Trip to Great Lakes Regional Conference

 A few members of our group recently attended the great lakes regional conference in Indianapolis. We sat in on presentations from EWB-USA national members and got to meet our new Chapter Relations manager, as well as discuss the new system for chapter fees. During the breakout sessions we traded group contact information, project details, and learned about how to lead effective meetings, anticipate common problems, build safety into our designs, and correctly fill out the mountains of paperwork involved with an assessment or implementation trip. It wasn't all business though, we made some great friends as well! the knowledge we've gained will be added to our projects in the coming year to aid our success!

Presenting for International Education Week

As part of international education week, Engineers Without Borders was asked to give a presentation as one of the events.  Our presentation focused was called Building Blocks of an International Project.  We talked about all the parts that go into putting on a successful international service project.

We broke an international project into four key components that are absolutely necessary

• Partnership: from first impressions to keeping consistent communication, having a strong with the community is crucial to the long-term success of a project
• Logistics: from lodging to travel, food to communication, we gave little tips and tricks for the nitty-gritty details necessary to get you through the trip safely
• Mission: start with the passion of members and use that to direct your goals and motives for the trip; then be sure to list those goals and prioritize them, so you get all the most important tasks done
• Team: from selecting members through the pre-trip meetings, all the way to post-trip relays of information, it's important to building a strong team with diverse skills so everything gets done

A special thanks to everyone who came out to see the presentation.  Coming to our event allowed people to "stamp" their fake passports, and anyone who got 3 stamps is eligible for a raffle of a round trip plane ticket, so hopefully the lucky winner is an EWB member.

Click here to view the full presentation

Fundraiser Raises $250 for EWB

Our Kegs For Kenya bar night was a big success.  Thanks to everyone who came out and helped support us and our projects.  In total, we profited $250 which will go toward completion of our projects.

It was also a nice for EWB members to come and take a well-deserved break from all the hard work they've been putting in on the projects.  A special thanks to Mark, Jim, and everyone else who worked to put this fundraiser together.

Click here to see photos from the fundraiser.

More EWB T-shirts Printed

Just a quick photo update.  We've finished printing the 1st batch of EWB t-shirts.  (there were so many people who wanted to print shirts, we couldn't so them all in one day).  We managed to get even more creative with some color-blend ones, and even some really cool glow-in-the-dark shirts.