Minutes from 10-15-08

Application approved by National!! In contact with someone to review the application and look at possible pitfalls.

Drew contacted Circle K and Rotary, Kiwanas as well about funding.

Hannah drew up a proposal of possible expenses
$6,655 for 6 students, 7 days Implementation

$3,260 Assessment trip (planned for December 14 but probably will be in January or February)

Submitting a grant for the Implementation phase through EWB national ***Deadline FRIDAY- Hannah's working on it.

We borrowed $200 from AS for dues that we need to pay back. Need to decide how to get the money.

Putting $500 from Seattle Rotary towards assessment trip

John Warner- board member at the university who is interested in our project.
He has contacts with Boeing, personal ones and engineer friends.

Forrest is going to start filling out travel paperwork for the assessment trip

We then looked at topographical maps of Guatemala.

THINGS TO DO

• Look for other ways of funding.
• Tomorrow after I post the link to the Huddle site (a site that contains all documents from the previous lavanderia project) and the name of the town, look at the specifications of the 1) Design
  2) Town itself
  3) Guatemalan history. Send your findings to lynchj3@cc.wwu.edu
  

Next week 10/22:
Still meet in ET but we will break up into committees!

Minutes from 10-08-08

Reviewed powerpoint of project in Chisec, Guatemala.

• Looked at region.
• Looked at Brian Smith's project from a nearby region.
• Looked at manufactured wetland infrastructure (no lagoon where we'll be building- Chisec's water supply greatly dependent on the season).
• Sign showing importance of education on how to use the system.

Questions about the trip
Subject of testing the soap that's used in the region (what tests to do etc.)
The gov't land that's adjacent.


Sub-Committees

• Education/Mgmt/Logistics- Leader: Julie Members: John
  
• Health/Environmental- Leaders: Mack, Arielle Members: Ryan, Sydney, Karen
  
• Fundraising- Hannah, Members: John, Drew, Sydney, Karen
  
• Design- Leader: Jamie Members: Justin, Erica, professionals
  

Education- could be leaving a blueprint of the project to recreate
Also, educate the village on how to not only use the lavandería but how to maintain the whole of it.

New Vice-President- Sydney!!
Publicity Manager- Erica and Drew!!
Fundraising coordinator- Hannah!!

Fundraising-

• Rotary Club in Seattle- Need to notify them of our need.
• All Rotary committee's need to have a water project (mandated this past summer) so we need to contact them ASAP because they have a large budget and could really contribute.
• Contact Kiwanis as well.

Needs before fundraising:

• Need to talk to CH2M Hill about possible fundraising conflicts.
• Need to have a committment from EWB national
• Someone local- peace corp volunteer.

Broke up into groups and discussed timelines for committees.


Next Meeting 10/15/08 6:00 pm ET 107 or 106 depending on which door is open.

Minutes from 10-01-08

Introduction of President, Forrest Copeland.
Introduction of the project in Guatemala.

Timeline for project (32 weeks total)

• Application by TAC (1)
• Contact community (3)
• Assessment Application (5)
• Present Assessment Proposal (15)
• Assessment Trip/Report/Design (15)
• Implementation Presentation/Trip (22)
• Final Report (32)

Don't know if application has been approved

Assessment Trip
Conduct surveys to see health benefits (benchmarking).
Site survey- measure hills, water toxicology, and meet with the community.

Project
In central Guatemala, a region called Chisec. Idea is to take water and pump it to the lavanderia, filtered then put it back into constructed wetlands.

• Need to find out when the appropriate time to go is (not monsoon season).
• Could we accomplish what we want to accomplish in the wet season?
  

Finances

• With AS we have $0 but Monday go in front of the committee and request chapter fee ($400).
• Have left $150 from engineering department.
• Travel process takes at least 6 weeks to get approved.
• National EWB has grants for assessment trips and the actual Trip- Fall projects grant.

Committees
Management/Logistics, Health/Environment, Design, Education, Community Organization, Fundraising.

Officers
Prez, VP, Secretary, Treasurer, Publicity and Fundraising Coordinator.


Action

• Contact Peace Corp volunteer in Guatemala.
• Form committees (ex health, engineering, management).
• Start by planning assessment trip.
• See if EWB has kits for surveying.
• Create a design.
• Look into if Guatemala has a surveying, geological survey team.
• Get specs on the soap being used right now.
• Publicity- talk with KVIK, KVOS.
• List of potential donors and grants- Rotary contacts, professional chapter of EWB. *Need a plan first.

Next Meeting: 10/8/08, 6 pm

6/26/08 Conference Call Minutes

Guatemala Trip 6/26/08 Meeting Minutes – Conference Call

Chris Webb submitted the project application to EWB National for expedited review on 6/26/08!!!

Assessment Team

Chris Webb – Site Survey and Engineering

Jason Strayer (Tentative) – Site Survey and Engineering

Lisa Knapp – Health Assessment

Brian Smith – Translator and Local Guru

Arielle Furtado – Health Assessment

Team must complete forms 605 and 608 prior to departure.

Personal Health considerations i.e. vaccinations, travel medicine should be considered.

Travel Insurance?

General research of the country and culture. Possible local language dictionaries from Brian Smith?

Meeting date and location prior to departure…TBD

Trip Dates: Wednesday July 22 – Sunday July 27

Rendezvous at Dos Lunas (Hotel/Hostel) in Guatemala City prior to departure to Chesec on Wednesday Morning.

Funding for group travel expenses…housing, food, vehicle rental, etc. TBD. Possibly achieved through Rotary funding?

Priorities of the trip will be determined, but are generally organized around:

1. Health assessment

2. Site Survey – Water Quantity, site location, topography, etc.

3. Meetings with officials

4. Existing Lavandaria Site Visit

5. Water Quality – Scope TBD….possibly focus on quantity of detergents/chemicals rather than actual water quality measurement.

TO DO:

1. Finalize Travel Details … Flights, Car Rental

2. Generate prioritized assessment trip check list

3. Generate tentative schedule of assessment trip & arrange meetings

4. Personal medical considerations

a. Travel Insurance

b. Forms 605 and 608

NICE WORK TEAM!!!

Minutes from 6-03-08

Review of Guatemala Project
Subgroups
Site assessment form that outlines the initial site assessment.
Entails site surveys, population/demographic studies, resource availability.
Pretty detailed and comprehensive.
Forrest will e-mail this out and we can add to it.

What needs to be assessed before/during the trip
Health and environmental group- baseline water parameters.
Many can be analyzed by a handheld unit (YSI).
Possibly can borrow this from Huxley.
Phosphates biggest thing to deal with because this machine can’t analyze phosphates.
Determining best way to work with this- freeze and bring back or test down there.
Need to decide who will test these parameters because a before and after look will help determine if the project makes a difference.
Ideas on seasonal monitoring
Need site specific data- hard to gather since we will only be down there for a little while.
Get full set of water testing equipment down there so the Peace Corp volunteer can test.
Would a reasonable test be from when we’re there?
Harsh numbers of water pollution could help fundraising.
Measure existing project, see how big it is, how many people serving, water quality (identify certain places to take samples- standardize time of samples and places).
Keep track of existing water fall.
National Park Status- where we can and can’t build.
Done when in Guatemala.
How to return the treated water? By ground or back into the river.
Who would own the land that the pipe would be on?
Community landsite?
Management of the project when it’s completed.
Assess water usage and multiply it by the # of people that use it to see how much water needs to be pumped
Check what kind of energy will be needed to pump the water.
Construction of a training program.
Memorandum of understanding

Site Assessment
Hannah talked to the guy in the AS about funding airfare.
Dealing with the new guy in charge of funds but the fiscal year ends soon.
First step is to set a date—request to get anything has to be after 5 weeks of the submission.
Probability of getting funds?
Depends on which fiscal year (this one ends at the end of June).
Then submit a request (about a two week process).
Separate expenditure request.
Look at list of days Chris Barry won’t be in the town.
June 26,27
July 2-4, 10-14, 20-22
Aug 5-11
If water levels are low earlier in the summer (April, May lowest) then sooner the better but last week in July and
Contact a University Down there.
Brian has contacts to some people in the biology program there.
Site Assessment days: July 25-29
Brian could give a guess of food costs.
Funding request in this fiscal year- Hannah will do tomorrow.
Memorandum of understanding
Chris already has one from a project in Ecuador.

Application
They want an official site assessment to be legit and wondering if we’ll get the application form in by the time we buy plane tickets.
Chris will call his friend on the Technical Board to check.
Three other engineers in Seattle.
Christine did some preliminary application work so she has some materials.
FTP has the applications as well.
Chris Barry is going to go to the city and work with the Hunta to apply for the project so it’s their project.
Our role is assisting them.
We need to get the parts filled out we need to fill out in the word document and get it down to Chris Barry.

Chapter Communication
FTP
On Explorer: can download some programs which is easier than making explorer to do it.
Create on Huddle
Send list to everybody that’s interested and a separate email to other people who get monthly updates.

Bits and Pieces
National funding request has been sent to the school.
Talk to our advisor to have an ally here.
Check if we could request survey equipment from WWU
BinMeadows has been an ally- foldable rods.
Chris has the equipment already.
Summer—stay in touch with huddle.
Each group making list of what information they need.
Check about reading on the area.
Unfinished Conquest
Bitter Fruit
Maya resurgence in Guatemala- especially about Chisec people.
Climate Data, sexual politics, culture.
Professor Underwood as a resource.
During the visit can line up guest speakers with people about the culture.
Maybe have some professionals arrive early.


Have a good Summer! Stay in touch through the newly created Hub website!

Minutes from 5-22-08

• Reviewed the Guatemala project.
• Introduced ourselves, our majors, if we'd be interested in traveling and what areas we'd be interested in. These include: Health, logisitcs/management, environmental, fundraising, design, budget, application, education and safety.
• Brian Smith, a peace Corp volunteer who was in Chisec, explained issues we may have such as water level, budget (working with the people in Guatemala to get supplies),
• Brian talked about possible design ideas like a roof with rain water.
• Asked if we're collecting rain water in the lavanderia but don't have house water will this cause issues?
• Brian set up a system similar to our project--he has many pictures, video (good for fundraising), a published paper and gave us plan.
• First step is to set up survey where we plan (need surveying tools--Brian will try and contact people in the village and see if they have the tools) and once you have plans you can have a local guy coordinate with the workers (similar to a mason found in each village).
• Would be good to have the village agree to have a mason.
• The village has been working on a ecotourism project so they have a main group (Hunta) that head it who we should work directly with.
• This town is more progressive with women guides that float the river.
• As far as education is concerned, form a Hunta with the women so they can help and decide what they want from the project.
• Need to find people who can go on the weekend assessment.
• Maybe have people front money and be reimbursed.
• Nobody in the village speak English--women almost exclusively don't speak spanish.
• Sebastian who lives in Guatemala is very good at motivation and he is really respected by the women in the town--a good asset.
• Chapter is almost formalized.
• We have to get the national club to OK our project and the town must submit their application.
• Whoever takes on application end has a contact, possibly two (the peace corp volunteer).
• We owe the national organization $100 and and $400 in Sept- so we can use the AS money for little things like chapter fees.
• Forrest has been talking to other chapter leaders and the hard things is to get international travel permission.
• Need background information for new members- possibly a website
• Decided group leaders.

Logistics/Management- Julie Members- Paul, Jennifer, Arielle

Budget (sub fundraising)- Hannah Members- Kelly

Application- Forrest Members- Paul

Design (now site specific research)- Forrest Members- Jennifer, Heidi, Amy

Health/Environmental- Arielle Members- Megan, Mack, Heidi, Sydney, Kelly

Education-very important Members- Kelly

• Short term- make a rough outline and make sure the initial trip is ok and the committee needs to meet and decide what they're going to do initially.
• Need a discussion board

Next Meeting: Thursday June 5th 6:00

Sub groups will meet as decided. If interested contact Forrest (groups are above).

Minutes for 5-15-08

• Chris Webb quickly reviewed the information he presented about the project, how he got involved, contacts we have and EWB (see last post).
• Build a laundry facility.
• Opportunity to make this economically self sustaining and help improve eco tourism.
• Need to get a roster for travel-- site assessment and building.
• Ideal timeline for assessment is in the next two months.
• Also need to submit project to the EWB national board.
• Fundraising- this project will need to raise $10,000-20,000 and the way that happens is the professionals can shake down vendors (approach colleagues who are with large corporations whose projects they could specify).
• Also community groups ex Rotary and Rotary International, two in Bellingham and one in Bellevue, and CH2M Hill.
• If we’re successful then we can pay for all of the materials and subsidize some student travel.
• Possibly university grants.
• Life Straw
• Different water purification systems.
• Question Time
• Access to FTP server—will have material list
  
• To Do
• Roster for Lavanderia Team.
• Start Building an FTB sight.
• Contact Chris Berry, who’s in the village and let him know we have the interest level.
• Village need to get the application together and need Chris’ help.
• Finalize chapter.