Engineers Without Borders

El Salvador Meeting 5/11/09

May 12, 2009 at 8:08 pm | In Meeting Minutes | Comments Off

Announcments

1. Conference call:

• After every report submission, our TAC advisors want a conference call to ask questions about the trip and discuss the future.
• They talked about using polyducto instead of pvc or galvanized pipe. Even if we don’t have pressure specs, if it is well documented that it has been used before in the area, we can use it too.
• Professional mentor issues; they weren’t sure if mentor form last trip was qualified.
• They revised their expectations for a professional mentor at our request. Now they just require somebody trained in a relevant field, not a PE.
• We can submit our TAC report for the next trip during the summer then go sometime in the future.

2. Meeting format: The board has proposed combining both project meetings once a week after a short general meeting, where they would break out into separate rooms to conduct their meetings.

• We could keep Monday meetings as work sessions
• Alternating Wednesdays and Thursdays (so people can make one at least every other week) might or might not work out
• General meetings might not have enough time. Maybe we could have longer general meetings every other week or several times a term for presentations, etc. that attract some people.
• Could help keep groups connected.
• People couldn’t participate in both groups (Kenya and El Salvador). However, they could still go to every other or go back and forth.
• If we schedule rooms soon enough we shouldn’t have any trouble getting them for next term.

3. Poster presentation at health conference this weekend, we might need volunteers for Saturday morning. Talk to Carl.

4.Kelly got an email from the PCV. Lower las Mercedes is making progress on legal documents for water rights and are asking for financial help (this cost $600 last time), however we’re still in the red.

• Could we ask the lawyer to work for less? We think he already is.
• Has all of the money we already transferred for legal work been spent? Kelly will check.
• It might be better to work on fundraising, we could also get money from the board if we had to.
• We should go back to rotary for funding. However, it would still probably take six months if it worked.
• Local San Salvador rotary has to be on board with the project. They give us a base donation, then US rotaries would compliment it.
• We have been unsuccessful with Rotary in the past, but also disorganized.
• We do have new contacts with rotaries in Portland and EWB nationals.
• Kelly will look into this.
• For now we will say we could try, but need to know the amount before we say for sure.

Fundraiser Ideas:

1. 5k run/walk. This sounds like a good idea if someone wants to plan it

• Probably should be early fall. There might not be enough time this term
• We would also need to talk to the city.

2. Printed waterbottles?

• We should look into the initial cost first

3. Bake sale

• Could be profitable (Krispy Kreme is an example)
• We could do it next Wednesday. There is a motorcycle show by the brick mall from 9-2, we could set up nearby. Lyndsey will look into permission. One person at least might need to have a food handlers permit. We will ask for volunteers at general meeting this week.
• We could cook in womens building? They do only have one oven.
• Could we advertise on barometer or Mime bulletin?

4. Other ideas: all possible if someone wants to put them together.

• Card run
• Relay
• Eating contest

Design Team:

• We still need to find prices of plastic tanks from Rotoplas to compare them with cinderblock and ferrocement. We will ask Aaron O. to call them for us.