AHEC Meeting Minutes | September 24th, 2015
AHEC Meeting Minutes
Thursday, September 24th, 2015, 7:30pm @ Crafts lounge
Attendees: Jess (proxying for Lisa), Chris, Orpheus, Drew, Calvin, Katie, Cody Karcher (Comms officer)
Presided by Chris, Minutes by Orpheus
- Agenda
- [Vote] - Approval of Last Week's Minutes
- [Update] - Fall Officer Recruitment
- [Upcoming] - Fall Budget Allocation
- [Upcoming] - Fall Transition Dinner
- [Upcoming] - Summer Term Officer Evaluations
- [Discussion] - Solicitation for Will Fund/Inventory Purchases
- [Update] - Fun Fund
- [Discussion] - Date Selection for Casino Night
- Open Floor
- Approval of Last Week's Minutes
- Minutes are approved and are to be posted.
- Fall Officer Recruitment
- Finished interviews on Sunday
- Greater turnout than expected
- Confirmation from all canditates who were accepted, send out rejection notices tonight to candidates who were not accepted.
- All positions were filled
- Some chairs have expressed concerns about future leadership
- Keep eye out for that during spring recruitment
- Minutes are approved and are to be posted.
- Fall Budget Allocation
- AHEC to meet Sunday at 9 pm to discuss budgeting in the Hulsizer room
- Officers who have not yet submitted budgets will be notified by Drew
- Fall Transition Dinner
- Date
- Targeting middle of October
- October 19th is a possible date
- Brunch will have had first fall brunch
- Have 9 new officers
- Icebreakers
- Possibly games or other teambuilding exercises
- Catering by Aceituna
- Topics to be covered
- Overview of officer structure
- Kitchen Safety
- RFPs
- New officer introductions
- Put emphasis on changes such as
- Wiki
- Events Calendar
- Possibly focus more on asking questions to identify hang ups and problems that officers have experienced/have issues with
- Particularly RFPs and kitchen cleanliness
- Calvin will organize and send out email
- Summer Term Officer Evaluations
- New Policy developed 3 weeks ago
- AHEC members will hold meetings to review officer performance
- Officers will give feedback on position, their superiors and their fellow (sub)committee officers
- Committee chairs provide feedback of officers
- The officer evaluation will include:
- Officer rankings, which range from 1-3
- Rationale for the ranking
- Comments from AHEC will also be included, but hidden from reviewed officers
- Evaluations could go on Wiki for only ahec-5?
- Concerning filling-in the wiki
- Brunch needs to add to Wiki
- Events needs to keep posting to Wiki
- Orpheus will orally remind officers about Wiki
- Thoughts on officers who were gone for large portions of the summer:
- Asterisks next to number pointing to comment?
- If they don't have sufficent work done, they will not get credit for half term
- Add in comments
- If we give them grade (even with asterisks), will affect the in-house lottery
- Summary: No grade given to officers who were gone (doesn't help, doesn't hurt).
- Solicitation for Will Fund/Inventory Purchases
- Not too many requests for purchace (6)
- Part for gym equipment (hex bolt for bar) is currently being dealt with by Denise
- Boxing Gloves
- Concluded last week that we may not want gloves
- Chris: If we have boxing set, we should have boxing gloves so people don't hurt their hands
- General disagreement
- Other solicitations include board games and a panini grill
- Inventory Committee asked if they should purchase everything on list
- Told no, AHEC will evaluate all potential purchases and then instruct committee
- Orpheus will notify residents of new purchases from solicitation list
- Summary: Tabling until next week, will possibly discuss purchasing of new items then
- Pick dates for discussions on purchases on the Will Fund:
- Two weeks from now (October 7th)
- End of October (October 22nd)
- Table of all Will Fund soliciations will be completed around this date
- Other solicitations will go on next cycle
- Big items
- Where to put them?
- Table this, AHEC will review on case by case basis
- Fun Fund
- Part of the discussion will have to be tabled for next week
- The Fun Fund is an initiative allowing residents to fund their own ideas for events, such as kayaking, outings etc...
- Most of the events so far have been outside Ashdown (Outings)
- Fund is being used at a moderate leve, there is moderate interest
- A current proposal concerns Rock Climbing
- Currently allocated
- Policy is to cap at 10 people or $150, whichever is less
- However, this proposal was popular, and more than 10 people signed up
- Malvika (Communities Chair) wants to just increase the number (and leave the $15 subsidy per person intact, effectively increasing the budget for the event)
- An online discussion by AHEC led to agreeing this solution.
- Chris argues that this was doing a diservice to future Fun Fund activities/take money from other events
- Solutions:
- Speak to other officers and if a Fun Fund events gets very popular, the appropriate officers will get approached and can take it over if they so wish; it will count as one of their events, will come out of their budget.
- Dilute monies, i.e. follow current policy 10 people cap at $15 per person, or $150, whichever is less
- Handle as they come, favor making these outings through Outings Officer
- General consensus reached here
- Use Fun Fund to gauge interest and then offer to move large events to Outings (in the case of Outings events)
- Side-note when deciding the Rock Climbing budget increase:
- Concern as to how things were handled
- Email chain and online voting
- Favored those who were online at the time of decision
- Fomal policy should be established
- Thoughts on formal process
- Formalize event transition to Outings Officer (as was proposed)
- Offer second fun fund event for the people who cannot attend the first (overbooked) one?
- General disagreement on this point
- Outings Officer will take over event.
- Will count as one of the Outings Officer's 4 activities
- Allow Malvika to use discretion here
- So long as there is clarity, there is no issue here
- Proposal: If event is popular and exceeds 10 persons, Malvika contacts relevant officer and asks if this officer wishes to take it on as one of their events for the term
- If officer says no, the 10 person or $150 limit stands
- General consensus that this will work
- Check with Malvika, but pending her input, this is approved
- Where would budget come from?
- Under Communities, allocated by Malvika
- Pictures document all Fun Fund Activities for purposes of reporting events (in the spirit of post-event reports)
- Date Selection for Casino Night
- "Casino night is a very fun night" -Orpheus
- Organized by AHEC
- People play casino games (e.g. Baccarat, Roulette, Craps, Blackjack & others)
- Casino chips given and "fun" ensues
- Gift raffle based on final chip count used to buy tickets
- Orpheus will take organizational lead
- Should we move from November to January?
- Attendance was good last year, but not great
- However, previously (2 years before) coupled with orientation
- January gives more time for AHEC to organize
- Last weekend of IAP (Sunday)
- January 31st
- Ashdown Exclusive?
- In the spirit of increased collaboration with SidPac, we may want to have some sort of collaboration:
- Possibilities include:
- Joint event: One Casino night organized by both Ashdown & SidPac (open to both residents)
- Reciprocal Ashdown Casino Night open to SidPac residents so that Ashdown residents could go to SidPac's
- Orpheus will communicate with Lisa who will communicate to SidPac people
- Can people bring guests?
- Charge for external people?
- No, we just will not advertise outside Ashdown
- Orpheus wants to think on this and will make a decision
- Plenty of time to figure it out
- Possibly buy at least one additional blackjack mat and other equipment
- Additional idea: Make it so everyone who participates gets something
- Purchase cheap trinket?
- Perhaps a waste of money...
- Provide everyone one gauranteed ticket for big prizes
- Could be gambled away...
- Force them to put it in the raffle immediately
- General disagreement
- Orpheus will decide
- Irish Cayle dance
- A resident has a proposal for Fun Fund: Irish Cayle Dance event
- Wants to use Hulsizer, wants Donuts
- Wants to open to MIT, not just Ashdown
- Wants use of speakers
- Offered to fund pending less than $150 cost
- Offered support from Ashdown Events
- Will likely go the Fun Fund route
- Hulsizer room question
- Since Ashdown sponsored, free of cost
- Tables will need to be cleared
- When?
- Will Shoot AHEC an email when date is decided on
- Breakdown:
- Submit Fun Fund Request
- Assuming funding comes through, email ahec-5 with desired date
- AHEC will approve date
- Denise will move tables
- Email ashdown-tech to get sound/speakers up and running
- Email AHEC or Malvika with any questions
- Once this is done, Malvika can order additonal items through Google Express
- Poster support from Publicity (ashdown-publicity)
- Common space reservation issues
- People reserving Fabian Room for Extended Time periods
- No preexisting policy exists one can invoke to remove habitual reservers
- There used to be a paragraph above the reservation form that appears to have disapeared
- Form is also allowing reservations more than two weeks in advance (for at least the music room)
- Solution:
- Will reformat policy, needs to be voted on
- Will be voted on via email or next meeting
- Use SidPac's rules?
- Reformat webpage including warning paragraph of policy
- Attempt to hard code such that this violations cannot be booked
- Also, make cards with rules of use and post them on all common spaces
- Miscellaneous issues
- Status on Publicity and Forwarding Emails
- Alleviating Stress in Ashdown