas, Kelly Kibbler, Evan Miles, Katie Bruce, Carl Moen, Janice Keeley, Douglas Van Bossuyt, Kendra Seniow, Kelly Wilson, Rob Hess, Aparna Shrivastana, Jesse Boudart, Bruce Pritchard

1. Year Book Photos

The year book wants photos representative of the travelers to El Salvador for publishing. Kelly Kibbler and Evan will coordinate that.

2. Ted Brekken

Dr. Brekken is writing a grant with money specifically allocated for outreach, and would like to coordinate with EWB. Rob met with Dr. Brekken last week to discuss possibility for us. This could involve helping with measurements or us being on the receiving end of some seminars.

3. Update on El Salvador and Request for Funds to Travel to El Salvador

The materials for the June project installation in Las Mercedes will be around $3500. In addition to this are other fees associated with Lawyers, Plane tickets and local labor totaling everything to $9874. In Las Mercedes there is little ambiguity as to who owns the water source and they have received an oral agreement from that owner, Tom Hawk, but will not have a binding agreement.

At this point they decided that there hasn’t been sufficient progress for installation at El Naranjito. There are 6 or 7 land owners that would need to confirm documentation to begin progress on legal contracts for the project.

The worst case scenario would be that Tom Hawk takes ownership of the system and the community would lose use of the system. The best case would be that the contracts get signed afterwards and the installation of the LM system inspires the rest of the community to better organize.

Tom saw and approved a proposal for the project. To proceed with the Las Mercedes project, the travel team will get a signed letter giving permission for the project until the official contract is signed by the land owners or their representatives.

Doug motioned, and Robb seconded, to approve the budget release for the project in June, contingent upon getting travel insurance for the tickets and urging the travel team to get informal contracts with the land owners in Las Mercedes. It passed 13-0-0.

4. Report on Poker NIght

The poker night was a learning experience. It officially lost money but a lot of information was spread around.

5. Planning for Fall Banquet

The committee will be October 24^th. They will need a few people to be on the banquet committee.

6. New Project Committee Report

The new project committee has narrowed down a list of 20 to 4 options that can be selected or not. They looked initially looked at size of the project, less than 2 years to complete, to rule out projects. They wanted something out skill sets match. Potentially we could partner with ISF in Santander, Spin. They have mostly skills with water quality.

The projects

· Cruz de Valencia, Honduras. The community is 5k from the airport. They have had several economic issues where they have lost city infrastructure or was never built. They are looking first for bridges for banana carriage and then water and sewer. They have initiated a funding process with different organizations. The request came from a local NGO. A kill point would be the size of the bridge.

· Malera, Kenya. Near Lake Victoria. There is an existing hand pump and would like a submersible pump into an existing borehole. They are looking for a limited distribution system and power for the system.

· Maseno, Kenya. Their hospital has an older water catchment system and on an old grid and they need more quantity and quality. The project would be to dig and power a well. This project is rejected based on high costs for digging, traveling and low volunteer prospects.

· Sokouroni, Mali. The community has WQ issues due to livestock contamination, general sanitation and availability. They would like to construct a water source strictly for livestock to separate the sources. A peace corps volunteer would like to have a pond filled from 2 streams during the rainy system that would last through the summer. The pond could also be a fish stocking pond to provide protein and income for the community.

At this point the group will research more fully the 3 projects and present them at the first meetings of the

7. Business Cards

Rob will be taking care of the business cards to be used in the fall.

8. Transition Board Meeting

We will have an end of the year board transition planning meeting where we will lay out a game plan for the beginning of next year.

Minutes prepared by:  Kelly Wilson, May 28^th, 2008