January 24, 2007
Pipe Trades Training Center
780 Commercial Street
San Jose, CA 95112

Total Attendance: 18

General

President Barbara Roberts opened the meeting with introductions at 7:00 PM.

Committee Reports

E-Week Banquet

• We need sponsorship for the banquet.
• Elise will be coordinating banquet planning activities.
• Societies can still buy tables at an early bird price
• Here are organizations with at least 1 table at the banquet so far:
  • ASME
  • Mission College
  • IEEE (3 tables)
  • SME
  • UCSC (1 or 2 tables)
• Elise can use help from volunteers. Elise is forming a volunteer email group.
• Elise will ask Fred Jones to email IEEE members about the banquet.
• Ed moved the motion to give a minimum of 3 scholarships.
  • Prasad seconded this.
  • This was passed unanimously.

Financial Report

• Ed mentioned that we have 1 table and 1 person paid for ($825) for the banquet.
• Barbara needs to contact Stan at SEMI to get the donation for the Open House.
• Having this year’s SVEC Open House at a donated corporate location did not save as much as we expected.
• We need to get member societies to pay dues. Elise emailed to society members, but some societies might need the actual invoice for tax purposes.
• Manesh moved the motion to approve the financial report.
  • Elise seconded this.
  • This was passed unanimously.

Membership

• NCCA-AVS sent their dues and asked to rejoin SVEC again. NCCA-AVS has 700 members.
• Manesh proposed to accept NCCA-AVS to join SVEC.
  • Prasad moved the motion.
  • KRS seconded this.
  • This was passed unanimously.
• Elise will need to follow up with NCCA-AVS to get the delegate and contact person for the banquet.
• Elise introduced Society for Technical Communication (STC). DJ Cline expressed the society’s intent to join SVEC. This society represents technical writers. STC will be celebrating the 50th anniversary. It has over 100 members. Monthly STC meetings are at TechMart. See www.stc-siliconvalley.org for additional information about the STC.
• KRS Murthy moved the motion to induct STC into SVEC.
  • Elise seconded this.
  • This was passed unanimously.
• KRS Murthy will invite potential new members to send representatives to the next council meeting.
• Potential new membership
  • Various Chinese engineering societies
  • Synopsis (Science Fair)

Education

We should try to publicize various SVEC educational programs as early as possible.

Public Relations

• Publicity for the banquet in SJ Business Journal
• KRS Murthy suggests putting an ad on radio at local colleges.

Scholarships

• The actual number of applicants is unknown at this time because the application deadline was yesterday, 1/23. Connie has not had a chance to open all applications yet.
• The SVEC Scholarship Awards encourage high school seniors and college students to study engineering and technology. The applicant selection criteria include good grades, faculty recommendation, professional activities and community involvement.
• Connie thanked everyone who helped getting words out about SVEC Scholarship Awards. We expect to have a good turn out on applications as last year.

Technical Development

Prasad will contact Dhaval to see how to organize a technical seminar. KRS Murthy will help organizing this.

Society Announcements

• IEEE NanoTechnology Council will be held on 2/22.
• South Bay Community Networks — Wireless Network (sbay.com) — meeting 1st Thursday of the month in Campbell
• STC meeting at TechCenter this Thursday
• First Robotic Competition will be held 3/16 — 3/17 at Event Center at SJSU. Elise still needs volunteers now.
• Synopsis Science Fair will be held at the San Jose Convention Center on 3/13. www.sciencefair.org
• ASME conference in May
• CETA — need guest speakers at CCOC
• STRUCT needs judges on 2/24. There is a 3rd grant to identify new classes for current issues at Mission College.
• SME — JobShop at Santa Clara Convention Center on 4/25
• SME seminar on 4/26
• AIChe — wireless technology seminar in January
• There will be a meeting at UC Berkeley on wine making in February. There is a meeting at Chevron in March. In April, there is a 1-day symposium in Alternate Energy. See www.aiche-norcal.org for details.
• There is a 1 day SAMPE-Composite event at Michael’s on 1/25.
• SWE — Design Women was held last week.
• WebBuilder.com meets last Wednesday of each month; the next event, Back to the future — beyond Web 2.0, will be held on 1/31

The meeting adjourns at 9:07 PM.

Next Council Meeting: April 25, 2007

Minutes submitted by Connie Fang
fang_connie @ yahoo.com