Welcome to the start of a new and promising term for student government! I had a pleasant start to the year in St John’s Newfoundland where I attended the Canadian Federation of Engineering Student’s (CFES) annual congress. This is a gathering of engineering student societies from all over Canada. The organization meets annually to exchange ideas on how to provide value to the students we serve and to decide what direction the organization should take for the next year. I would like to congratulate Melissa Deziel and Leah Allen for their winning bid to host CFES congress here at the University of Waterloo in winter 2013. This will give us a great chance to showcase our school and our engineering faculty as well as the opportunity for more of our students to participate in the event. More details on this conference and a few other conferences will be up in the coming weeks on the EngSoc exec blog.
The charities directors (Lisa Truchon, Lisa Van Waterschoot, Marissa Bale, and Angela Rossi) are continuing to work very hard this term to raise funds for Free the Children. Keep your ears open for the return of pancake breakfasts, amongst other things. As of the end of last term, with A-Soc we have raised a collective $3234 of the $8500 needed to build a school in an impoverished community in a developing country.
Other things to look forward to this term include several outreach events: Engineering Explorations, Shadow Day, and National Engineering Month.
Engineering Explorations will be a showcase of various aspects of UW engineering for middle school students. We will be in need of tour guides for the event.
For Shadow Day, high school students tag along with engineering students for half the day to see what big people school is like.
For National Engineering Month, we have a team working on a Rube Goldberg machine that will be connected to other machines across Ontario via the internet. I don’t want to spoil any surprises, but word on the street is that the CN tower is involved. That’s a pretty big deal.
There will be call outs later in the term for those interested in volunteering for these events, however if you want more information you can always just shoot me an email or swing by the EngSoc office and chat with me there. If you ever want to come talk to me in person to pick my mind or to get involved with some EngSoc activities, my office hours are Mondays from 1pm-2pm and Thursdays from noon-1pm.
One last thing, if you are interested in being a Women in Engineering representative for the term, come and talk to me for more information.
‘Till then, take it easy.
Kev
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