Engineers Without Borders

Board Meeting 5/21

May 22, 2009 at 4:47 pm | In Meeting Minutes | Comments Off

1. Contact with EWB Kenya

• They sent us a business-business agreement. It seems unreasonable, though.
• They would have complete control over contractors, materials supply,etc.
• Evan asked Nationals and they said not to sign it, citing them if we need to.
• We don’t really want to have a memorandum of understanding with them until after the assessment trip
• We also want to get in touch with the community and see if they actually want the project
• Dartmouth was working in Kenya then dropped their project, which has been picked up by a professional chapter. Jerry, the EWB Kenya guy, might have been trying to cheat them too.

Scott motioned to not sign the memorandum, telling EWB Kenya  that we are appreciative but don’t feel comfortable right now.

Adam seconded.

6 against signing, none for, motion passes.

2. The 3 x 3 basketball tournament is not going to happen this year for lack of interest.

• It probably was not well enough organized and people felt like they wouldn’t be good enough for such a serious tournament
• They group working on it will look for sponsors during the summer and lower the  registration fee to minimize the competitive feel.
• It could also be combined with greek week next year to get more participation.

3. Banquet

• It will be Nov. 6 in the MU ballroom
• Brad is working on save the date letters
• We should email the general listserv now asking they can invite people sooner or send their names to us. We will send out the save the date document with the email.

4. El Salvador

• Lower las Mercedes needs a commandanto or legal agreement for water rights, though they’re not sure if they will have the money.
• Scott is looking for a guy he knows who could do this for us probono.
• If all else fails, we might be looking for request for funding soon.
• Kelley warned the community that we don’t have a lot of money right now.

• ISAMUNDO did online fundraising for us last year.
• We sent them a thankyou letter and receipts, now they are asking for quotation from us about our experience working with them. Anything sent by EWB should be approved by board. Someone on project team will write it then send it to board.

5. Storage

• There were problems getting stuff last weekend for the health conference.
• We should be able to get into Dr. Bostons room in Peavey room if he gives us passcode and we make an extra key.
• Materials need to be collected from the offices of Malia, Kelly, Dr. Boston, Doug, and Rob.

• Kelley was talking about file system to store all project documents. She has been looking into space with COE.
• It turns out we already have hard drive space for electronic storage.

6. Fundraising

• OSU foundation-EWB isn’t a very high priority.
• Scott will be talking to their head, but it we might not be able to get on their list.

• Someone’s roommate can get doughnuts for us next week.

• Funding recap form – Dr. Boston said if we cite tree planting in Kenya we might be able to get funding.

• Dads week fundraiser: A punt/pass/kick competition. The top three would get to go out during football game and win something. We will pursue this during the summer

7. General

• We have $2000 right now + more in donations that hasn’t arrived yet (and the El Salvador project debt).

We should remind people how to help out over the summer at the next general meeting
Fundraising – Helping coordinate Jesses run. Finding banquet contacts

We are doing football parking next fall again.

Other community for involvement:

• Habitat for Humanity doesn’t start working for another week, so we will organize this again next year.

Class presentations – they are effective, but we need a way for people to get involved once we get them to show up to a meeting

• We need activities for people, but not to  intimidate them.
• Work on Indian reservations?
• Trail Restoration is an easy and local one.

We should post these things and announce them at meetings so people can go on their own/with other groups/ EWB
We could also advertise for SSI and vice versa
This summer we can line up projects to announce next year