AHEC Meeting Minutes

Monday, June 5, 2017, 8:30pm @ Crafts Lounge

Attendees: Deirdre Logan, Xueying Zhao, Vishal Patil (Haluk as proxy), Meicen Sun, Nicole Moody

Presided by Nicole Moody, Minutes by Abbas Ghandi

• Agenda
  • [Vote] - Approval of Meeting Minutes
  • [Update] - Communities Committee: Fun Fund Events, Mailing List and Website Updates
  • [Update] - Operations Committee: Ashdown Lobby Display, AC/Heating FAQ Page
  • [Discussion] - Orientation Planning
  • [Discussion] - October Ashdown Alumni Event
  • Open Floor
• Approval of Meeting Minutes
  • Approved.
• Communities Committee: Fun Fund Events, Mailing List and Website Updates
  • Had our first meeting last week. Discussed ideas for first four events.
  • Ramadan event Iftar celebration (fun fund events).
  • Sailing events
  • Updated the email list and working on the website.
• Operations Committee: Ashdown Lobby Display, AC/Heating FAQ Page
  • Training tech officers is underway.
  • Three channels: MIT events, next bus and Ashdown pictures
  • Tech is training Publicity how to configure the channel so that Ashdown pictures will be replaced by upcoming Ashdown events
  • Training tech officers about the front desk mailing system. Timing: about a month
  • Taking the pictures of new officers in upcoming coffee hours. Do not want to overlap with special coffee hours.
  • Will ask Tech to put up an AC/Heating FAQ page on the website
  • Treasury: Lost receipt of a garden officer. A letter was written to explain the issue. Will send an email to reinforce keeping the receipts.
  • Discussion about using Uber pool. An email will be sent to reinforce spending money wisely in case needed to take Uber.
  • Discussed possible use of Ashdown zip car account versus officers' own accounts. Ashdown zip car account is limited to five persons (brunch). It is not feasible to ask them to run other errands. Accounts are not transferable.
  • Will remind to use zip car account whenever possible.
• Orientation Planning
  • Events committee will take the lead. They did the planning of the events last year on their own. They had two events last year. Two events have been submitted for this year. Other events are being finalized. Events team will meet soon.
  • Communities Committee have also discussed the orientation.
  • Nicole is the graduate residence liaison. Make sure that all dorms have events that don't conflict. Will advocate for a good spot in the orientation.
• October Ashdown Alumni Event
  • Ashdown is partnering with Alumni Association.
  • Will establish best practices to reaching to alumni in casual way. This will lay the ground work for the Ashdown Alumni Event. The association is scoping their budget for the year. We will receive funding from them. It is going to be a productive partnership. They offered to make registration page in order to have a good handle of number of RSVPs.
  • Once the orientation event is getting off the ground, we will start for the Ashdown event.
  • Discussion about how the networking should be: It could be a networking event, a tour, research presentations (should be informal). Certain amount of professionalism with the networking. Dividing people in different fields. It should be career driven.
  • Alumni Association is trying to have alumni career advisors' network. You can search people through infinite connection. They are coming up with centralized databased with alumni who are willing to help.
  • It was suggested to reach out to the alumni early to see how many are coming from which field.
  • Panel structure. Also a keynote speaker event.
  • Will try to reach out to people in the September event.
  • Heavy amount of local alumni.
    • This would be the first of its kind.
  • Discussion about incentivizing alumni attendance.
  • Free food. Some intangible assets something like interview them and publish that in the newsletter.
  • Alumni association should have some ideas. We will talk to them. Open floor
  • Proposed the special coffee hours two weeks from now (June 22) to schedule for officers picture taken.
  • One of the tech officers has suggested that he could be a photographer. We can also ask officers to send their photos.
  • For the dessert night need chocolate fountain. Update will be provided this week.
  • Open doors night. Last year we did that in the fall. Hard to coordinate. Will do that during the summer. Meeting adjourned.