Hello EWB USask!

I hope you have all settled into the new rhythm of summer! The snow is finally gone! Yeahhhhh!

This summer, the EWB Western Retreat will be taking place at Camp Shagabec in the Cypress Hills. The retreat will run from the evening of June 27th to the morning of June 30th. If you are new to EWB, or have been involved with EWB for a while, YOU NEED TO DO YOUR BEST TO COME!

This is the time when many of the people from National Office in Toronto, as well as student chapter members from across Western Canada come together to dive deep into what it means to be EWB. This is the time for planning out a great upcoming school year and maintaining momentum throughout the summer. And since it takes place in the beautiful Cypress Hills, it is also a an amazing (optional) camping and scenery-appreciation time.

To learn more about the details of the retreat, read this post http://my.ewb.ca/posts/98079/

To see the Facebook event, go to https://www.facebook.com/events/564222976953592/

And to REGISTER go to https://legacy.ewb.ca/en/whatyoucando/retreat/index.html

Western Retreat is close to home this year, so I want our chapter to REPRESENT! If you have any questions I would love to receive an email from you at alannahowell@ewb.ca .

I am off to the President's retreat in Toronto this weekend, and I am excited to come back with many ideas to make this year a fantastic year for our chapter.

Cheers,

Alanna

Hey everyone!

I wanted to fire off a quick reminder that tonight we will be having our turnover retreat at 6:00 p.m. in the SESS Lounge. Furthermore, if you haven't already done so, please fill out the attached Team Leader Application Form and submit it to  alannahowell@ewb.ca sometime today before 6:00 p.m. If you are interested in starting a new team, feel free to fill out an application for that as well!

See you all tonight at 6:00 in the SESS Lounge!

Payton 

Hello all!

It is that time of year again, where we bring this school year to a close and start laying the foundations for a fantastic year next year. Naturally, this begins with defining the official leaders of the coming year's teams.

With our new chapter team-based structure, anyone can easily join a chapter venture team and get to work. However, every team needs a leader to be accountable for team functioning and to keep things on track.

Please fill out the attached team leader application form, and email it back to Alanna at alannahowell@ewb.ca by 11:59 PM on Friday April 5th.

The attached application role lists the various teams which have existed within EWB in the past or which exist currently. If you are interested in starting a new team, feel free to submit a team leader application for that team. 

The roles within the chapter for the coming year will be finalized at our Turnover Retreat happening at 6 pm on Saturday, April 6th in the SESS office. All are welcome and strongly encouraged to attend! An effort will be made to keep the retreat as effective and efficient as possible in order to facilitate studying for finals.

As Gandhi said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world".

Cheers,

Alanna Howell

Good afternoon!

Just a reminder to come to member learning tonight at 6 in Agriculture 1E79. Alanna will be leading the chapter in looking back at what we did during the school year and writing a failure report. We hope to learn from our mistakes and avoid repeating them in our future endeavors.

In other news, the Community Impact venture has decided that EWB will be volunteering at the Global Gathering Place, a not-for-profit drop-in centre for newcomers, starting next school year. We aim to have a positive local impact to add to the global impact we have through other work we do as EWB.

Hope to see many of you at member learning tonight!

Hello all,

Hopefully everything is going well as classes start wrapping up. Below are some reminders and updates from the chapter!

Member Learning

Erin and Alyssa will be leading member learning this week on March 26^th. During the session, "Even Super Heroes Work Better Together", we'll be exploring what it means to be a hero, designing an all-star team of superheroes, and delving into our own superhero alter egos.

Presidential Elections

Please welcome Alanna Howell as our new chapter president for the 2013-2014 school year!

World Water Day

On Friday, March 22^nd, EWB led an activity at the Canadian Water Resources Association’s Student and Young Professional Seminar on water-related issues. Our activity was about governmental decentralization in Malawi and how it is affecting the water sector. Thanks to all those involved, it was a success and many good ideas were generated.

GE 121 Class

EWB is working with the staff involved in modifying the GE 121 class this term. Through our influence, a peer evaluation component has been implemented. In about a week, the concept of empathy maps will be introduced.

Run to End Poverty

Join the movement and run 10K, ½ marathon, or marathon in the Saskatchewan Marathon on Sunday May 26^th, 2013.

Runners will be reimbursed for their race registration if they raise $300. Also, a retreat is in the making for April 31^st, with Ayon Shahed from National Office in attendance.

For more information about Run to End Poverty, visit r2ep.ca.

SaskWater School Presentations

We are still looking for additional volunteers to help with school presentations. We are looking for people who are available weekdays in the months of April, May and June. Please contact Alanna if you are interested.

Good afternoon EWBers!

Here are a few updates about what is going on in the chapter these days:

Presidential Elections – Elections for our new president will be taking place March 12-18^th. Come out to member learning at 6pm on March 12^th to hear candidates’ speeches! Also, join us in discussing what you want your role to be next school year during our group huddle at 7pm. The election results for our new president will be announced at member learning on March 19^th.

Fairtrade – EWB will be doing a Fairtrade workshop at Buena Vista school on March 19^th.

World Water Day – March 22^nd is World Water Day. EWB will be leading an activity with the Canadian Water Resources Association to raise awareness about global water issues. 

Community Impact – Research is being conducted to look at organizations EWB is interested in volunteering with to create impact locally! Stay tuned for more information.

Run to End Poverty – USask EWBers will be running in the Saskatoon Marathon in May as part of a Canada-wide fundraiser called Run to End Poverty. Expect to hear more soon about how to get involved!

SaskWater School Tours – EWB is being sponsored by SaskWater to run water-related workshops with school-aged children this spring. Please contact Alanna at alannahowell@ewb.ca if you would like to help out.

Hello everyone!

Please remind everone you know that this week's Member Learning will be at 6:00 p.m. in AG 1E79!!! The topic will be on Feedback Culture - Both Sharing and Listening. I will be facillitating a ~45 minute workshop on giving and receiving feedback effectively. I have a midterm in the physics building at 7:00 p.m. sharp, so I will be aiming to leave by 6:50 promptly. Please try to be a few minutes early so that we can start right at 6:00 - I think we will put all 45 minutes to good use and I don't want to be caught short for time!

Bring your friends, bring your family, bring the person who sits beside you on the bus! Everyone is welcome to this workshop, as feedback is something everyone deals with daily, but very few people actually get right!

See you all tomorrow at 5:55!

Payton

Good evening,

EWB USask has big news for you. At our strategic planning meeting this weekend, we decided to move the chapter in a different direction. We will be transitioning to a chapter structure that is more focused and team-based. Teams consisting of people with common well-defined goals will take on ventures that work towards those goals. At the start of each Member Learning session, there will be an opportunity for members to share ideas they have for a venture and for other members to join them.

We have also rebranded our “executive meetings” to “group huddles” to make it more clear that everyone is welcome to attend. Our group huddles will be a time of action planning after Member Learning on Tuesdays. Teams will have time to move forward in their ventures and get feedback from the group! We are very excited to be restructuring our chapter and hope to be more efficient and effective.

If you missed the strategic planning meeting on Saturday, you can open the attachment in this email to view the meeting minutes.

At the upcoming Member Learning we will be hearing about what one of our new venture teams is doing to incorporate global engineering on campus. They look forward to hearing your thoughts and questions.

See you at member learning (6-7pm) and group huddle (7-8pm) on Tuesday in Agriculture 1E79!

Hello all!

In case you haven't yet heard, we will be having a Strategy Planning Meeting this coming weekend, on Saturday, January 26th. All chapter members are welcome to this Breakfast Potluck and Planning Session, regardless of your role in the chapter. This is a chance to engage directly in the vision and direction of our student chapter for the next 16 months! I encourage everyone to come out and take part. Please take some time to look over the attached 'prep document' before arriving so that we can accomplish as much as possible in our limited time on Saturday!

Look forward to seeing you all there!

Payton Byrns

EWB Usask, President

Good afternoon!

As you know, the 2013 Engineers Without Borders Conference was taking place in Calgary from January 10^th-14^th. Now that everyone from our chapter is back, we welcome you to come to member learning tonight to listen to and participate in discussions about Conference and highlights we had. We hope to see lots of people come to Agriculture 1E79 tonight at 6!