Committee Chairs!

At our most recent meeting, the announcements were made for the appointed committee chairs for next year. Thanks to everyone who submitted an application and congrats to our new chairs!

Otho Abwao: Justin Thompson

Nyambogo: Mason Stout

Burere: Ben Gentry

Education: Max Poyle

Fundraising: Alex Jones

Social/Recruitment: Lana Sneath

Public Relations: Linea Olsson

Historian: Sidney Lacey

We're all looking forward to a great year with our committee chairs now in place!

Burere Assessment Trip

This week we finished up the Assessment forms and submitted them to EWB-USA for the trip this June with VLOP. We also added a few new members to help Avdhesh and the design team; Alex, who is a fifth year Civil student, and possibly a first year graduate student in structures will be joining us this week. We will continue to meet with THP to improve our design and get ready for the Implementation forms which we will be starting soon.

New Document Control Back Up

The Otho Abwao Skydrive folder has been overhauled and updated to include all relevant documents of the Otho Abwao Primary School project. The previous state of the folder was a mess, so it's great to see some organization implemented again to improve our documentation habits. The folder now features content organized into several main folders, with subfolders within each. Each folder contains a README file to describe the contents of the folder, as well as to provide contact information to direct questions regarding the folder's contents.

In the near future, the Otho Abwao Water Project folder will be overhauled to include all relevant documentation of the water project implemented in March 2009. These documents were previously stored on UC FileSpace, which has been abandoned due to difficulty in obtaining folder permissions for members.

A Weekend with Bill Clinton: CGIU 2011

The beginning of this month signaled a return of EWB-UC's representatives at one of the biggest youth leadership conference's in the United States - Clinton Global Initiative University (http://www.cgiu.org/meetings/2011/). This three day conference in San Diego aimed to bring together some of the world's youngest and most active philanthropists, innovators, and movement makers - the future NGO CEO's of the world. Sponsored by Bill Clinton and his foundation, the free conference (this year held at the University of California San Diego) played host to around 1,500 young men and women representing all 50 states and 90 countries. Mark Schutte and Jim Moyer, recently elected External Vice President and President of EWB-UC, both had the privilege of going to the conference in early April.

The conference consisted of large group panel discussions, followed by small breakout sessions and plenty of time for networking. "It was really an incredible experience - there were so many big names that came out to speak: the co-founder of Youtube, Sean Penn, Mandy Moore, Drew Barrymore, countless CEO's and policy makers, and of course, Bill Clinton himself," says Mark, "But really just being a part of such a huge group of people, all working towards some incredible commitments was the most rewarding part of the trip for me. It helps give me energy to go out and get to work on our EWB projects when I get to see all the great ideas others have come up with." Jim had a similar experience: "It was unbelievable how ingenious some of the commitments were. Jessica Matthews, presented her invention: the sOccket, a soccer ball that converts the kinetic energy used to kick it into electricity. Just 15 minutes of kicking creates 3 hours of light! Truly inspiring." (http://www.soccket.com/#!)

For all the hard work, Jim and Mark certainly were successful in networking with students and young adults from all over. They look forward to bringing back what they have learned to better serve EWB-UC and the UC community! Of course, not all their time spent was hard at work - San Diego's beach towns capped off the weekend beautifully!

A New Tradition: EWBer of the Month!

EWB has started something new and exciting! As of winter quarter, we’ve established EWBer of the Month. EWBer of the Month is chosen by the Exec board and has to be an outstanding member of the group. They must be outstanding in the fact that the work that they are doing is pushing their project, committee, and/or the group as a whole forward.

I am pleased to announce that we have already named two EWBers of the Month. The EWBer of the Month for February was Ryan Deffinger. Ryan has done a great deal with the External Affairs Committee. His work focused on fundraising for EWB on a very personal level and in doing so, he also recruited Dr. Ming Tang, a professor of an Architectural Design course in DAAP, to help revise and provide constructive criticism with the Otho Abwao and Burere schoolhouse schematics and blueprints. Ryan has also been seeking out companies for donations and sponsorship. Through personal connections and donations, Ryan has raised $676 for the group! He plans on continuing, and expanding upon, his efforts. Great job Ryan!

The EWBer of the Month for March is Avdhesh Gaur. As a graduate student from India studying Civil Engineering, Avdhesh is a very crucial member of the Burere Project. He has been working closely with THP and his work on the seismic and wind load calculations for the Burere school is extremely valuable for not only Burere, but for the entire group to use on future projects. Avdhesh has also been working on the structural design of the Burere school - another thing that will be very useful not only for Burere, but for projects to come! Keep the good work coming Avdhesh!

Congratulations again to these two gentleman. Keep up the outstanding work, our group wouldn’t be where it is now without you! Stay tuned for more EWBers of the Month!

New Exec Panel Elected

At our most recent meeting, we held elections for our upcoming year. Thanks to everyone who ran for positions and congrats to the following new members of the exec panel.



President: Jim Moyer
Vice President of Internal Affairs: Kevin Knollman
Vice President of External Affairs: Mark Schutte
Treasurer: Sarah Hrinko
Secretary: Morgen Schroeder

We also had a record number of applications for chair positions this year. Our new exec panel is reading over the applications and will be making appointments this Thursday.

UHA 5K Raising Funds for Burere

In what has been a long string of partnership with other organizations, EWB has secured the role of beneficiary for UHA PJ 5K. In what consistently is one of the funnest walk/runs held on campus, participants will show up in their favorite pair of pajamas, and run a 5k around UC's campus. (rated as one of Forbe's most beautiful campuses, so it also must be one of the most beautiful to run on)

Special thanks goes to everyone in the University Honors Association for all the hard work and planning they're putting into this event(special props go to the designer of the uber-cute poster). Details for the event are below, look for more info as the date approaches.

Day: Saturday, May 7th
Registration Time: 9:30am
Race Time: 10am

If you want to mark your digital calendar for this awesome event, click the button bellow: 

Otho Abwao Update

The AutoCAD drawings are taking form as we begin to document our preliminary structure. We have a first pass at the floor plan for a two-classroom building, and elevation drawings are next on the to-do list. The classrooms will each be 24'x27', as requested by the Otho Abwao Primary School administration. The ISSB wall is slated to be 6'' thick, and our confined masonry columns are sketched as 8''x8'' reinforced concrete columns. We might play around with the window and door placement, but this is a good first draft.

We're also getting ready for an organizational shift in leadership as elections for the 2011-2012 academic year approach. We're looking to shake things up a bit and restore some extra energy as we prepare to send off another trip to Tanzania in June to complete the Burere assessment. The quarter looks promising!