Engineers Without Borders

Board Meeting 9/26/08

September 26, 2008 at 9:59 pm | In Meeting Minutes | Comments Off

EWB Board meeting 9/26/08

Attendence:

· Carl Moen

· Aparna Shrivastava

· Lindsay Croghan

· Katie Bruce

· Evan Miles

· Jessica Varin

· Nick Moses

· Nikhil Prem

· John Simonds

New Public health advisor:

· Anna Harding, a public health professor, approached us with interest in working with EWB. She will be our new public health mentor.

Changes in appointed positions this year:

· Jessica varin-PR.

o She wants to create short term projects (i.e. publications group to make a new brochure) for new members to hook people into EWB. She wants to bring a list of these to announce at the first general meeting.

· Open positions:

o Fundraising, IT/webmaster (possibly separate if we can find enough people)

Presentations this term:

· 7-8 classes we are invited to come to starting second week of school.

· Possible ways for people to sign up to EWB listserv in these classes:

o Hand out business cards in class (self addressed to our campus mail box).

o Sign up sheets

Project:

Evan: We need to refocus on fundraising. We could maybe have a brainstorm session/fundraising meeting. Rob could present about our current financial situation/need for money so the group as a whole understands how important it is. We also need to make sure that everybody is involved in the actual fundraising. We recently received a large grant, but the project will only be able to continue in the future if we pay more attention to fundraising.

Website:

· Kendra Seniow has started a (still unfinished) wiki program.

· Jessica will find someone to at least manage the calendars.

Long term goals:

· Educational workshops (suggested by Jessica):

We could put together small educational workshops so people can learn the various skills needed in EWB. Hopefully we could find somebody to manage these and make sure people know about them. This would depend on people volunteering to initiate workshops.

Carl: We should organize workshops ourselves and offer them to anyone interested so we don’t have to wait for someone to volunteer to teach.

Evan: We should add 20 minute workshops to meetings so there aren’t so many events and we don’t overwhelm people.

Carl: Ask speakers to keep time down to 30 min.

Lindsay: Maybe try to relate the workshops and speaker’s topic.

Jessica: We should invite some of the best educators on campus to come speak/possibly teach.

Lindsay: Alternating speakers/workshops every week. Speak on topic one week, workshop next week.

Carl will head up finding speakers for meetings.

· Evan: We need to really maintain an active group level all year. 30-60 people.

· Finishing work in El Salvador and selecting a new project:

o We need to finish up in El Salvador in the next two years if not sooner. The fundraising effort also needs to be increased.

o Lindsay: There’s no rush, though. It’s more important to do the job right there than start a new project.

o Jessica: We also need to raise more money before we start another international project.

o Evan: We should be ready to apply for another project at the end of this year, so the transition is easier.

· Finding local projects this year:

o Evan: We don’t need more, the wind project and habitat are enough. We should be getting to the point where we finish projects before we start more.

o Jessica: small outreach projects (like habitat) are still good. They are great for getting people involved.

· Involving local professionals, either with project or chapter. (suggested by Evan)

o i.e. There is an Hp engineer who really wants to get involved, but was having trouble getting ahold of us (contacted Portland EWB without any luck).

o Evan: CH2MHill? We could ask something like three of them to give presentation to us, anything to get them involved. Could be a valuable connection.

§ We need to know ahead of time what to ask of them.

§ We do have some contacts with them.

· Film festival to attract new members? (Nikhil)

Sustainable energy initiative: (name change from biodiesel)

· They have a new website.

· Working on increasing fundraising. Any donations from EWB could be appreciated.

· They are getting ready to start construction for their project in Fiji after they decide what to implement (such as microhydro or palm oil to diesel fuel). It will be installed this summer.

Possible speakers for this term:

· Jessica suggested looking at Corvallis environmental center.

Update from Project Team.

· Aaron in states for knee surgery. Will be in El Salvador (not necessarily community) soon.

· Summer project reduced from two systems to one due to labor, property claims, lack of community interest, etc. System built was successful

· FONAES picked up rainwater catchment in this area, there are a few holes. Have to decide where to pick these up. This week they will decide which one and start planning first trip. Three total at least this year.

· Evan: We should get map of the community to aid in visualization of what we have done and how much is left. Kelly would be a good person to do this.

New project selection:

· At end of last year, the committee narrowed down options with intention to vote on second or third meeting of this year. However there has been a lot of change, we will have to look at these again. We should narrow these down to four projects by last or second to last board meeting of term then present and choose during start of second term.

· Could we do a local project, on an Indian reservation maybe?

· Aparna: We should we look at a smaller project, with a tangible end.

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