Engineers Without Borders

Board Meeting October 31st

October 31, 2007 at 8:55 pm | In Meeting Minutes |

Kelley 2056

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Members attending in person:

Nick Hogle, Kendra Seniow, Evan Miles, Katie , Jesse B, Doug Van Bossuyt, Rob Hess, Brad Eagleson, Kelly Wilson, Aparna Shrivasta, Jessica Varin, John Sessions.

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1. El Salvador Project
   1. Additional travelers
      1. Additional traveler justification – Jessica

Estimated Number of people days was assigned to each task that the project team would like to see implemented. The initial list has 129 people days listed with 36 days deficit. To supplement the deficit different ideas were generated: add more travelers, change time frames, reduce systems implemented, assign work to be completed beforehand, complete fewer potters for peace assessments.

The idea is to utilize the community manpower from houses that get rainwater catchment systems. The estimated cost per traveler is around $1100.

1. 1. 2. Board votes to approve/deny additional travelers (includes funding tickets)

It is decided that the full board less those who have applied for travel will vote. Vote passes 10-0 with three abstained due to applications to travel.

1. 1. 3. Selection committee info

Thursday at 6pm. Kendra, Jessica, Doug, Rob, Dr Sessions and potentially Brian Wood or John Gambatese will comprise the selection committee

1. 2. Summary of traveler prep work

Evan will summarize the traveler prep work for us to look at to conserve time.

1. 3. Status of preparations (airline tickets, vaccinations, in-country arrangements, etc)

The most pressing upcoming item is purchasing airline tickets.

1. 4. TAC review Status

Carl is heading a tac review presentation adding the new travelers and Aaron our new professional. We will wait to purchase plane tickets until we have tac approval.

2. Fundraising
   1. Brad & Kendra B. now grant writing committee
      1. OSU Student Foundation $$$ for airline tickets

Brad should have that written and submitted this weekend.

2. 1. 2. CoE funding request

Upcoming

2. 2. Need a new fundraising coordinator

Katie and Lyndsey may be interested. Katie will discuss it wil lyndsey and get back to the board.

2. 3. Banquet coordinator(s) for next year?

To facilitate beginning planning of next years banquet to ensure that we have better pick of dates and such.

2. 4. Football parking

Last weekend they couldn’t get football parking volunteers last weekend. The next opportunity will be two weeks from now.

2. 5. Thank you letters for banquet

The banquet committee will deal with finishing this. Rob will draft a letter for approval at the next general meeting.

3. IT Report

There is a lot of disorganization and duplicated documents on the STAK drive currently. Nick has a web for reorganizing it and potentially have a readme to facilitate everyone keeping things structured.

The new website system will have the current external site and internal site. The internal site will include the wiki, document search and file access to the things on stak. Nick had 4 people who made themselves available to work on the IT committee.

Rob will take care of cleaning up the public HTML site and reorganizing the photo gallery.

4. Organic Growers Project Update

A huge Success; there are photos of the currently on Facebook. Most of the work was completed with 3-4 hours more of work for this Saturday. The gutters need to be plumbed to the barrels and the barrels need to be given downspouts. Next Wednesday Nick will give a brief presentation on the event.

5. Membership Update

Nick got a list of addresses and phone numbers for the paid members. Before we submit membership to national we will make sure we have the board having paid. The fees got updated to $400 but we haven’t been received.

6. Speakers for next meeting

· Permaculture presentation- potentially invite Organic Growers Club

· Crystal Clear Technologies

· Jesse will speak on the Wind Turbine Project

7. Wind Turbine Potential Project Update

The general idea is to use the wind turbines to create lighting for security. They will need several different types of engineers and some non-technical work to be done also. Jesse thinks that it would be a idea to mesh his chapter with ours, creating another project committee for EWB.

8. Public Relations
   1. Additional/continued tasks needing support

We have one person who expressed interest in helping at the last general meeting. Currently Adriane seems to be busy but we should search out some one to help in a coordinator position and help.

8. 2. Purchase of easels/display boards for meetings and booths

To have a nice presentation at events like the banquet and other events. It would cost $50-$70. Also have a vinyl banner made. Unanimous decision to proceed with this.

8. 3. More pamphlets

Rob can print 100 or so on engineering campus.

8. 4. Business Cards
   5. Beaver Open House

Nov 17^th there will be the student event on campus.

9. Habitat for Humanity Update

Currently Brian Wood has been difficult to contact. Katie will be looking into getting his contacts and communicating with them directly.

10. Constitution Changes
    1. Reorganization of the organization structure
    2. Position Descriptions
    3. Additional item(s) for constitution
11. Positions
    1. Booth Coordinator
    2. Rotary liaison
    3. Others
12. Partnering with University of Cantabria
    1. How do we do it

The idea would be to have them as a sister chapter where they had their own project and us do our own. Then we share project workers on our projects between El Salvador and hopefully their project in Africa.

12. 2. Who will investigate this further- Kendra and potentially Nikhil