Officers:CSEG Board Meeting 2009-07-08

Date: July 8, 2009

Present:

Nate Derbinsky (President, Curriculum Committee Rep)
Benjamin Wester (Vice-President)
Quentin Stout (Faculty Advisor)
Timur Alperovich (Social Chair)
Denny Vandenburg (DCO Student Rep)
Kaustubh Nyalkalkar (Secretary)

Absent:

Alex Kuhn (Intramural Chair)
Quang Duong (Grad/Fac Committee Rep)
Dave Meisner (GSAC/UMEC/GSF Rep)

Minutes:


- Dave is trying to get in touch with UMEC.

Timur:
- Movie-nites are a success - they are self-sustaining!
- Next happy hour may be held in August.

Nate:
- The idea of sending out a CSEG newsletter has been dropped because it needn't 
  generate awareness anyway when people filter it out of their mail. So, we'll 
  probably be looking at using the calendar as a means of notifying people of 
  the events/goings-on. Questions regarding what events should show up (cseg 
  board meetings?) and who can modify the calendar.
- Proposal to handle maintenance of the foosball table (by getting spare men and
  pins) by CSEG - accepted, since the cost is moderate and the table is meant for
  grad students.
- CSEG T-shirts for people who render their services to CSEG? TODO: Kaustubh and
  Benji to look at the numbers involved.
- Sponsored Happy Hours:
	- Sandia National Labs came back, even though their sponsored happy hour
  	  was decided at the last minute, had conflicts, and had an ill-targeted 
  	  presentation, because on of the students who attended it ended up join
	  ing them. (Note: Try to avoid these problems).
	- Try and achieve 3 sponsored happy hours in the coming term.
	- Format of happy hour - presentation or informal chat? TODO: Kaustubh 
  	  to obtain the format for conducting sponsored happy hours from Alex.
- Orientation for arriving students in September - run by VP (Benji). Will have 
  a CSEG talk by President.
	- Benji - updating the guide.
	- Mentors needed by Dawn (not necessarily board members!), whom incoming
	  students can contact by mail regarding questions about courses. Timur 
	  volunteered.
	- Peer counsellors needed, for a session with the incoming students, to 
	  discuss about courses again. Denny and Benji volunteered; Nate would 
	  be there anyways.

Quentin:
- Meeting with other groups within the department (GEECS, for example), before 
  calling in people (like Sandia), to make sure that we aren't stepping on each 
  other's toes.

Benji - SOAS (Student Organization Accouting Services?):
	CSEG hosts Teas for the department, and the payment for that is 
processed by the secretaries (Kelly). It seems that, because the paper-work has 
to be done for a different person (who hosts the tea) each week, it is a hassle 
for the secretaries. So, Kelly wanted us to register with the university as a 
student organization; then, our paper-work gets outsourced to SOAS, and all 
Kelly would have to do is make a bulk payment to SOAS.
	While opening an account with SOAS makes us eligible for university 
funding, it places restrictions on where we can put our on-campus-generated 
income (i.e. only into the SOAS account) and how we can use the money withdrawn 
from that account (no alcohol, and so, no happy hours!). To tackle this, it 
seems like we would have to maintain our existing account with UMCU, thus 
effectively maintaining 2 separate accounts. It is unclear whether this is 
acceptable to, and enforceable by SOAS (penalties seem to include freezing the 
SOAS account). Further, obtaining reimbursements from SOAS would involve us 
(i.e. VP/Benji) to hand the receipt over to SOAS, __in__person__, and later, 
they would mail a cheque to the person. SOAS operate from the Michigan Union, 
but once a week, they operate from the North Campus too, but this doesn't seem 
to be helpful. So, the process of obtaining a reimbursement doesn't improve in 
any way for the host, while it seems like it becomes a bigger hassle for CSEG.
	So, SOAS doesn't seem to be the way to go. The alternative that we came 
up with was to have the secretaries deal with the paperwork for a single 
host/vendor, probably called 'CSEG', and get the department to pay into CSEG's 
UMCU account, and then CSEG pays the hosts back. Since the turn-around time for 
the reimbursements is about 4 weeks, CSEG could act as a buffer for 4 weeks, and
 payout the reimbursements immediately; and in case, CSEG is cash-strapped, the 
hosts could simply be asked to wait for the normal course of time. Hopefully, 
this is the solution that will be implemented.

• The agenda for the meeting is File:07-08-2009-agenda.pdf.
• The foosball proposal is File:07-08-2009-foosball.pdf.