It's Official

Hello everyone
We are pleased to announce as of now, UNCC Global Architecture Brigade is an official student organization on campus.
Thanks for all of those who helped.
Look forward for a meeting in the near future (sorry for the late delay, it's been busy start of semester for us).
Here are some things we have in mind in the future:

-setting a meeting with University Times for interview for an article in the paper.
-sending letters out to architecture firms and related businesses in supporting us
-creating donation jars
-having a bake and/or candy sale
-meeting with Earth Club and the Engineering Dept to further inform on campus
-finding more officers to help us out
-setting dates for our first trip
-applying for grants for the organization

If anyone has any ideas/comments, please let us know.
That's all for now. We hope to hear from you in the near future.
Cheers
Joseph Rosenberg and Spencer McKay

Donate Now!

The Global Architecture Brigade site has added us to their donation list. You can donate directly to our UNCC student chapter with just a few simple clicks. Joey and I have been working hard on grant and scholarship applications. Every little bit counts, we are getting very excited about this opportunity becoming a reality.

Spencer

Exciting News from Global Environmental Brigade

Hey everyone,
here is an email I got from Michelle Menclewicz, the U.S. Program Director for Global Development Brigades:

Hey there Brigaders!

I thought you might be interested to know....

Global Brigades just had its first Environmental brigade in December and it was a huge success! The students at UC San Diego have paved the way for Environmental Brigades for both the students and communities in Panama. We can't wait to see more student groups make a difference in these communities!

Anna's (All-star GEB Director) brief description of the brigade:

"We installed two solar panels (after lessons at a university in PMA with

electrical engineering Panamanian students), built and shed using
traditional Kuna building techniques, helped with waste management, taught
environmental education workshops and skits, jumped off waterfalls in a
crystal clear river, had a beach day on a deserted island, ate lobster and
conch, ran around with a Smithsonian forester and the Director of the
Biodiversity Museum, and more! It was an amazing experience had by all and I
couldn't have asked for a better team of support."

Want to know more?!

Check out their blog and pictures:

http://web.me.com/oceanhugger/GEB/Home.html

http://picasaweb.google.com/ucsdgeb09

Here are some direct quotes from the students who went on the brigade:

"I honestly believe that GEB as an organization is one of the best ways to bring students, international communities, and culture together in a way that shows humanitarian work is not only doing something amazing for someone else, but doing something amazing for yourself."

"This is my first time being involved in an organization such as GEB and after my experience in Panama, I regret not getting involved with the organization sooner in my collegiate career."

"I love that I can say that I've been to Panama, something that most could not say with pure conviction. Not only has this brigade allowed me to educate others about the environment, something very important to me; it has allowed me to expand my own horizons and I look forward to doing something very similar in the future."

"Our time in Panama was one of the most memorable and amazing things I have ever experienced."

"The water was clear, the coral reefs were beautiful, and the white sand plus the coconuts were as if we were standing in a postcard."

------

I hope this gives you a better understanding of an Environmental Brigade! If you know anyone who you think would be interested in participating in our environmental projects or any Global Brigades project in Panama or Honduras please have them reach out to me!

We are so proud of our Global Brigades team and the brigaders from UCSD who made this possible!

GO 2010!
Michelle

--
Michelle Menclewicz
U.S. Program Director
Global Development Brigades

Mobile: 949-290-0986
menclewicz@globalbrigades.org
www.globalbrigades.org

10/12/09 Meeting Recap

So here are some things we talked about at the meeting:

GAB an Independent Study
-Kelly Carlson-Reddig got back with me about GAB being an independent study and says it sounds plausible.
KCR said that she would need to review a complete proposal. We would need a committed faculty member, develop a concrete set of outcome requirements, and a form needs to fill out.
So, if anyone wants to work on that, let me know.

GAB on-campus organization
-I will be working on the paperwork for making this an on-campus Organization. There is not much to do for it.
I got a bylaw form we can tweak for our chapter, we have Kathy Boutin-Pasterez as our mentor, and we just need to fill out a form as well.
me and vershaé plan to work on that and if anyone else interested/has experience, let us know.

GAB Fundraising
-we are still desperate for ideas, but I have attached a pamphlet people can give out to your friends and family. They gave me the wrong pamphlet and I had to reformat to work for us. It's a Word Document, so everyone can edit it for their personal information (personal greetings, contact information, etc.) It is supposed to be double-sided printed also.
On Saturday of that week, we had a conference call with GAB and had a presentation of fundraising ideas from schools that worked well.
I can put the powerpoint up on the website later this week. I am also going to email KCR to email to all SOA faculty in hopes of creating interest/help.
Again, if anyone has any fundraising ideas, please let us know and we'll try it out.

GAB Date Rescheduling
-It doesn't look realistic to schedule the 1st visit during spring break. The amount of time left until then doesn't seem enough to raise the money. So we are thinking when school gets done. A possible date for this is two weeks after Spring Semester (end of may-beginning of june). This is still an open-ended date, though we should figure out a date for John Cunningham/Charlie Lang.



GAB Question
-Some questions that were risen from the meeting were:
=what flexibility do we have for the cost (meals, transportation, airfare, etc)?
=How do we actually get client? are they waiting for a sponsor?
=Can we get detailed information about where our money is going (we are having issues of transparency with the group on this issue)?
=Can we talk to local Panamanian universities to assists us (resouces, labs, codes issues, etc)?
=Can we make this 1 trip instead of 2 trips? (we talked about since the price was so high, if we can reduce the cost and quicken the process)
I am waiting to hear from Charlie Lang (East Coast Chapter Coordinator) for the answers to these question, and will put on the blog.

Well that's it right now, I know that's a lot to take in. I am definitely working over the break on this and keep you all to informed.
If there is any questions, please don't hesistate to ask and anyone wants to help (we need more officers in the group), let me know.
Hope to hear back from you all (feedback is always welcome and lets me know someone is actually reading these emails).

Cheers and Happy Holidays
Joey and Spencer

Hello all, we just finished our second meeting this evening. We've got some great ideas and things are starting to advance. Antonio Martinez is heading up our Fundraising and Marketing which will help a huge amount. We are now on Facebook as well and have created a group, so if you were not invited and would like to join just search UNCC GAB and anyone can join. Be on the look out for our first fundraising event, which will be a Feliz Navidad, end of the semester bash in order to raise money for our trip to Panama. Below is the GAB brochure in case you are still looking for more information on our organization. As always feel free to comment and we hope to hear from you soon!

Adios,

Spencer and Joey

GAB Summary Flyer Information

Here is a flyer given by Charlie for a good summary of the what to expect from the Brigade:

GAB Student Manual

This is our manual for pretty much any question we might have.

We will plan to use this as discussion reference next monday and the rest of the semester.

Sorry I haven't figured out how to post a .pdf file here, so here's the link to scribd.com:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23098500/Gab-Student-Manual

let me know if you have any problems

cheers

joey