October 17th 2007 Board Meeting

October 18, 2007 at 10:26 am | In Meeting Minutes | Comments Off

October 17th, 2007, 7:00pm

Kelley 2056


Members attending in person:

Kendra Seniow, Kelly Wilson, Douglas Van Bossuyt, Kevin Boston, Jesse Boudart, Nikhil Prem, Nick Hogle, Evan Miles Brad Eagleson, Kendra Brown, Jessica Varin, Aparna Shrivastana


I.                    El Salvador Project Update and Business- Aparna Shrivastana and Jessica Varin

In the project meeting on Monday we discussed scheduling for the next few months and discussed legacy documents to create on the micro and macro level.

 At this point the scope of the project is to construct up to 3 water systems. The project team will ask for the names of the 3 families ahead of time. The cost of the project will be around $2000/tank. We are asking community members to learn construction of team and community will need to decide who gets what. There will have to be a session on how to treat the tank for repair and sanitation.

Also on the December trip the public health committee will be working to determine: if the community members are using the Potters For Peace pots, the pfp pots functionality, and assessment of the entire scope of the project in terms of helping or hindering the community.

1.      Paul Lorilla, director Isa Mundo, is looking to partner with EWB-OSU. To partner with them we would need to apply through EWB-USA and seek Tac Review to put that into action if we wanted to.

2.      Project Mentorship- There has been some confusion from the Portland Professionals on Professional mentors who may be sent our way. It seems that the email they sent that indicated that the contact us again with actual names. We have a few potential candidates, including Kevin Boston, which we will need to pin down at a future point.

3.      More Travelers- The project team has contacted the community to see if they could logistically accommodate more travelers and to help with working. There are concerns from the Peace Corps coordinator that more workers may make it more difficult to have community buy-in. At this point it is up to the board to decide on whether to send two extra students and fund them. Because we are looking for different skill sets than the original alternates that were selected the project would like to reselect two people. They would manage and select leaders in the community to promote replication of the project.

The cost per traveler is around $2000/person. They will definitely be housed in the community. Idea from Kevin: have one of the traveling members pick coffee to replace the community member’s to free them up to learn on the project.

Approval from board to allow the project team to can begin the application process for 2 travelers with details to be confirmed Actual approval will be granted when more details from the community are gathered concerning the affect the additional OSU members will have on the participation of the community.

4.      Organic Growers Club project. 6×8ft pump shed in field made from concrete bricks. Current project scope is to hand gutters and have downspouts drain into 55gal barrels. Old plan is to put rafter extensions, along which they’d attach gutter. There would be a foundation for the 4 barrels. 1 month in Oregon average rain would fill 150gal gallons or roughly half of barrels. Overflow would be dispersed in pipes. At home depot, PVC pipe fittings were identified.  Tools for construction will be borrowed from everyone working on the project and potentially the organic growers club. The cost of the system is estimated to be around $310. The board approved this expenditure 3-0 and will advise the absent member. Rob will reimburse Nick in future.

II.                  Banquet Update- Brad Eagleson

1.      How many people have confirmed- 64 people confirmed we currently have space for 70 and food for up to 80. Tomorrow at 3 will be the cutoff for guest invitations.

2.      What additional help/volunteers are needed- We currently have more than then we need and some volunteers will be moved to schmoozing.

3.      Program for evening- officially starts at 6pm with or’dorves and marimba. 7pm dinner. 7:45 Michael Campana will speak. 8:15 Carl will speak. Then 8:45 there will be tango music and lessons.

4.      What still needs to be done- Fund request presentation and presentation of past sponsors. Kelly will announce this at the banquet with a prepared presentation.

 

III.                Fundraising  Update

1.      Football parking- the 27th we will be doing one again.

2.      Grant- Carl has done one and they are working on one.

3.      Funding request from CoE – Write them for tanks, construction and national conference.

4.      OSU student foundation for airline tickets for El Salvador- want to give us plane ticket – Kendra will remind Brad for this next week.

5.      Tracking of fundraising time- Brad will begin this. There is concern that the project traveling members won’t meet their requirements.

IV.               IT coordinator and Wiki-        

Engineering Services provides MediaWiki so Nick has one in the preliminary stages of setup.

V.                 General Meeting Presentations- Jesse Boudart

1.      Topic and speaker for next week – Interest through Rotary WASRAG Stew Martin from Tillamook. He would present on water conservation and generally what rotary does.

2.      Speakers for the rest of the term – Permaculture for two weeks out.

VI.               Report on Potential Wind Turbine Projecct – Jesse Boudart

Faculty mentor advised not implementing a full-size wind turbine unit but to building mount smaller sized units with a wind ramp. The full-sized project would probably need to be moved to the coast, potentially over to the hatfield marine center. The group will be looking into getting permission to set up anemometers lent  by the faculty member for measurements.

Currently OSU doesn’t have money to sponsors this type of project. The sustainability student group, however, gives up to $5000 for these type of projects. It is estimated that a single small scale wind turbine would cost $2000. The turbine could potentially be used to power a set  of lights for security around campus.

For this to be an EWB project it will have to go through a TAC proposal. To get us kicked off Jesse will be drafting a memorandum of understanding and presenting at the November 7th meeting.

VII.             Fundraising Guidelines and Constitution

Fundraising guidelines and Funding approval guidelines developed by the board last spring will be distributed for board review before submitting to general membership for admission to the constitution. Current constitution will also be distributed.

VIII.           Desired Workshops

The workshops that should be scheduled for this term are a project management workshop by Kevin boston, Dave yeomans project presentation by Evan, and a water quality test kit workshop on a Saturday.

 

IX.               Membership

82 different people have attended the group meetings. 16 have paid dues.

Nick Taylor is our new membership coordinator. 

X.                 Coorboration with Universidad de Cantabria

The U of Cantabria has expressed interest through NIkhil to potentially cooroborate on our project in El Salvador. They currently don’t  have their own project. Their members would have different, potentially better timed for the community, vacation and would be fluent in Spanish. Nikhil will explore the details more and get back to us. It was presented that having them as a partner organization would make it easier to have a project in Africa.

XI.                Habitat for Humanity

Habitat for humanity will potentially be need volunteers near the end of this term and definitely at the beginning of spring term for a construction project. Nick moses is the hfh coordinator.

XII.             New Morning Rotary of Corvallis

Evan attended a morning meeting for the rotary chapter in Corvallis. They currently have a project in Honduras implementing sand filters for a community of 400 families. They would like to look into supporting our chapter in the future in our international projects. We will look into giving them a presentation later this term and connect with them in March when they are done with their current project to look into funding our project. 

XIII.           Open/New positions

·        El Salvador  Liason between project and board

·        Saftey Officer

·        Trail Restorations Coordinator

·        Wind Turbine committee

·        Booth Coordinator- potentially on PR group

XIV.         Trail Restoration

There will be work in the winter and spring cleaning up debris.

XV.           Website Photos

We will be posting pictures of the board members on the website so that our new members, and old, can begin to recognize the board.

 

Minutes prepared by:  Kelly Wilson, October 17th, 2007

 

 

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