April 2015 Minutes

SAWE Canada Chapter

Executive Meeting Minutes: Telecom Wednesday April 8th, 2015, 12:15 pm to 1:00 pm

 Attendees: R. vanDyk, R. Hargrave, D. Stansfield, A. Tang, C. Gigliotti, S. Norris

1)            Current Discussion

• SAWE Regional Fall Conference Planning – 2016
  • Discussion regarding who will be responsible for the Omni hotel negotiation for this conference.  Ron Fox has said to contact DJ Feldman? Confirm conference is held for 2 days and on the weekend (Friday&  Sat ). Need to do a follow up with DJ to confirm dates. ACTION: K. Lacroix – CLOSED (conference is held for three days…Thurs-Sat, and DJ Feldman negotiates with the hotel)
  • Discussion regarding which weekend to hold the Conference. DJ has provided 4 possible dates for us to choose from (Oct 12-15; Nov 2-5; Nov 23-26;Nov 30-Dec.3).  Additionally, we need to confirm approximately how many will attend conference and how many rooms will need to be blocked off? ACTION: Executive – CLOSED  (preferred date is Nov.2-5, alternate is Oct.12-15…Whidy and DJ have provided feedback on suggested # of blocked rooms….hinges on how much the Northeast Regional Chapters get involved…Rod to survey the directors of those chapters)
  • Discussion regarding who will be involved with the sponsorship for this conference? Additionally, we need to clarify the penalties involved in case of a cancellation.  A. Tang has provided some key points which need to be addressed. ACTION: Executive – OPEN
  • Discussion regarding the roles the different Regional Chapters (ie. Philadelphia, Boston, Washington – Kiddy Hawk) will have in this conference. Need to get in touch with these chapters to find out their level of involvement and interest if conference is held in Montreal. ACTION: R. VanDyk – CLOSED (Rod is waiting for response)
  • Discussion regarding if we need to open a new bank account for expenses and in which city?  ACTION: A. Tang & Executive – OPEN 
• SAWE International Conference Planning– Montreal – 2017
  • Review Roles and Responsibilities for conference during the April 2015 SAWE monthly meeting. Refer to page 5 & 6 of the presentation for the various roles that will need to be filled. A summary was put together with possible candidates for each of the roles.   Need to contact identified candidates who might be interested. ACTION: Executive – OPEN (almost complete, still need to find a key contact for Training, and for the Website)
  • Sponsorship Discussion. Who is responsible? ACTION: Executive – OPEN
  • Plan for kickoff discussion for International Conference Planning. ACTION: Executive – CLOSED (Rod has sent an invitation for a kick-off meeting on May 21, 2015 to each of the committee members)
  • Guest speaker discussion (ex. Marc Andre Valiquette) – ACTION: R. vanDyk & Executive – OPEN (suggest to contact Marc-Andre’s employer, CAE, to gauge interest in sponsoring his speech) 
• Membership
  • Develop a way forward to increase SAWE membership for 2015. Verify with A. Tang to see how many current members we have? ACTION: Executive – CLOSED
  • Membership renewal fee discussion. April has sent out the proposed renewal fees in Canadian dollar (ie. large delta in US and CAD exchange rate). We need to finalize the values before A. Tang sends out the membership renewal notice for 2015/2016. ACTION: A. Tang & Executive – CLOSED (suggested fees from April are agreed upon, and membership renewal notices were sent out to the membership)

 2)      Other Business

• New Canada Chapter Executive –
  • 2015-2016 Executive was announced to entire membership.  A big thank you to Carmine Gigliotti for his role as Vice-President for the past year, and welcome back to Stuart Norris in this role!
• 2015 SAWE International Conference in Alexandria –
  • Whidy is currently the only attendee for the Canada Chapter.  He will be representing our chapter at the Executive Board meeting as well.
• The Committee for SAWE Weight Reporting –
  • Is progressing with developing a weight reporting standard.    Various representatives, including those who are members of the SAWE Canada Chapter are contributing to this ongoing discussion.  Whidy gave a brief update of these activities and has been forwarding some draft documents to the executive for feedback.  This was also a discussion topic at this year’s conference in Montreal. 
  • Whidy has notified us about the results of these ongoing discussions.
    • Check Information available on http://sawe.org/ under About Us à News
    • Request for Members Needed for New Consensus Body created by the SAWE SPC Committee to Develop a SAWE Recommended Practice for Weight Reporting in the Aviation Industry issued on Sept 4, 2012.
    • New title for Weight Report is `Standard Weight Report for Aviation Components`.
    • All macros were removed from the weight reporting template. 
• Discussion:     FAA AC 120-27 F draft version
  • Standardized Passengers and Crew weights – The current status is that the FAA has decided to revise the draft document and it is currently awaiting public review. Please see the link below for further information. http://www.sawe.org/news/ac120-27e_updated

3)      Action Items (alloutstanding actions are listing here for visibility). Please ensure to review and update as needed.

• Look for further opportunities to create partnerships with student engineering organizations, specifically in the Montreal and Toronto region. For example, Bombardier doing course with Ecole Polytechnique. Furthermore, request SAWE International financial support in maintaining our sponsorship /attendance at further TSAA events or similar conferences for the purpose of marketing the SAWE and growing our membership. ACTION : Rob/Stuart/Rod/Whidy – ONGOING

4)      Next Executive Meeting scheduled on Wednesday May 13th, 2015 at 12:15.

 Note: In general any actions that were noted as closed in the last minutes, will be removed from the current meeting minutes.