Chapter Meetings
EWB PMP Meetings & Event Calendar
We meet once a month for our general chapter meetings, typically on the third Tuesday of the month at 6:00 pm.
Our current chapter meeting location is Sea Dogs Brewing Company at 125 Western Ave in South Portland in the events room.
Our general chapter meetings are where we deliver general chapter updates, hear from presenters and professional speakers on a variety of topics, and get updates on our active projects.
We send our chapter meeting details out to our general members list via our secretary Lyndon (secretary@ewbportlandmaine.org). Email Lyndon to be put on the email list so you can get up to date information on our general chapter meetings!
We will not be holding a chapter meeting in October. Please come to our fundraiser Portland Uncorked! instead!
Meeting Minutes and Summaries
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January 16, 2024 Meeting Minutes
This meeting was an open discussion to set goals for 2024 and talk about meeting and speaker ideas for the 2024 year. Dates are included for STEM Expo’s for 2024 in area schools. We urge you to sign up. Also welcomed our new chapter officers for the 2024 year, and discussed what our 2024 goals were, and plans for our El Progreso Project. Click on presentation link for more information.
February 20, 2024 Meeting Minutes
At this meeting we discussed chapter updates and progress from our El Progreso team’s most recent trip to Ecuador. We had several new members attend this meeting which was a good opportunity to learn more about our chapter’s work. Members should also start to look for potential future projects within the next year. Don’t forget to log your volunteer hours on Volunteer Village! Please click on the links for detailed information, including trip plans in 2024, 2024 detailed plans, & potential meeting speakers.
March 19, 2024 Agenda - Presentation
March 19,2024 Meeting Minutes & Presentation
April 16, 2024 Presentation/Agenda
The UNH EWB-USA Student Chapter presented their active projects, recent trips, fundraising initiatives, and other activities they are participating in, where they worked together with many communities, all in Uganda, to access fresh water. We also discussed the current plan for our June trip to El Progreso, Ecuador and welcomed several new members at our meeting.
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January 18, 2023 Meeting Minutes
We congratulated the newest officers: Kevin Trainor (Treasurer) and Kettie Cormier (Secretary & UMaine Student Chapter liaison). Steve and Julianne gave us the progress report on the January 2023 trip to El Progreso and requested more participation from other team members. Also covered were fast forwarding the El Progreso project, possibly longer working meetings, seeking Spanish speakers for the trips, Portland Uncorked 2023 dates, and recruiting more Chapter members.
February 21, 2023 Meeting Minutes
This meeting was an in-depth presentation on the recent trip to Ecuador, where our project team was working on the chapter's water treatment & distribution project in El Progreso. This meeting opened the floor to our members to take initiative and participate in some of the design tasks required to get the community safe and reliable water!
February 21, 2023 Presentation
March 21, 2023 Meeting Minutes
Aurora Burgess from Atlantic Sea Farms did a presentation describing this Maine climate friendly company that created the first commercially viable seaweed farm in the United States in 2009, with the goal of diversifying how coastal waters are used and providing a domestic, fresh, healthy alternative to imported seaweed products. Open the excellent presentation. Next was an Outreach update including UMaine with Kettie Cormier at the Engineering Expo Mar 4, and the high School Expos scheduled for Mar 31st, and Apr 6. Also, read the minutes for El Progreso and Ethiopia Updates.
March 21 2023 Atlantic Sea Farms Presentation
April 18, 2023 Meeting Minutes
We welcomed Pious Ali, a dedicated public servant, assertive and pragmatic leader with a diversified skill set in community organizing, activism, and civic engagement. Pious is the founding Director of Portland-based Portland Empowered creating opportunities for Students and families to engage their school and work with them to create an equitable learning environment through the Racial Equity Lens program.
May 16, 2023 Meeting Minutes
We welcomed Kirsten Hibbard, the exec. Director of the Challenger Learning Center of Maine for 5 years, where students learn innovating programming by simulate space missions in afterschool anywhere in the state, a great hands on way to give our school kids the sense and excitement of STEM. The meeting also covered EWB-PMP Outreach events and an update from Angelique in Ethiopia where 200+ students are also involved in Saturday classes and building an additional school building based on the blueprint from EWB-PMP of the first school.
WEB- PMP chapter meeting was held the Barrel Room at Maine Craft Distilling We welcomed a presentation by the local KidWind Challenge Team from Portland High School, the ‘West End Whales’. KidWind is a non-profit org that plans events that provide hands-on design celebration that engages students through the lens of wind and solar energy. Outreach Update: EWB-PMP members supported this team to go to Boulder CO to compete in the national competition. Other updates: Portland Uncorked 2023 will be held on Thursday Oct 12, 2023 at the Custom House in Portland.
No July Chapter Meeting Held
August 15, 2023 Chapter Meeting
Kathy and Stan Reed opened their home for us in Falmouth, ME for a Potluck BBQ! The topic was Portland Uncorked! Planning + BBQ Fun! which was had by all. Who said you can’t mix work with fun?
September 16, 2023 Chapter Meeting
We had a chapter meeting with members who were planning the upcoming Portland Uncorked! Oct 12 2023 fundraising event. It was a successful meeting and many new or more recent members volunteered.
No meeting in October
Fundraiser was October 12.
November 2023
The November 12 2023 meeting was held at Maine Craft Distilling. The meeting was a “State of the Chapter” meeting to talk about what we have accomplished this year and ask for opinions from general members on what goals we would like to see accomplished next year. We discussed what the Officer Positions were open and possible candidates and if we needed any changes to those positions. Kevin Trainor presented financial results from Portland Uncorked! Julianne Page updated status for El Progreso. In summary,Portland Uncorked was a very successful event, and the Chapter finances are very healthy. We should be well positioned to support El Progreso through three trips in 2024 and the bulk of construction.Also, this was the last meeting at Maine Craft Distilling. We will be looking for a new venue for our chapter meetings.
• Steve Laudage presided over our Chapter Meeting as we celebrated the holiday at Rivalries in Falmouth & presented a roster of new officers for January 2024 which will be voted on by Dec 31. We will also be encouraging chapter members to make a donation to an organization on behalf of our group this giving season. For our outreach, there will be 4 opportunities to sign up to visit area schools and the Portland Expo. Also please reach out to Julianne Page or the EWB-PMP website to get set up on Slack, and to get regular meeting invites! There are 3 planned trips to El Progreso beginning Jan 2024.
December 12, 2023 Meeting Minutes
Our December meeting was held at Rivalries and was a celebration of the season and a chapter meeting. We presented several new candidates to fulfill the open vacancies for our 2024 officers. The vote was closed Dec 31. Our new officers are: Kettie Cormier, President, Emily Kelsey, Vice President, Kevin Trainor, Treasurer, and Lyndon Pisansky, Secretary. We determined that we will continue our work in Ecuador by resuming our trips to the region in 2024. We will also be resuming our STEM outreach work. We also presented a few suggestions for donating in this giving season. We need to locate a new meeting space for 2024 and we set goals for the year.
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January 18, 2022 Meeting Minutes
Angelique Kidd Smith, co-founder of The Community Project-Ethiopia (TCP-E), provided an update on progress at the worksite in Debre Birhan. The project began in 2014 when The Community Project-Ethiopia was connected with the EWB-PMP chapter and asked us to design and build classroom buildings. They are planning additional buildings and expect to accommodate 1000 children, from K-12. Angelique noted that this project through TCP-E has been identified by the United Nations as a model of sustainability for all of Ethiopia.
Steve congratulated the new slate of offices, and reminded us to track our hours in Volunteer Village which helps chapter funding and Jay Peters reported the proceeds from the online auction, raffle tickets and donations.
See Power Point here:
Jan 18 Meeting Agenda Power Point
February 23, 2022 Meeting Minutes
Jay Peters presented the results of the PMP meeting options poll results. It was a very comprehensive poll and we will be acting on the results. Kathy Hillman Reed reported that travel resumption is allowed for certain countries as of Mar 1. 2022.
We welcomed our speaker, Phil Gaven of the Honey Exchange in Portland, Maine. It was a fascinating presentation about beekeeping, the life of bees, their altruistic behavior and their great importance.
Steve Laudage announced updates including the Northeast Regional Conference that will be in April with Nadia Glucksberg and Matt Reynolds presenting on their well drilling projects. Also the new EWB-PMP Website will be launched in late March and the April Meeting will be in person at Ri Ra’s.
Miles Schelling provided an update on the water distribution project in India with a filtration system Miles developed that is working well!
We welcomed the UMaine EWB Student Chapter who provided an excellent overview of the student chapter activities.
April 19, 2022 Meeting Minutes
In our first in person meeting since COVID started, Jeff Benway, geotechnical engineer, who works for SFC Engineering in Windham, NH and is a veteran of 3 trips to Uganda gave an overview of eight wells his teams installed and the problems they encountered. Chapter President Steve Laudage gave us updates on our current projects, and invited members to join in on our Portland Uncorked fundraising planning. Kathy Hillman Reed invited us to go to PWP-EWB member Lars Whalen’s facebook page to follow his work in Poland where he is coordinating transportation for Ukrainian refugees and welcoming donations.
Chad Allen, Development Manager, at Longroad Energy Partners in Scarborough provided an overview of Longroad as well as his role, primarily in solar power development. He noted he is involved in mainly large solar array projects of up to 500 megawatts of generated power. Chad talked at length about the challenges of developing solar power in Maine. There are many more constraints than in other states. Nadia Glucksberg conducted the meeting and Kathy Hillman Reed updated us on Lars Whalen’s work in Poland helping Ukranian refugees. Maeve Carlson informed us of a sanitation project in Ukraine. Portland Uncorked is on for 2022 in the fall, and we hope to get more volunteers!
We welcomed Dr. Leyla Azis, MD, from Maine Medical Partners Adult Infectious Disease & Travel Medicine practice. She talked about health problems for travelers and gave us the latest information which she constantly updates in her travel medicine clinic through Maine Medical Center. Julianne Page gave an update on progress on our El Progreso project. The July meeting will be only for active and interested members who are working on the El Progreso project. We also had a planning meeting for Portland Uncorked 2022. We welcomed Dr. Leyla Azis, MD, from Maine Medical Partners Adult Infectious Disease & Travel Medicine practice. She talked about health problems for travelers and gave us the latest information which she constantly updates in her travel medicine clinic through Maine Medical Center. Julianne Page gave an update on progress on our El Progreso project. We also had a planning meeting for Portland Uncorked 2022. The July meeting will be only for active and interested members who are working on the El Progreso project.
No Chapter Meeting was held in July 2022.
August 16, 2022 Meeting Minutes
Our August 2022 meeting was held at Maine Craft Distilling.
We welcomed Max Escheverria, Founder and CEO of Eskuad, Inc. Eskuad, Inc. is a field data platform that was first used in the forest industry in Chile to
capture data in the field using an application that is not dependent on WiFi to operate. Eskuad’s headquarters are here in Portland ME. Max talked to us from Chile, while his colleague, Nolan Stewart located in Portland joined us. Our meeting was held at Maine Craft Distilling.
No Chapter Meeting was held in October while we hosted Portland Uncorked! 2022.
November 15, 2022 Meeting Minutes
The November EWB-PMP chapter meeting began with MCD employee Travis giving us a tour of Maine Craft Distilling (MCD) on Washington Avenue in Portland. He was animated, entertaining and informative and took us through whiskey, gin, vodka & rum production.
We are looking for a new slate of officers to begin in January, particularly Secretary and Treasurer. All members are asked to please consider volunteering for those positions.
Julianne Page reported the project team plans to travel to El Progreso January 9 – 13, 2023, to inspect and hopefully repair the west catchment as well as confirm plans for the distribution pipe and tap stands for homes in the community. She noted that the project team met with Nolan Stewart from Eskuad, Inc. and they have developed a form to be used in the field to capture data on cell phones.
Look at our full meeting notes for more detail about the amazing MCD tour, El Progreso, Profits from Portland Uncorked! 2022, and Volunteer hours instructions.
December 13, 2022 Meeting Minutes
Our chapter had the Election of 2023 Officers as well as the report from Julianne Page the project team plans to travel to El Progreso January 9 – 13, 2023, to work on the West catchment , continue plans for the distribution pipe, an the tap stands for homes in the community. We welcomed Ivy Frignoca, the Casco Bay Keeper for Friends of Casco Bay, who described their relationship to other area environmental organizations, and how EWB-PMP might interface with Friends of Casco Bay.
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No December 2021 Meeting
Ecuador Water Project team leaders Steve Laudage and Julianne Page gave an update on the progress we've made and challenges we've encountered since our last trip to the village in January 2020. Additionally there were updates on a number of other activities including the Online Silent Auction & Raffle.
Baxter Miatke presented an overview of the online silent Auction capability he built to replace the cancelled Portland Uncorked 2021 event. The auction is scheduled to begin Nov 1. He also presented the officers election slate. Also covered are the stem events including upcoming online Jeopardy for STEM, the next Talking Ecuador Round 2, and all project updates.
September 2021 Meeting Minutes
Due to weather, the team cancelled the in-person outdoor dining meeting at Sea Dog brewery and met virtually to discuss activities including Project updates and the 2021 fate of Portland Uncorked. No speaker presentations were scheduled for this meeting.
The EWB-PMP chapter met in person for the first time since February 2020! Thanks to Baxter Miatke and Devon White we were able to enjoy a cookout on their deck to meet outdoors in these still-challenging Covid 19 times.
No July Meeting.
Eunice Nuna, Founder and Executive Director, Wounded Healers International, presented her request for help to develop a shelter for women and girls who experience domestic and sexual abuse in Kenya.
The May chapter meeting was a follow-up site visit to the Back Cove South Storage Facility in Portland, ME that we last visited in October 2020.
This virtual meeting which was designed to be a “meet the chapter members” evening rather than an event with a speaker. Members each gave a brief description of their work, education, EWB activities, and fun facts about themselves.
April Chapter Members Presentation
Angelina Klouthis of the Portland Professional Connections Program and Eammon Dundon discussed their partnership to develop ways for foreign-born professionals to network to find employment in their fields of expertise. You can view their presentation here.
Portland Maine Economic Oppty Presentation
Dan Bouchard and Peter Merfeld from the ASCE Maine Section provided a very interesting overview of the 2020 Report Card for Maine’s Infrastructure, as well as an overview of the ASCE in general..
Chapter Review - People, Plans and Project Updates.
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There was no meeting for December 2020.
Our November meeting was once again a virtual meeting that took place during EWB-USA’s Week of Celebration and Learning.
The October meeting took place at the construction site along I-295 at Back Cove in Portland for a tour of the Back Cove South Storage Facility (a 3.5 million gallon sewer/storm water overflow tank) project being built by Sargent Corporation.
September 2020 Meeting Minutes
Braydon Norris, a new PMP chapter member, presented an overview of the UMaine water distribution project he is leading along with Kathryn Kleban (UMaine EWB student chapter president) and Casey Schatzabel (UMaine engineering student).
In a virtual meeting, new PMP chapter member Miles Schelling gave an overview of a water filtration system he designed and installed in Nersa, Kamataka, a rural village in southern India. This project was part of his Master’s Degree program at the University of Rhode Island.
Our own Helena Hollauer stepped up to mentor the EWB Northeastern Chapter and traveled to Uganda in December 2019 to help drill and install a drinking water well for a remote community. In a virtual meeting, she shared the challenges, the successes, and lessons learned from the implementation trip.
In a virtual chapter meeting, Steve Laudage, a PMP member and the team leader of the most recent El Progreso trip, provided an excellent review of the January 2020 trip and next steps for the project.
In a virtual chapter meeting, Calley Bilgram of the Miyamoto Global Disaster Relief presented “Return Water to Ethiopian Tribes to Save Lives, Livelihoods and Culture,” about a sustainable irrigation system for the Kara Tribe in Ethiopia’s Omo Valley.
April 2020
The April meeting was not held due to Covid-19.
March 2020
The March meeting was not held due to Covid-19.
Nasser Rohani, a retired system analyst who has been in the U.S. for decades, presented a short film about the emergence of the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education (BIHE), an “underground” university in Tehran, Iran that was established in 1987.
January 2020
There are no meeting minutes for the January 2020 meeting.
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Baxter Miatke provided “part II” of the November presentation about PFAS – the “forever chemicals”, specifically treatment technologies and the developing world.
The El Progreso project team presented the status of their water distribution project, giving an overview of the work accomplished to date.
Jay Peters, Risk Assessment Practice Leader at Haley & Aldrich, provided an excellent presentation onPer- and Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs). This class of chemicals (some 3,000 compounds) is in the news and the subject of the soon-to-be released movie “Dark Waters”.
September 2019 Meeting Minutes
Benedicto Bonabana, a civil engineer from Uganda and Congo, presented a proposal for building a school in a village in the Watalinga region of Congo, near the Ugandan border.
August 2019 was the month of the last ever EWB-PMP annual yard sale. No meeting was held for August.
No Meeting was held in July 2019
Ninette Irabarauta provided an excellent overview of the more recent history underlying the refugee situation in East Africa. Ninette hails from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. She is a practitioner in Sustainable International evelopment and works with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
Dr. Aimee Bessire, founder of the Africa Schoolhouse project which is the NGO that funds and manages the construction of schools across Tanzania, presented an excellent overview of her work building schools in-country.
David Hawkes (mechanical engineer) and Julia Stein (environmental engineer) from the New Hampshire EWB professional chapter resented their work on a water supply project in the Buyende District of Uganda.
Nguinamau Celestino, a very recent Angolan immigrant with 16 years of service working for Chevron in Angola, presented an excellent talk about work he did on a rotating equipment redesign project while there.
Cailtin Corrigan, Director of Preble Street Health Services, described a pilot program called the MMC/Preble Street Learning Collaborative that supports Preble Street’s mission statement to provide accessible barrier-free services to empower people experiencing problems with homelessness, housing, hunger, and poverty, and to advocate for solutions to these problems.
The Ecuador team presented an overview of their very productive initial implementation trip to the village of El Progreso in mid-November 2018. The team described the high level of community involvement and support, as well as a number of challenges, topography among them, for working on this phase of the project.
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The Ethiopia team presented an overview of their very productive trip to Debre Birhan September 20 – 28, 2018. The school building project is nearing completion for the first classroom building and the school is anticipated to open within a couple of weeks.
November 2018
No Meeting Minutes
Our speaker was Nassan Rohani, an Iranian who has become a U.S. citizen and worked in IT/Computer Science for 30 years. Nassan’s topic revolved around the cost of discrimination for any country, but his native country in particular.
September 2018
No Meeting Minutes
This month’s meeting includes updates on chapter leadership and fees as well as our three active projects in Ecuador, Ethiopia, and Haiti. Our speaker was Ron Thompson from the Southern Maine Astronomers club.
July 2018
No Meeting
Our speaker was Stefanie Trice Gill, founding board member of Maine Association for New Americans (MANA) and owner of IntWork, a consulting business specializing in placement of immigrants into STEM positions that align with their expertise and/or experience.
Julianne Page presented an excellent overview of her experiences in Bamendjou, Cameroon while she was a member of the student EWB chapter at the University of Delaware. She described the water supply project for 3 communities (about 1400 people) the students worked on. The project began in 2006 and the monitoring phase extended to 2012.
Four students (Meribel, Ruby, Tess and Allie) from King Middle School presented their wind turbine project they entered in the Maine state KidWind challenge. The KidWind challenge is part of their studies of climate change and its effects. Gus Goodwin, a teacher at King Middle School, briefly described the engineering design program at KMS and how expeditionary learning helps students make a connection to real world problems.
No March 2018 Meeting
Nadia Glucksberg presented an overview of the project team’s assessment trip to El Progreso, Ecuador January 21 – 27, 2018. This is a water distribution project for a small farming village of about 50 buildings and 110 residents located in the cloud forest. She noted the major challenges coming out of the team’s assessment trip.
Guest speaker Wendy LePage, a scientist at Idexx US, served in the Peace Corps in Mali from 1991 – 1993. Wendy presented her experience as a forester working in Mali on issues that included deforestation/soil erosion, inadequate potable water, and poaching.
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Nadia Glucksberg reviewed the latest Power Point presentation that is available for STEM presentations at area schools.
We welcomed Godfrey Wood, who runs the Habitat for Humanity (HFH) for the Greater Portland Area. Godfrey gave an insightful presentation of HFH’s missions and shared the current builds that are going on in Scarborough, ME.
We welcomed Bruce Fowler from Sevee & Mahar to present a recap of his role as the USM student chapter mentor for their water project trip to El Descanso, Ecuador. Nadia discussed current projects, local outreach, PE support and fundraising.
September 2017 Meeting Minutes
We welcomed Hunter Wing from the USM student EWB chapter to present a recap of their solar installation project at the Hogar Rafael Ayau orphanage in Villa Nueva, Guatemala. Nadia discussed current projects as well as chapter outreach.
We welcomed Captain Lars Whelan, a mariner of note and problem solving project manager, to give an overview of his work on the Greek island of Lesbos during the refugee crisis of 2015. Nadia summarized the ongoing projects.
We welcomed Pat McKeowan, a senior engineer at ECT2 (subsidiary of Haley & Aldrich) who provided a video of the water project he worked on in Ward 8, Nepal to deliver water to the village water tank.
View Pat McKeowan Nepal Water Project
June 2017
There was no meeting in June.
We welcomed Charlie Burnham from Sevee & Mahar Engineering and Neil Franklin from Haley & Aldrich to give an overview of a proposed water treatment project in the village of El Progreso in Pichincha, Ecuador.
We welcomed Charlie Burnham from Sevee & Mahar Engineering and Neil Franklin from Haley & Aldrich to give an overview of a proposed water treatment project in the village of El Progreso in Pichincha, Ecuador.
We welcomed David Hawke, VP of the EWB NH Professional Chapter, to talk about their water supply project in Gwase, Uganda. Highlights of David’s presentation were: The project has good support from the community in Uganda,The chapter has a grant writing team to help with funding projects, The chapter has a defined process for creating a project team.
Thanks to Gabe Sullivan from Jay Cashman, Inc. in Quincy, MA is the Haiti bridge project manager. Gabe presented a formal update on how Hurricane Matthew (2016) impacted the bridge project, shifted priorities, and how his company determined the path forward (and how we can help).
President Nadia Glucksberg opened the meeting by asking for introductions of attendees and reviewed ongoing chapter activities and news, including Milembe School, Debra Birhan project, thanks for holiday generosity for a local family.
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No December or November 2014 Meeting.
September 2014 Meeting Minutes
No June Meeting Minutes
No February Meeting
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