Engineers Without Borders

Kenya Meeting Minutes 8-25-09

September 1, 2009 at 8:06 am | In Meeting Minutes | Comments Off

EWB-Kenya Notes

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

Attending: Mikkel, Daniel, Marshall, Luke, Justin, Aparna, Birdie, Courtney, Josh

Mission Statement: Our vision is a world in which all communities have the capacity to meet their basic human needs.

Announcements/updates:

- Travelers’ Status

o Doing well

o Everything under control

o Andy came back on Sunday

§ Traveler meeting tomorrow

o Mark is coming back today

§ Might be joining traveler meeting

- Meetings in travelers’ absence—who wants to run them?

o Running meetings

§ Mikkel

§ Note taker: Courtney

Assignments/personal updates:

- Everyone

o Bikers: thanks you note status

§ Courtney

· Sent out

§ Justin

· Will write them soon

o Give Kendra or Rob bike ride donations

- Aparna

o Community call: solar panel use, perdiems

§ Have not been able to make contact yet

§ Will try again tonight

o EWB-OSU facebook admin update

§ EWB-OSU facebook page has not been updated

§ We will copy and paste from general website to there

§ El Salvador has one do we want our own?

· Will require more time to do our own

· El Salvador group has only one person in it

· Don’t want to split up group any more than we have to

o Twitter through phones while in Kenya

§ Will look into this

- Mikkel

o Graphic design for brochure

§ Get in contact with

· Aparna will send contact

§ Will discuss whether we have an individual Kenyan brochure, or just general brochure when travelers get back

§ Will get started on a Kenyan brochure

o Send dish detail info to Brad and Katie

o Distribute receipt forms from Aparna to bikers and Michelle

§ Forgot them

§ Will give to Justin

- Kendra

o Send Michelle the bike ride registration form

§ Done

- Luke

o Kenyan friend

§ Has number

§ Feels it is a little late to be trying to arrange something

§ He lives here in Corvallis

§ Kendra sent an email to travelers about him

- Courtney & Justin

o Letter of Inquiry update—Western Union, Pure Water Group

§ Not sent

§ Should come from project leaders

§ Mikkel will look into

· Justin and Courtney will send Mikkel information for different groups

§ Justin will send out Western Union grant

Fundraisers:

- Water walk

o Feasibility

§ Maybe not be able to accomplish it

§ See a problem with signing people up for it and then them getting pledges

§ Email to EWB OSU list serv in a couple of weeks

· List serv active for meeting announcements, should not rely on list serv for publicity

o Have 400 people, some still not around, they just want to receive updates

§ Short amount of time

§ Cost of doing it

· Shelter: $50

· Shirts:

· Pay for getting money in city (maybe): $150

§ Other things we could be focusing on when travelers get back

§ Push back in Spring term

· Then figure out where our priorities are then

§ Good way to get some publicity as project gets started

§ Need point people to do this

· Michelle really busy, she is taking over El Salvador project

· Justin and Mikkel publicity people will not be able to take this on

· Afraid other things will be dropped because of how busy we become

§ Have El Salvador done stuff like this?

· No, they have relied on banquet, grants, personal donations

· How often should we have fundraising events

o Don’t want to exhaust personal contacts and networks

o We won’t be getting donations only working the event

§ Getting more students involved

§ Good publicity, help people understand

§ People won’t want to do this individual that don’t know about the project and the problem

· Students wrong source of fundraising

· Students should only be participating

§ October 24^th

· 3rd week of term

· Hook in new members

· Push it back

o Or keep in mind for spring

§ Take a vote?

· Water challenge change to that?

o Comes from water project.org

o They set out materials to make fundraiser work

o Advertise water problems around the world

o Every time you choose a drink, then you choose water and thus save money and donate this after two weeks

o Works with other groups

o Will need some marketing going on

o Would college students do it?

§ Would only be money saved for drinks so it should be fine

o Problem: tie two weeks together so easy to get us money

§ Need to be reminded

o Wait on water walk till spring

o World water day March, doing one in Portland

§ April 22^nd Earth day

§ Our own

§ Do our own water walk then

o Who wants to take the water challenge on?

§ Luke, Marshall

· Find out:

o Who are we going to be focusing on

o Which one of their publications to work with

o Everyone okay with moving on with water walk

§ Justin talk to Michelle about changing it

o Could do water challenge with/without El Salvador

§ Fundraising events EWB things

§ Board will have to figure out how we are going to be splitting funds

· Better activity for the fall

o Won’t have to guarantee on weather

o Fall term focus

§ Awesome publicity

· Portray good image for different groups

· Heavily depending on grant money

o Could wreak more benefits

o But they want to see that we can make our own money

§ Which we have been doing

- Bag Fundraiser (Kate)

o Status

§ Good

§ Contact made rendition of logo that will work for order

o How many bags to order?

§ They do 100 increments of bags

· $350

· As a club we can sell this

· Wait for board approval to buy

· Should be general club

· Aparna will get in touch with board

· Kate send Aparna latest vector art

- Banquet

o Separate meetings for banquet and general in fall

§ Committee made for the banquet, will wait until travelers get back

o Decorations

§ Daniel

· Place mats, table runners

· Tables are rounds

· Has 5 or 6 settings with 8 sets

o Can order more

§ Person that he got it from is leaving for the US in 5 weeks, if we want to order more have to do that soon

o $20-$25 for each set of 8

§ Runner, place mats, coasters

§ Picture message Aparna

§ Shipping?

· Ground up to 3 months

· Fed ex, UPS = $150

· Flat rate to ship

§ See what travelers can find when they are there

· If travelers don’t find anything then can we still get from mama’s group

o Auction them off

§ Need to buy them if going to

· Auction used and not used ones?

· Would need to make decent profit

o Cost per set $50-$60

o Benefits local area in Africa

o How we want to set it up

§ Not enough place mats

· Ones that compliments colors

· Every other plate?

· Mingle then within

· Could work

· Bold colors = East Africa

o Save the dates

§ Update on El Salvador Banquet Coordinators’ sentiments on us sending out Save the Dates so early – reevaluate send date

· Don’t want to send out our save the dates before their banquet

o Confuse attendees for their banquet

o Re-evaluate when we will be sending them out

o We also need to advertise

o We were offered a chance to give a short presentation at Corvallis banquet

§ Announce in person

§ Kind of late notice though

o Only 15 contacts from bike race

§ Don’t have that long of list to send out if don’t have EWB general contacts

§ Rough draft (Birdie)

· Looking into logo from a friend

· Sent out 3 different choices

· Some of them harder to read

· Adam’s logo have not seen yet

§ Different materials and cost for snail mail to send

· Print on card stock and then cut them

o Could also print address onto the card stock

§ Send out first round 1^st week of September

§ What list to go off of

· EWB donation list can’t go off

· Who will we be sending to?

o Have list from bike ride

o Courtney: school has friends that

o Multnomah first Friday’s get people registered there?

§ Where? Main street of Multnomah, near venue

§ Courtney has contacted them and we could probably get a booth there

· Need to build list of people that we can contact to go to the banquet

o Past EWB contacted people

o Contacting NGO’s and engineers in area

o Courtney; has contact to engineer group in Beaverton

o Hopefully would have a contact in a company

§ More effective if know someone then they send it out

o Professors

§ Good network with colleges

§ Courtney connection with PSU and engineering platform

o Google doc for people we want to contact

§ First only names, to get idea of how many we will be sending out

§ Add tab to EWB banquet tab

· Please list people that we can probably contact

o By next meeting

§ No need to send them out before travelers get back

o Entertainment

§ Anything new from WOU (Courtney), Chicamarimba (Kendra), or Eugene (Kate) connections?

· WOU

o Minimum $500

· Courtney posted a request for entertainment on craigslist

o Call for African entertainment

o A girl that wanted to do Jimba drumming

§ Get more info

· Courtney; Street fair on Alberta

o Last time lots of African drummer and African dancers

o Will go again and ask

· Marimba group at farmers market

o Don’t see them going to Portland

o If we contacted them they could suggest other marimba groups

· Kate hasn’t heard much

§ E-mail of interest from stand up comedian: www.JenniferLanier.com

· Done a lot performances dealing with Africa

· Would want to watch one of her performances before signing her

· She contacted us

o Dishes

§ Word from El Salvador about wanting to buy in with us?

· Waiting on individual pricing on dishware

§ Look into rentals—who?

· Will do later

· Mikkel has done a little bit will send it to person who takes it on

o Leaders for banquet

§ Aparna taking on banquet when she gets back

§ Courtney interested

§ Figure out committee when fall start

§ Doesn’t exclude other people

- Travelers Will be calling Mikkel with info so if want to be on contact list

- Break down of what’s going on, Itinerary for time in Kenya

o Leaving 31^st arriving Tuesday night at 7pm

o Mark’s friend will be picking them up, along with Wilson, Charles’s son

o They will take them to lodging

o Tuesday morning buy cell phone (or not have Daniel’s phone)

o Then send number to Mikkel

o Take bus to Magori

§ Budget all day for this

o Get to lela

o Stay until Thursday

o Head back to Nairobi

o Andy is leaving the 13^th

o Once in Lela

§ A tour of community from Charle’s and family

§ 3^rd meeting with elders and leaders

§ Health assessments and GIS mapping

§ Want something flexible

o Adam, Kendra and Aparna will be leaving the 17^th

§ Don’t know what they will be doing those extra days yet

Assignment List:

- Everyone

o Give Kendra or Rob bike ride donations

- Aparna

o Add Justin to facebook editors

o Send Mikkel graphic design contact

o Send Bike Ride thank yous

- Courtney

o Send Mikkel information for Pure water group

o Add contact to engineering company in Beaverton on google docs

o Add connection with PSU and engineering platform to google doc

o Get more info on Jimba drummer that contacted you about craigslist add

- Mikkel

o Send dish details to Brad and Katie

- Kate

o Send Aparna latest vector art

- Luke

o Water challenge

§ Find out:

· Who are we going to be focusing on

· Which one of their publications to work with

- Marshall

o Water challenge

§ Find out:

· Who are we going to be focusing on

· Which one of their publications to work with

- Justin

o Send out bike ride thank you’s

o Send out Western Union grant

o Talk to Michelle about not doing water walk

o Send Aparna donor contacts

- Adam

o Send Aparna Donor Contacts