Meetings and More Meetings

Empower had two meetings in a row, one Admin meeting on Sunday and one sponsor meeting today (Monday). The admin meeting was attended by administrators of the project; Leesa, Shanil and Muniba in which the three discussed the project strategic direction. During the meeting it was decided to look into the University of Moratuwa’s (UOM) offer of undertaking the installation of project since they have consulted the volunteer undergraduate and postgraduate students who are willing to implement it. The most likely possibility is giving the go ahead to UOM. Energy Forum would no longer be in the picture because of their high quotes for the project.

At the moment, we are only waiting for an official quote for the project by UOM which is expected by this Wednesday. The name of the village will also be finalized by next week. On the financing part, the project brief has been e-mailed to various multinationals and Australian companies that include Procter and Gamble, BP, Energy Australia and Caltex. Some more companies would be added to the existing list.

Today’s meet up was more of a formal since three of the project members; Shanil, Leesa and Haaris had series of meetings with University Office bearers. The first meeting was with Associate Professor of Australian School of Business (ASB); Prem Ramburuth. During our meeting with her, we walked her through the project; she was very much fascinated by the idea and suggested us to affiliate the project with ARC, the university’s official student’s representative body. She also suggested some names within ASB to identify the sources of funding for the project. The next meeting was at Faculty of Built environment and we got some good leads over there. The leads would be explored further by Shanil.

The last meeting was at ARC with Sophie Harrington who oversees the registration of new societies with ARC. She provided us with all the necessary documentation for registering and also told us the benefits of becoming a part of it. After the meeting, it has been decided to initiate the process of membership with ARC but at the same time seek financing from companies as a private project. ARC won’t be able to offer anything before March which would delay the project. However, keeping in view the long term perspective, joining ARC would be beneficial for all the project members.