Columbia University EWB – Executive Board
MEETING MINUTES
October 24, 2010
E-Board will not be meeting next Sunday (October 31).
In attendance: Sonal, Bethany, Lucy, Kevin, Bruce, Sarah, Dhristie, Alison, Lacey
1. Updates
Ghana: Creating a pictorial maintenance manual that they want to paint onto the latrine. They won Stay Classy New York, and free tickets to the awards Ceremony in San Diego (but not free plane tickets or hotel stays). They are planning a January travel trip.

India: suggests pre-submission review committee!!

Uganda: Water team design is coming along. MFP team is working on a cyclone to contain flour exhaust. They are planning to prototype a few designs. They are also working on the battery charger project. Our professional mentor came to the meeting, and he may continue to come to our meetings at a regular interval.

2. Northeast Conference Updates
Trip List (who’s attending) is finalized. We are collecting a lump sum from every attendee, and depositing it in our Columbia account. Then we can use our corporate account to book the hotel and the bus.
Make sure everyone attending the Workshop has a t-Shirt so they can wear it on “T-Shirt” day.
We missed the deadline to submit a poster Workshop. But we can still submit photos!

3. Beyond Borders Updates
Teams are working on getting food.
Our funding is falling into place.
Guest speaker confirmed.
All the groups that we asked to table are confirmed.
Make a Facebook event.
How should we advertise?
We are sending personal invitations (save the date) to Professors and professional members. Then send an email requesting them to RSVP. We need to compile a list of Professors to invite. Have reserved tables for faculty.

4. PR Material
Newsletter, Bruce needs your help filling out content.

5. Meeting with the Dean
Semesterly meeting tomorrow from 2-3 for all engineering student groups.

6. Flickr
We now have an account!

7. Pre-Submission Review Committee!! We need a review committee of Professional Engineers/Professors to review our reports before we submit them to EWB-USA for official approval. We should consult our committee whenever we want to make major engineering changes.
Why we need this committee: EWB-USA is a small organization that receives many submissions each year. They do not want to waste their time reading unrefined submissions.
What we can do now: Consult our faculty advisers. Look for Alumni.
Alison’s suggestion: All of the E-Board meets w/ faculty adviser, professional mentor, and one outside specialist. The E-Board will read every application, but we will bring in professional mentors/faculty according to the project.
Dhristie: Let’s contact professors and mentors now, asking them if they are willing to help us. Then we will let them know a few weeks before we need our project reviewed asking them when they are free to help us. We will also provide them with a copy of the application a week before the meeting so that they can review it.
The India team will be meeting with Professor Lall this week to discuss their project.

The PROTOCOLS of the CU-EWB Review Committee Process:
We will contact a varied group of alumni, as well as our faculty advisors and professional mentors, to ask them if they would be willing to serve on our review committee. We will assemble a list of willing persons and their specialties.
We will only contact the advisors that we need to review a specific application. We will contact them three weeks before we need to meet with them. If they cannot make the meeting, we will contact another less-specialized mentor from our list of willing members.
We will have a committee reviewing EVERY application.

How soon do we need this committee?
Ghana might travel in January! They will be submitting in time for the November TAC deadline. They will be probably be sending a team of 3. (This is way too early for them to get a Committee Review)
Uganda will have TAC reports ready for review in January.

How should we contact our potential Review Committee members?
1. Send personalized email with attached protocols. Include dates of our deadlines and around what time period we would be asking them for help.

8. T-Shirts
The new members want some. There are some available.
If we do another printing, offer a crew neck and a V neck option.

9. CPR Workshop
We’ll need another CPR workshop next semester!