Columbia University EWB - Executive Board

MEETING AGENDA

March 7, 2010

In attendance: Sonal, Sarah, Bruce, Bethany, Kevin, Lucy, Dhristie, Alison Ferris (subbing for Christen to represent the Uganda team)

1. Updates from PLs

Uganda-

a.Working on TAC for two projects! 1. Water 2. MFP, install electricity MICROGRID! They are going to go with a Ugandan electrician who will design the grid and set it up for them.

b.They are starting to work on their presentation for the Colorado Conference.

India-

a. Discussed travel plans. Possibly, they will send two trips over the summer. The first team will figure out how to make the teams. The second team will follow up with the information gained by the first.

b. Biomass team-looking for soil expert. Now called the “improved wood burning stove.”

c. Won $500 grant at MCN meeting.

d. “Low Power Electrical Stove” is the new name for the “low watt cooker.”

Ghana-

a. Another conference call with professional advisor. She suggested they could look into building latrines at schools or improving the latrines that are already in schools.

b. Looking into different kinds of pumping systems for our water distribution system. Advisor suggested DIESEL.

c. African cultural festival. Ghana team has a table at the Bazaar.

2. Website Updates

Add information about the Conference.

3. Colorado Conference

- Budget

a. Sarah and Kevin are attending ESC meeting asking them to cosponsor our conference attendance. ESC will only pay for SEAS students. We would like them to match the amount that we are spending from CU-EWB’s budget.

i. We will hear back from them on Tuesday.

b. We are also going to CSC to ask for sponsorship for the CC students in our group.

c. Meeting with Conference Attendees, Last Sunday, February 28.

A.Concern that persons attending conference failed to relay what they learned back to the group. How can conference attendees better benefit the group?

i. Dhristie suggests: Have an all-chapter meeting where conference attendees present what they learned and project members can ask questions. A panel, but a formal structure so that people are not afraid to ask questions and provide input.

ii. Have attendees debrief to E-Board and their projects.

iii. Make a list of persons who attended and what they learned. Make list available to all CU-EWB members.

iv. Every night in the hotel, attendees will discuss what they learned with each other.

v. They should figure out what they are going to present at the All-EWB meeting on Thursday WHILE at the conference. This will save a lot of time once they get back to campus!

vi. Howabout blogging while at the conference?

B. CU-EWB attendees should have a short, 15 s elevator pitch prepared to discuss their projects with anyone they meet.

C. CU-EWB attendees, the first night at their hotel, should have a meeting where they practice giving their pitches.

4. Debrief Meeting with Krishna Swamy (Community Lab)

a. What is the community lab?

i. Part of the Earth institute.

ii. They are creating a manual on how to do development work. How to assess needs, how to intervene, how to create an ideal Millenium Village process.

iii. They have all sorts of people working for them! Even engineers!

b. Swamy is interested in getting EWB members involved in community lab. He would like to present to us and discuss internships and possible careers with community lab.

i. How could he present to us? We never have a general assembly meeting.

ii. Possibly he could provide a Community Lab employee at one of our Training sessions, providing us with their valuable knowledge and giving them the opportunity to pitch community lab to us.

5. Training Sessions

1. CPR

a. We need the names of 2 people from each team. Uganda is already sent in.

b. Do we need CPR trained people BEFORE we send in TAC?

c. After you get people CPR trained, you have to wait a month to get your certificate.

d. Do people want to get training even if they are not traveling?

i. Certification lasts for two years. Maybe younger team members should get trained to prepare for the future.

e. Team leaders: Find out HOW many people want CPR training! NOW!

2. EWB CHALLENGE PROBLEM

a. Invite Professors and grad students for an hour lunch and present to them a problem that EWB needs solved! Have them brainstorm. Depending on the problem, we will invite EEE’s, EE’s, people from the water center etc.

b. If each team had something written, we could invite professors and grad students!

c. Sonal: How do we get everyone else from the other programs involved?

i. Have the programs rotate on a monthly basis.

ii. Give plenty of detail.

d. We need to have a detailed conversation in a way that is appealing.

i. Have the team doing the problem do an initial run-down.

ii. Then have the professor talk technical stuff.

e. We could bring back EWB alumni working in the city! Some have contacted us expressing their desire to visit and help us work out some problems!

f. Something like NOON BALLOON! Open to the student body.

g. Uganda says: We sent out a blurb through Rosemary asking for a travel mentor. We got many interested responses, not able to travel, but wanting to help us.

h. What’s the best way to get this started? Should Sarah present at your meetings?

6. Individual Programs Posting Minutes on the EWB Website

a. Currently, individual programs are not posting their minutes.

i. India has 3 meetings! They will just post the general body meeting!

ii. Sonal and Bethany will set up a meeting with the 3 program secretaries (via Doodle) to teach them how to post minutes to the website and decide where they should put them.

7. Beyond Borders Meeting
-Thurs the week after spring break?

i. Invite members of your team who might be interested in running the event. Who understand what we want out of this event.

ii. What if EWB organized the Networking night before the Sustainable Development career fair? Maybe we could cosponsor with Green Umbrella. Make it more of a professional (as in inviting professionals) event.

iii. We could have table discussions about our projects.

iv. We have to have this meeting if we are going to have Beyond Borders!

a. We should also discuss: Should we have Beyond Borders?

b. To get ABC funding, this event has to attract students. So if we want to shift our focus, we need to start planning how to budget it SOON.

v. When should we have this meeting?

a. A Thursday/Friday night dinner? Invite people from your programs.

Kevin needs to turn in our budget by THURSDAY, MARCH 25^th to ABC!!! So we need a rough idea of what we are doing by this date!

-Training sessions
-Meeting with Lisa still postponed
-New idea: How about EWB challenge problems (great way to involve professors, grad     students and EWB alumni)

8. Monthly General Body Meetings?

i. Conference meeting could be at our First general body meeting!

ii. We accumulate SO MUCH stuff to discuss over the course of a month.

iii. Spaces? Cinema, Davis Auditorium.

a. Should we require attendance? A certain number of meetings attended per year to be an “official member.”

i. No.

ii. People do EWB because they want to, not because we force them to do it.

b. Thursday, March 25 will be the first General Body meeting! From there, we will decide what days and what meeting patterns people would like for future GBM’s.

c. Now that EWB-USA is setting more standards for programs to meet, they will be more strict. E-Board needs to be responsible for what our projects do.

c. Slightly less structured than a workshop/training session.

Columbia University EWB - Executive Board

MEETING AGENDA

February 28, 2010

In attendance: Sonal, Bruce, Bethany, Kevin, Christen, Dhristie, Lucy

1. Updates from PLs

a. Uganda: Cancelled Uganda team meeting on Friday! MFP meeting met anyway. Travel dates: May 25-June 25^th.

b. Ghana: On weds, talked about conference call with professional advisor. They have been sticking to their deliverables schedules. Unsure of what will happen over the summer; it will depend on how much funding they get. Discussed AECOM meeting. They are going to make a needs list next week that they can let people from AECOM help them with their projects.

c. India: Summer trip is quite uncertain. Certainly not an implementation trip. They need to figure out who the travel team is so that they know who to send for CPR training.

- Rosemary Email about Chapter Updates

a. Sonal is forwarding this to us (again). We need to give a detailed update about where each program is at.

- Global Connect Network

2. Debrief AECOM Meeting: Money* Mentorship * Corporate Network

a. We would like to get employees involved in our existing projects, or allow them to start new projects.

b. Each program needs to have a well-articulated needs list. Programs need to have a strategy meeting.

c. Bruce: We learned a lot. We learned what their priorities are for working with a college group. They want to work with EWB to get their employees involved in progress. They are a big company, we are a small student group. Our next step: We need to present our needs that a professional could do that we cannot do for ourselves. At some point, we will have the opportunity to give a presentation. Our focus will be on the problems and the opportunities. We need to be creative and think of what is a possible NEXT project that you can get involved in!

i. Ghana already has two projects that we are heavily invested in. If we can find the right relationship within AECOM, maybe we can start a new project. For now, we will brainstorm.

ii.There are also needs within our current projects. But do they present enough of a challenge for an AECOM employee to get involved in?

d. Yuri is involved in the initiative to get AECOM employees involved with us. She is also involved in the NY professional chapter and was a program manager in college. She is very familiar with the way that EWB works.

e. Sonal: This was our first corporate campaign meeting. We created a powerpoint, beginning with an overview of our entire chapter, then going into details about our individual programs.

f. AECOM doesn’t want to “just give us money,” they want to get their employees actively involved in our programs, which is much better than just a monetary donation.

g. We should find out what exactly AECOM means by “getting their employees involved.”

h. India is looking for a new project, so it would be great to have AECOM employees involved in our projects.

i. Ghana already has a list of “Village needs.”

i. Uganda’s mentor, Joey, is applying for an AECOM grant for summer travel. They will take care of his travel costs.

j. PL’s: Present this to your programs!

h. We will have another meeting with AECOM after Spring Break.

3. CPR Workshop

a. Sarah is meeting with Laura this week to discuss workshop. Does the week after Spring break work? YES.

4. Colorado Conference Meeting

- Goals/Expectations

a. Everybody is registered! Sonal bought her tickets! $316 because she is leaving early.

b. Has anyone applied to the scholarship? It doesn’t take long to apply!

c. After the conference, we will have $300 left for the rest of the semester.

d. People going to the conference will be meeting today to discuss expectations.

e. What does E-Board think that we should get out of the meeting?

i. Be one of the premiere student chapters at the conference!

ii. Meet with other NYC chapters.

iii. Ask the professional chapters who we can go to next in our corporate campaign. Promote our Corporate Banquet.

5. Days on Campus

- T-Shirts

a. Lucy contacted Ben from Greek101. Design isn’t done. It’ll be done by Wednesday.

b. Pricing: As low as possible. It will be cheaper if it says Greek101.

c. For the fine Jersey V-neck, $20.

d. We need FINAL numbers and sizes and number of persons ordering by next week’s e-board meeting.

e. Make sure that there is a link with an image of the shirt in the email sent to the programs.

- Presentation

a. Each program can mention to their teams what they want to present and how they want to do it. How they want to ACTIVELY RECRUIT!

b. How to reach out to CC: Can we present at the CC days on campus?

6. Party Planning

a. Do your homework beforehand.

b. EC 302. Peter’s suite. Starting at 8 PM.

c. Ghana: Main course.

d. Conflict: Naach nation is at the same time. It’s a good time. We are NOT changing our time for Naach nation!

7. Our Website: Stuff to Add. To add stuff, send it to Bruce.

a. Now we are members of MCN (Millenium Campus Networks)-explain what it is.

i. The India team won a $500 grant at the MCN meeting yesterday. The India team went to the meeting and gave a very good presentation of what they were doing.

ii. (Ghana still doesn’t have an MCN representative. Maybe next year they will recruit new members and have enough people to send a rep.)

b. The upcoming Colorado conference.

c. Uganda could explain their summer plans. They have dates and everything!

d. Make the explanation under, “what is CU-EWB” smaller font.

e. Let’s change the picture on the website. Christen has many pictures. Can we get rotating pictures, like on the Columbia web page?

8. Brochures

a. Getting reimbursements. Hand in receipts to Kevin. We printed 30.

b. We should just print them ourselves.

9. Global Connect Network

a. We received an email from them.

b. It is an online networking program.

c. It sounds like a disconnected version of MCN, which we just joined.

d. Group consensus: No.

Columbia University EWB - Executive Board

MEETING MINUTES

February 21, 2010

In attendance: Sonal, Sarah, Bruce, Kevin, Bethany, Lucy, Christen

1. Updates from PLs.

Uganda-Possibly (most likely) have a new professional advisor! There are many professionals interested in mentoring them. Working on TACS (due March 14).

Ghana-We have a professional advisor, but she lives in California. Had a conference call w/ professional advisor. Finding necessary building codes for building a latrine over the summer. Came up with design (and are fleshing it out and improving it) for a new latrine, and plans on how to improve the old latrine in case they cannot raise the money to build an entirely new latrine. They do not have the blueprints yet. They found someone who is good at CAD and will make blueprints for them. Currently they are planning to send an implementation trip, June, and an assessment trip for the water project in late July, early August.

India-In the Civil Lab, working on a prototype. We have a biomass stove prototype and are working on the low watt cooker. They still need a soil expert to help them with the soil. Contact at RIT: Many senior design teams are working on testing biomass stoves as their projects.

2. Colorado Conference

Looking into sponsorship from the Engineering Student Council. We have written them a letter.

We are also appealing to ABC.

We should send out an email telling people when to book their flights.

How many people do we have RSVP’d and confirmed? 10

3. PR

4. Survey

Results are in! Some new people have added their opinions, and:

Not very informed about the activities of the Eboard

Not very informed about the activities of the other projects

Beyond Borders: Good reviews.

How can we get people informed about the activities of E-Board?

Ideas: Invite program members to sit in on our meetings. But program members have enough meetings to go to already. E-Board should go to the meetings. –PL’s describe E-Board meeting at the beginning of their project meetings. –Have E-Board members come in and make their announcements themselves. –Invite people from all projects to work on planning training sessions.

How can we keep people informed about the activities of other programs?

Ideas: Send a program rep. from one program to present at another project’s meeting. –Have more potlucks!

5. Days on Campus
Need to do:
Projects need to prepare presentations (2 back to back presentations)
PR materials to give out

Equipment/AV we need to request: LOUD sound system.

Nice Table at the Activities Fair

Our discussion:

Ghana should involve its freshman, many of whom were recruited after seeing the DOC presentation.

Showing prototyping process. Bring in a prototype. Do we need to advertise?

Talk about what we’re doing now. Problem-solving.

We can show THE video. In the future, we would like a shorter, updated, version of the video. Anthony Yim made the original video.

Howabout if we set up the prototypes outside of the ramp lounge room?

6. Traing Sessions

CPR raining: How many people does each team want to train? Uganda needs to have a designated, CPR-trained person by March 14 for their TAC! Each team will need 1 or 2 people trained (depending on how many trips they are sending). Sarah is starting on this ASAP.

7. T-Shirts

We aren’t allowed to use our d(earth)/dt logo.

When do we want the T-Shirts by? By the conference! That is March 11^th.

8. Web-site

A. Dr. Lambrech suggested that we keep our website looking new. Have a new look at least every 6 weeks. E-Board decided to spend about 5 minutes of each meeting updating the website.

B. Sponsors: Our sponsors are listed in an obscure section of the web-site. EWB University of Madison-Wisconsin has their sponsors prominently listed on their web-site. We should make a spot for corporations who sponsor us to be promoted.

9. March 6 Potluck

Come at 7:30, dinner at 8. Sonal will create Facebook event. What is E-Board’s contribution?

Bethany

Questions for Kevin:
Status of Ads on Website Project: To maintain professional appearance, we will not have ads on our website, unless they are ads for corporations that are sponsoring us.
Jin’s Reimbursement status: Kevin is looking into Jen’s check. He is clarifying complications with donations. He has to send everything at once. Still waiting.

Co-sponsoring with ROOTed: Go ahead and book them a space!

Sarah

Bruce

Dhristie

Christen

Travel Fundraising night at Campo: The E-Board thinks this is an excellent idea. Cover charge, drink specials, dancing. Party with the Engineers! Step 1: Pick a date. Right before/right after Spring Break. We decide on the weekend of the 26,27,28. Step 2: Invite the other engineering groups to attend. We’ll invite CC too. Step 3: Use our awesome tag-line: “Keep spring-break going!” Step 4: Delegate promotion of the event to the travel team.

CPR Workshops

Warning to other Teams: TAC write-up to travel has extensive health requirements. You should look into it now!

Lucy

African Cultural Festival: March 20-25. Maybe Uganda and Ghana would like to join it. In the Bronx. Would we like to set up a table?

Columbia University EWB - Executive Board

MEETING AGENDA

February 14, 2010
In attendance: Sonal, Bruce, Kevin, Bethany, Lucy, Dhristie, Christen

Happy Valentine’s Day
1. Updates from PLs
- Program Decision on MCN (Millennium Campus Networks).

India-will assign one person to interact with MCN. They are on board with the idea of joining it.

Ghana-They don’t know who will be willing to be the point person. No one really responded when MCN was mentioned. Lucy will more directly address the question on Wednesday’s meeting.

Sonal-It makes sense if each program signs their own contract with MCN.

MCN: No real cons. It just takes up time to go to their meetings and network.

-Team Updates:

Uganda-Conference call with Peter Wall. Discussed water distribution project. Starting to prototype designs for first flush and distribution system. MFP: Got batteries in. Are going to begin testing.

Sonal: Prototyping. India got a contact from RIT, whose Senior design project is testing a smokeless stove.

Uganda-We are getting space in the Civil E lab.

2. Updates on Colorado Conference
10 people going right now. We are spending $2800 of our allocation to send them.
3. Debrief Meeting with Dr. Lambrech

Bruce: very useful advice from Dr. L for corporate Campaign. She could look over our materials and our letter to the companies. She’d be willing to look over anything that we want to send out.

Sonal: Her message was “How you present yourselves is very important.” Now Bruce is working on the brochure. Individual projects should make brochures: keep the same format as Bruce’s brochure.
- Task List

4. Debrief PM Meeting

Bethany, Sarah, Sonal, and the PM’s were in attendance.

Training sessions requested: CPR, PRA, Prototyping, Computer programs: water flow, data analysis, Business Plan, Soil. Need dynamic, interactive, technical, hands-on workshops. Preferably focusing on the countries that we work in.

How to raise money to reimburse the travel teams?

Currently, it’s whoever can afford to go, goes.

Programs want monthly budget statements!

Fund-raising Banquet: Everyone likes the idea!

But how would we get the companies to come?

i.Job fair: Probably not.

ii. Awesome guest speakers (professors and the Dean), and meeting EWB students: Excellent draw.

iii. How do Professors get funding? Many times, from corporations!

Have a preliminary meeting with all departments concerned: The dean, the alumni office, etc.

Be well-versed in our programs.

4. Analyze results from survey.
A. Is there a bias in that highly involved people answer the survey? How do you personally define “Very highly involved”?

B.The “Not well informed about the workings of my project” is probably weighed down by Uganda. They are working on better-informing their general membership.
C. Our CAD and GIS skills are very low.

D. Beyond Borders

i. E-Board’s Comments: Lucy-If we are trying to make it more like a conversation, it needs to be done differently. Sonal-To have a successful conversation, we need to have a more targeted audience. Dhristie-It was good that it was more open to everyone, because many people came and learned about EWB.

ii. Comments from Survey: We should have more structured presentations, with powerpoint.

E. We think the T-shirt idea is genius! Let’s get American Apparel. We can sell the t-shirts.

i. Special E-Board Apparal? Jackets, buttons, sweat-suits. I think we are kidding.

ii. Individual Project shirts? We need them for our conferences.

iii. Rough Quote for T-shirts: $12.50! Customink

5. Website

6. Emails
- Lilay Berhane: Working in South America. Alum.
- Hermann Mazard (Haiti Relief)
- Laura Taylor (TFA) : She wants to come to our meetings and present. Do programs want her to come and speak? Ghana: We have no graduating seniors. Tell her: if you are doing a larger presentation, we will advertise for you.

7. Poster for Conference

8. Business Cards

9. Corporate Campaign

Christen: Campaign last year was very polished, but the passion was lost from our presentation. We need to make sure to convey this when we meet with our companies.

Dhristie: When we send letters to our companies, can we send a photo? –Bruce: Well, we are sending a beautiful color brochure.

Lucy: Let’s talk to village copier about getting letterhead.

10. E-Week

We’re not doing any special EWB events for E-Week.

Columbia University EWB - Executive Board

MEETING AGENDA

February 7, 2010

In attendance: Sonal, Sarah, Bruce, Kevin, Bethany, Christen, Dhristie, Lucy

1. Updates from PLs

India

Ghana had conference call with their professional advisor, Winnie. She said “source separated latrines are a BAD idea.” Working on latrine project, looking for KVIP design that doesn’t require frequent pumping. No progress this week on water project(they are meeting later today).

Uganda- MFP project same. Water project: not going to do a potable water filter, so they are going to work on a distribution system instead. Starting to design spigot system.

2. Colorado Conference

- Final List of Names-Sarah has it! Eleven people are on the list right now. 5 boys, 6 girls.

- Budget, Cost. Kevin spoke to Pete. Planning to take out $2500 out of our allocation and use the $500 travel grant. We plan to pay all of hotel and registration, and reimburse (by our calculations) $120 of airfare. If 11 people come, they will be reimbursed only $40 for airfare, but not have to pay for hotel and registration.

Question: Can we take out more money? From which account? Should we cut down the number of people we are bringing? We’d rather not cut down the list.

3. Debrief

- Earth Institute Meeting: Sarah, Dhristie, and Lucy. Louise had contacts for all 3 teams. We need to make a needs list for all 3 teams. She put us in contact with Lisa, who may do a grant-writing workshop for us. PL’s send the needs list to Sarah.

- MCN Event – they have many workshops and they help student groups to find speakers and mentors. If we are part of this, we can call them up and they will find people for us. They have conferences in Boston and NYC. But do we want to sign their agreement? If you sign, you have to attend a monthly meeting. We will have to send them our meeting minutes every week and attend meetings once a month. PL’s will present this agreement to each program to get their feedback. They have another meeting on the 27^th. If we want to apply for their $1000 grant, we need to get our membership and application done by February 27^th.
- SIPA Net Impact and Kevin Hong : We were thinking of talking to him. His group does a lot with Micro-Finanance. We could organize a training session with them. Bruce and PL’s will plan a meeting with him to discuss a training session.
- grant application and possible Stevens partnership
- membership contract

Meeting with Dr. Regine Lambrech: This Friday at 1.

Ideas to bring up:

-Fall charity event in addition/instead of Beyond Borders.

-Corporate Campaign. Do you have any suggestions of how we can access alumni networks? Show her our corporate campaign letters.

-Bring all our PR materials at the meeting. Ask her what needs to be improved?

-Show her our needs list.

Sonal’s Meeting with CUIT: If we want to give >30 people access to our documents online, a Courseworks style page would not be practical. They suggested that we store our files on our websites.

Green Umbrella: E-Board should send someone to their meetings. When do they meet?

Survey: There is an old survey on the Hard-drive that Katelyn sent out. Asking what kind of skills you have: language, websites etc. How would YOU like to help? What do you expect to get out of the program? Are you just here to build your resume? Beyond Borders Feedback. Ideas for this year. Changes. Likes/Dislikes. Rating of their current involvement.

Have a 1 to 5 rating system, but make sure there is an “I’m not involved option.” How well do you feel the other programs? How well do you feel that you know E-Board? Have an open comment box at the end. Sonal will send out a list of possible questions to E-Board tonight.

Party: CU-EWB will be having a party. Pot-luck. Programs will bring different kinds of food. India: Dessert. Ghana: Main course. Uganda: ? Date: March 6. Right before midterms! So people will not be stressed.

Bamboo Bicycle Project: They will be having community bicycle-building days as a fundraiser. It would be in Brooklyn.

1. Updates from PLs
Christen (Uganda)- Getting our water Project ready for TAC approval. Had a conference call with Pilgrim. Met with Pilgrim member in NYC. Met with faculty advisor, V.J. Modi. Discussed MFP’s, we do not have a jatropha oil supply chain left. We are probably going to pass off the jatropha business to Pilgrim. Beginning travel meetings this week.
Bruce (Ghana)-Kids day idea has been scrapped because the engineering department already does a similar program, and for free.
Kevin (India)- Recounted the winter-break trip. Each sub-group is going to present at the beginning of the meeting on their current research.
- Newsletter material

2. Colorado Conference
We will cover registration fee and cost of flight back to NYC. You have to pay for half of your hotel costs (this expense should be $25.) and your flight to Denver.
Send your names to Sarah Glazer if you are interested AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
We would like to send 8 or 9 people.
E-Board wants to send: Sonal!
- Number of members traveling.
5 from Uganda, no one yet from Ghana, 2 from India. Usually we send 2-3 per group.
We have $3400 ABC allocation left and $500 travel grant (this is in our EWB account).
Ask what would happen if someone dropped out of conference.
- Costs.
- Poster. Due February 19. Write a paragraph about your program and add 3 pictures. Sarah will mail out the old poster in Publisher format and send EWB guidelines as attachments.

3. NEEDS LIST (in case Alumni/mentor offers us something)
Uganda program- We are looking for a new mentor because Steve Forbes is stepping down. There are a couple people that we are approaching. We would like a faculty advisor for the water team. We have a contact with the earth institute, but we really need a professional advisor who can go on the summer trip with us.
India Team-Air Pollution meter. Soil, clay expert.
Ghana-need a chemical. Contacted some folks about it. It is hard to get transport it out of the US into Ghana.
Internal Database. Uganda has almost filled up their Google group.
4. Debrief Meetings
- MCN (Millennium Campus Networks) they have a similar model in Boston. On February 6, Lincoln Center, they will have their first meet and greet with all the student organizations that are interested in joining at 6 PM. In the past, they have not been very good with communication.
- Earth Institute
Bethany and Sonal went to this on Friday, January 29. There were 3 SIPA students who created Google Form, www.students4haiti.org. They are going to match up people’s skills with a project/need and plan spring break trips.
- Contact with Mentors

5. Survey Questions

6. Days on Campus

7. Earth Week
Are we keeping in contact with Green Umbrella?
Sarah says we should do something!
Bethany: Keep in contact with Student groups, offer our support to help with one of their events. Say something like, “as you plan your week, if you see any opportunities for us to participate, we would be willing to help with an event.” Something like that.

8. Party Planning

9. Funding/Outreach to Alumni/Companies
Dean Pena-Mora is interested in helping us outreach to alumni.
Could we have an alumni outreach/fundraising dinner? Alumni can buy table, EWB students sitting with alumni and a presentation about our projects. Guest speaker.
How would we reach out to alumni? Career centers, department heads, alumni affairs have their own contact lists, which they will not give to us (they will contact their contacts for us).
Put it in the SEAS bulletin?
10. Dr. Regine Lambrech (SEAS director of global initiatives)

11. Newsletter
Ways to keep projects updated on what other projects are doing.

12. Project Manager Meetings
Can probably be monthly. It doesn’t need to be at the Board meeting. We can have a separate meeting just for project managers.

The Story:
http://www.engineering.columbia.edu/engineering-alum-injured-haiti-quake

EWB-Executive Board

MEETING AGENDA

January 24th, 2010

In attendance:

Sonal (President)

Bruce (VP)

Lucy & Clay: Representatives of Ghana Project

Bethany (Secretary)

Dhristie: Representative of India Project

Sarah (VP)

Kevin (Treasurer)

Alison Ferris : Representing Uganda

Christen Soden is the Uganda Project Liason, but she was unable to make this meeting.

1. Updates From Program Representatives (PL’s)

India-Dhristie-India met already. Some team members want to go the March Conference. They are looking for a mentor (faculty) for the biomass cook stove project.  Won $8000 Boeing grant.

Ghana-Clay and Lucy- submitted P3 grant proposal over break. Continuing to work on water distribution system. Working in Obodon. P3 grant for latrine project because there are difficulties with the present latrine. Water project is more longterm (2 years) than latrine project (planned for this summer). Upcoming water conference organized by Prof. Chandran at Columbia: hosting as a benefit for the Ghana program. Will invite many professors and professionals. Using Ghana team’s data and experiences as a case study for the conference. It’s in April.

Uganda-Alison-Looking into unlocking and using P3 money. Coming up with business plans for expanding MFP program. Create microgrid for energy use from MFP. Water project? Uganda won $4,000. Boeing grant.

2. International Conference in Colorado

During Spring break. Difficult to cover travel costs because people will fly in from many different places. ABC usually covers ½ of travel, registration, hotel stay.

On the conference website, individual teams can post things about their projects on-line.

-Get head count of interested persons by February 7 so that we can figure out how to cover costs. They don’t have to be absolutely sure.

How many people should we send?

In the past, 2 per team, 2 from e-board. Possibly more.

People should expect to pay $200-$250. Depends where you are flying in from (it will probably be: you buy your own ticket, we reimburse you for half the cost).

We have a $500 travel grant that we can split among everyone.

Since we got the $500 travel grant we are required to have a poster at the conference. Only one poster to display all three of our projects. Send posters out to individual projects and have them update it. Guidelines for designing poster are very specific. Projects: update your part of the poster and send it to Sarah by February 7. Project posters are due February 19.

3. Vision Discussion

- Personal goals for each position.

Corporate Campaign information from Bruce: response rate of emails sent to companies is very low. From programs, Bruce needs you to look at our list of companies. See which companies would be a good match for your project. Pick 10-20 companies, and Bruce will send the companies an email. Deadline for getting list to Bruce: January 31. How Corporate Campaign works: Groups have autonomy in picking which co’s they want to reach out to. Bruce will help out and send email to the companies, but individual groups will have to present their projects.

- Overall board goals.

Sonal: We should create a clear list of things that we need, so when we make a new contact we know what to ask for. What we need: Business Cards to give to more contacts. Look more professional as an organization.

Bruce: We would like to do things more directly. Bureaucracy! Be conscientious of this! Don’t delegate too much! Do things on your own.

Lucy: Having program leads published on the website. For donate button, show exactly what the donation would be for (ask individual projects to post their specific needs). Creates more transparency within the group.

Kevin: Make website more consolidated.

Sonal: How to organize our data. Keep everyone on the same page. Right now we post information on WordPress. But there is some info that we do not need everyone to see. Look into different databasing programs. Talk to CUIT people. As the years go by, we will start losing information. Bruce: can we centralize our use of Google docs? Lucy: Howabout a Wiki?

Clay: More vocal on the website about who are sponsors are. Make it more obvious who is supporting us. Be very professional.

4. AECOM Meeting Planning

5. Budgets/Pre-Calendar

Meeting at 2 on Sundays.

-Status of Uganda Program’s Summer Travel Reimbursement

6. Create survey for Listserv

Compile list of Questions from each E-Board members.

7. Discuss how to divide work of responding to emails

8. Business Cards

9. Debrief Meetings

- Rachel Fried-Bethany is in charge of working on Days on Campus this year.

- Dr. Regine Lambrech: Director of Global initiatives and Education. Contact made by Allison S. last year. She asked “how can I help you in any way possible?” “Do you want to set up meetings with Alumni to get funding and interest?” She would help us update our materials (video, pamphlets). She wants to help us make our presentations and materials more professional. Getting us business cards. She mentioned Global Centers (2 in Africa, one in India) that Columbia is building around the world, as an opportunity for us to come in. Maybe we could set up a home base at these global centers.

Let us set up a meeting with the entire E-Board and Dr. RL.

10.  Things to add to this week’s list serve

Haiti: EWB_USA wants money or French speaking Civil Engineers.

Bi-weekly “what’s new for our project” updates on cu-ewb-list emails.

11. Millennium Campus Networks

They want to meet with us. Sarah and Sonal will meet with them.

12. Haiti Earthquake

Many other EWB groups want to work with us on this. This is something that we should be a part of. EWB-USA is doing something. Maybe we can refer folks to these organizations.

EWB will send manpower to Haiti events organized by other clubs. We will not have our own event. Joint effort with other Columbia campus groups. EWB-USA wants money or French speaking engineers.

13. cu-ewb list

-Ghana stuff: Kids Engineering Day, Ask about EI travel grant and Culligan’s class

Engineering Week is February 14-20. Claire Wang, of Civil Engineering society is trying to host workshops for kids during engineering week. Invite Professors’ Children. Idea: in Carlton Café, have 30-40 4^th-6^th graders. Charge some fee. See bridge building, stuff blown up. Tour labs. Ghana people will run it for this year.

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