Engineers Without Borders

Board Meeting 1/07/09

January 7, 2009 at 11:33 pm | In Meeting Minutes | Comments Off

EWB Board Meeting 1/7/09

Updates:

• There are 2 spots open for speakers at general meetings this term (there are no rooms available in Kelley for Feb. 11^th either, maybe we could do a workshop that day)

• We received a grant from Nationals for $500 (total, not per person) for the national conference in Milwaukee.

• Malia will coordinate making the EWB cookbook. She needs someone on campus to help create it, as well as the submission of recipes from EWB members. It will also include Salvadoran recipes with their accompanying stories, too. It will be published for sale at events, etc. Aparna will announce the need for someone to help with this at the next general meeting.

• Brad was thinking of using mailing lists to ask previous donors and possibly faculty for help financially. He would send a message describing the successes in the previous year and our current financial state. He will bring a draft for board approval.

• Brad and Jaynie are debating when to hold the banquet. October is bad because it is the end of the fiscal year for many big companies. November may be a better option. That will also give us more time to get out the word. Brad: we could also do it in January to avoid hitting people during midterms. Katie: but that would also be right after many people donate during the holidays.

• Kelly: following up on changes to EWB nationals professional mentor rules, we need to voice are problems with the requirements of three years work experience or a PE. This excludes public health people, chemical engineers, etc. This rule was changed last summer and not well publicized. Evan: we should write a notice to EWB-USA explaining how this restricts our already limited resource of professionals interested in our project. Kevin: from their perspective, they want someone experienced present to supervise on-site design changes. Jessica: this problem probably applies to other chapters far from urban areas. Kevin: when we go to EWB conventions we should find contacts with chapters that might be in similar positions. Brad: we should also make sure we talk to Doug and Kelley about this. Evan: we should mention in our letter that available professionals might be far away from the project, making their input limited.

Project Summary

• The December project implemented rainwater catchment systems at three close together houses in Cerro Caballo. Jaynie and Kaileen went down four days early to do some set up work. The remaining five went down on December 10^th and began work on the 11^th. The travelers got up before dark and worked until sundown for 10 days.

• We used a cement mixer to pour all three tank foundations in one day and hired masons to lead the tank construction. After that we split up and worked on the gutters for the tanks and rain barrels, also installed at each house. Half of each roof will feed the tanks, the other half, the rain barrels for use in the rainy season. We built two wash stations, leaving materials for a third with one of the homeowners at his request. After the main group left the remaining members worked on surveying for future trips and some public health education. They also did a filter distributions.

• We have narrowed potential future projects to Lower Las Mercedes and Cerro Segovia. The El Naranjito community members were not ready to talk to us about a project, so we did not survey there.

• Cerro Segovia has a polyducto water system for all except three houses, where we would install rainwater catchments.

• Lower Las Mercedes would be much more difficult, requiring a gravity system with pipeline running over difficult terrain.

Budget issues:

• We exceeded the originally allotted $12000 by about $4000, most of which was materials. Lumber was more expensive than we anticipated and we needed more sand and gravel (when we ordered 1 cubic meter we only received around .75 cubic meters). Transportations costs have gone up, and plane tickets were also about $500 more than expected collectively. There were various other costs that were higher than we expected, but these were by far the largest.
• We need to be much more careful that travelers are more aware of what to do if we need to spend more and how much money is really available before they travel.
• Kelley wants to try to have a financial liaison between the project team and board to keep them in better touch. She also feels that miscommunication between her and the travelers was a large part of the problem.
• We have sold all extra concrete to the community and are trying to sell the remaining extra materials.
• We currently owe Daysi’s $2157, the rest of the excess spending will be difficult to determine until Scott and Kaileen return from their extended trip in Central America.
• With the ISA Mundo funds we will need to borrow around $500 from the general fund to pay them.

Meeting ajourned

Executive board meeting to discuss project overspending issues:

Factors that may have led to overspending:

• Inexperienced negotiation.
• There were many unforeseen costs (the extra sand and gravel, high cost of lumber and gutters, etc)
• The cost estimate may not have been done well enough before the travelers left. The project was already at budget before the project started.
• Travelers weren’t aware how much they were spending, there wasn’t enough organization for the finances.

• Also, the board wasn’t alerted to this problem until a week after the first travelers returned
• (after the meeting, I remembered that the two people who had largely been managing the budget were both still out of country; Jaynie in Mexico and Kayleen still in Central America. I think the board was only alerted after Jaynie emailed from Mexico and asked Julia to send an email to the board.)

Ways spending could have been reduced one this trip:

• A better cost estimate based on lessons learned from past trips would have given travelers some warning about the cost of some items, such as pipe fittings and the smaller than expected loads of sand and gravel delivered. Since this was the third trip, we shouldn’t have been so surprised by these extra costs
• If travelers were all more aware of the chapter financial situation they would have been more cautious with their money.

The biggest issues were the lack of communication back to the US about overspending and the mentality that there isn’t a significant divide between the chapter and the project that should prohibit spending like this.
Kevin: The issue now is what we should put in place so this doesn’t happen again

There will be several requirements for future trips:

• If spending exceeds the original budget by more than %10 travelers should have to contact the board for approval or limit the project.
• Email approval of at least 2 executive board members will be sufficient
• Spending beyond this limit may not be covered by the chapter
• One of the travelers needs to be in control of overall spending, keeping a book of all expenses and deciding how much can be spent.

As of now the current travel team and design group will be required to do several things. These are not meant to come off as something personal against the travelers or as a punishment, but things that are absolutely necessary to correct this serious problem and prevent it from happening in the future.

• The project team will need to do a post mortem report on all previous implementation trips to figure out what has led to excess spending and how it compares from trip to trip.
• From this they can make a spreadsheet of actual costs and things to look out for when estimating costs for future trips.
• The project team will need to have this report ready for the board on Monday February 9^th. Personal reimbursements are pending on this.
• We want the design team/travelers to come up with ideas on how to prevent this from happening in the future.

The board will loan up to $500 from the general fund to the project team to repay Daysi’s.