Engineers Without Borders

Vision Planning Meeting, 2007

May 15, 2007 at 5:30 pm | In Events, Meeting Minutes |

The EWB-OSU Vision Planning meeting was held on May 15, 2007 to articulate our goals for the coming year.

Meeting Minutes

Members attending in person:

Kendra, Aparna, Rob, Doug, Carl, Kevin Boston, Andy S, Lyndsey C, Katie Bruce, Kelsey Edwardsen, Brad Eagleson

1. Current Project
   • Gauging Success:
     • We have constructed 1 tank and pump system and the villagers are able to sustain it and they can construct the others with our funding
     • Also provide some oversight in the construction of other systems.
     • What about having one person stay on sight for a longer period of time?
     • Maybe incorporate an IE3 intern for the person staying onsite. Where they take a linguistics course or self study abroad.
     • Health aspect to project- separate from water project- potentially latrines and waste, stoves and cooking conditions.
     • Original goal was to eliminate time spent hauling water and health problems associated in water quality
     • We can’t extend our project focus into other areas of health, etc without the invitation of the community or the peace corps
     • Specific metrics of success of current scope: rate of diarrhea, school attendance
     • Looking for sustainability for energy of current design
     • Annual or bi-annual trip to watch over
2. Membership Recruitment
   • Recruiting: Targeting the right people with the right idea
   • Target maybe pre-med students and MPH students For December: have MPH do health assessment- they have different eyes for things and will be able to present data in a respectable way. Maybe create a job description to ask people to fill. Public Health Team Leader. If they can present a good plan they will have a space on the project team.
   • Positions Lacking: Fundraising Coordinator, Technology Coordinator, Membership, Maybe come up job descriptions for all open positions , Starting the process
   • Make a point to present at all Start week events and opening classes
   • Have Fundraising- before fall to organize initial football games
   • Membership Coordinator- to include recruitment of students through students group Kendra will be interim for this also.
   • Da vinci Days
   • Have more workshops: Have a Education and Training Coordinator who would be in charge of seminars and meeting speakers and social activities
   • These seminars are great for building skill sets
3. Activities for Next Year
   • Speakers- List already brainstormed for future speakers
   • Same Time Same Place! No Monday nights because it take out Pan-Hellenic people.
   • First week of June to have email go out for deciding on day and time for meeting
   • Seminars – have one each term – We have a pool of ideas and look to project team for necessary skill sets
   • Field Trip-? Early in term. New position- Surf coordinator – Wave Research, Rafting, Nuclear power plant, combined fund and educational. Decommissioned Nuke reactor in eureka Humble state has an ES project also. Or Trojan.
   • Have hands-on thing to show for presentation – have a human powered pump or other Alternative E, Something for kindergartners to adults to understand more about what EWB does. Like Skips Gel beads. Carl and Kevin will look into this.
4. Fundraising
   • Lyndsey and Katie are filling in for Banquet and Fundraising Coordination
   • Banquet stuff to be tabled to talk for later
   • Brad and Kendra are going to be working on grant writing
   • Partner with Sorority or Frat to have poker night – If I win then the money goes to my organization – have Coordinators oversee but have someone else in charge- Rob has looked into it before
   • Presentations- schedule more presentation at local industries we already have the presentations and presenters but need the places to go. Also have levels of donations
   • See how much money is in our National account- have people been using paypal
   • Find local group- Boyscout or Linus Pauling for fundraising – something to pursue immediately
   • Maybe look to high schools or other groups in area – maybe form high school chapter or middle school chapter?
   • Letters to send out to donors – and display on website and better documentation – have special invitations for banquet
   • Changing location for Banquet? to have more people be able to come
   • Baja fresh- did it ever actually happen?
   • Distribute brochures to companies and business sub area – write job description for this for ASAP – carl will oversee
   • Contact Athletic dept –now for parking
5. New Project
   • Stay in El Salvador for future- Latin America definitely because it is a lot less expensive for tickets. Maybe try Haiti for French speakers.
   • Northern Mexico or more local US community
   • When to start: If in ES then in December might be okay. Or maybe send a single student and professional if other. Appoint Project director and they would be the person.
   • Will it cannibalize our current project? - Current project will be winding down in December so probably no. Start local project and that will keep us engaged in the interim between international projects. We lose people when we aren’t doing anything with a project. Help students who aren’t leading members in ES for practice. That way we have distinct outputs for what it is we’re doing.
   • What sort of domestic projects: Participate in building more with Habitat. Help houses become green. Indian reservations- look to on campus longhouse, or on ewb-usa for projects on Indian reservations. Working with Organic growers club- they have $5000 grants for building sustainable technologies that by june 15th. Work for city and dwf for mobility designs for local trails.
   • Investigate over summer – more ideas for local project. Better get a good idea now, so we can use this for an activity in the fall.
   • What we really need is a good project manager- maybe go to CEM or other upper division classes. When we targeting upperclassmen mention target them with this.
   • Kendra is volunteering to be interim Project manager and organize recruiting plan. She will investigate the rest of the term and pick out people to take the lead later in the fall

Tasks

• Make Job Descriptions at Next Board Meeting to begin filling roles; Make treasurer for Project

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Minutes prepared by: Kelly Wilson, May 15th, 2007