Chapter Board Meeting - April 24-2025
Rotary Room, Petawawa Civic Centre
DRAFT - Board Meeting Minutes
Thursday, April 24, 2025
Location: Petawawa Civic Centre (16 Civic Centre Rd, Petawawa, ON)
Time: 7:00 - 8:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
1) Welcome & present P.Eng. Licence Certificate to Mark Stratton, P.Eng.
Vincent presented a License Certificate to Mark Stratton, P.Eng. Mark graduated from the University of Western Ontario, with specialisation in chemical and biochemical engineering. He worked in the environmental field for the first 10 years in Southern Ontario. Moved to the Ottawa Valley 8 years ago and for the last four years, he worked for the Department of National Defense. Mark is married and is very active in sport and outdoor activities.
2) Welcome, confirm quorum, conflict of interest declaration
Quorum was met and confirmed.
3) Review and Approve Agenda
Mike moved to approve Agenda and Joseph Van Meter seconded the motion. All in Favour. Carried.
4) Review and Approve Minutes of the Previous Meetings
Minutes from January 30, 2025 (Zoom Meeting) (see Attachment 2 – 2025.01.30 (draft) Minutes):
Bob moved to approve the Minutes and John Dranga seconded the motion. All in Favour. Carried.
Minutes from February 27, 2025 (Officer’s Meeting) (see Attachment 3 – 2025.02.27 (draft) Minutes):
Bob moved to approve the Minutes and Vitali seconded the motion. All in Favour. Carried.
Minutes from February 15, 2024 (see Attachment 4 – 2024.02.15 (draft) Minutes):
Vitali moved to approve the Minutes and Bob seconded the motion. All in Favour. Carried.
Minutes from January 18, 2024 (see Attachment 5 – 2024.01.18 (draft) Minutes):
Paul moved to approve the Minutes and Bob seconded the motion. All in Favour. Carried.
Paul suggested checking to see if there were any action items on these Minutes. Vincent would check and take action.
5) Chair Report (Vincent)
Vincent presented the Chair Report (see Attachment 6 – Chair Report-April24_2025)
a) PEO AGM in Toronto on April 26, 2025
Vincent and Gabriel to attend.
b) PEO Penta Congress in Toronto on June 14, 2025
Conference is for representatives from all of PEO’s 5 regions to attend. Vincent & Gabriel plan to attend.
c) PEO Elections – Results
Vincent presented the following results of elections:
Pres. Elect Leila Natash
VP-elect Sardar Asif Khan (acclaimed);
Eastern Region Councillor Susan Shi
Councillor-at-large Paula R. Klink
Sean Dcloux
d) PEO Visioning Event – March 8
A copy of the PEO Visioning Event was emailed to the Board Members (see Attachment 7 – PEO Visioning Session 2025). A hard copy was subsequently handed out to all meeting attendees.
e) NEM (our chapter/other chapters)
Vincent reported that Algonquin Chapter together with CNL hosted a robotics competition in Chalk River on March 24 and a bridge busting event at the Renfrew County Science Fair on April 12.
Furthermore, he advised that the Thousand Islands Chapter tested 474 bridges, with 1,146 students involved in bridge construction. Approximately 1,930 students were involved during the NEM event.
f) New Chapter Volunteers
Vincent announced three new volunteers, Julia Kazachkova, P.Eng., Olivia Jennings, EIT, and Sara Lion, P.Eng. joined the chapter. All three were interested in working with the Events Committee.
6) Chapter Finances (Sreeyuth/Lawrence)
In the absence of the chapter treasurer, Vincent noted that of the approved $18,615 budget for 2025, $4,861 has already been spent and we have $13,754 for the remainder of the year.
7) Chapter Operation
a) Chapter Website (Qingwu)
Qingwu is now in charge of running the Chapter website, taking over after Kaitlyn Nagora. According to Qingwu, the chapter website works fine and navigation is simple and straightforward.
b) Eventbrite (Aneesh)
Aneesh said that Eventbrite is going well and he can share his knowledge of Eventbrite with Ariel Nunez Garcia. Some e-mail addresses were missing from ‘Campaigner’, and he has added them to ensure all chapter members receive eblasts.
c) SharePoint Site
Nothing to report.
d) Chapter By-Laws (Mike)
Mike said the Chapter By-Laws had been prepared and sent to Julie. But so far no feedback had been received from Julie. Vincent would see her at the AGM Meeting this weekend.
Bob asked about the major changes, Mike replied that the old Chapter By-laws had been in effect for 15 years and the major changes affected the order of business management and the role and responsibilities of the Treasurer.
e) Transfer of chapter electronic files from Stephanie (Vitali)
Vitali received a flash drive with electronic files from Stephanie. The files take up about 400 MB of memory and are stored on the USB flash drive with a copy on Vitali's personal computer. The files mainly contain Minutes from a previous meeting with attachments for a couple of years.
Vincent said keeping records is important to evaluate how long some members have been volunteering and to nominate them for awards.
f) Transfer of Chapter passwords & codes
Vincent has all passwords and codes to access to chapter website, emails & host Zoom mtgs.
8) Committee Reports (short status updates and future plans)
a) Education Committee (Joe Van Meter)
i. 2025 Engineering Scholarship
All 8 schools in our region have been contacted and PEO’s new scholarship applications have been sent out. Aurora is responsible for collecting responses from schools, the deadline for school applications is June 10th. Scholarship award date is June 26th.
Joe said that the scholarship application and evaluation rules were changed by PEO this year. Moreover, PEO mandates that only one $1,500 scholarship be awarded by each chapter.
Vincent suggested sending a chapter representative to schools to present the scholarship program, which could increase the visibility of the Algonquin Chapter. Aurora noted that a chapter representative had been making a personal presentation of the award to the winning recipients in past years but that since COVID-19, in person presentations stopped.
Bob noted that before visiting the school, the visitor must obtain police clearance. Gabriel said that if the Chapter provided a letter of support for the named visitor, the police clearance would be provided free of charge. Joe will check and confirm.
ii. Preparation of 2 - 10 to 15 min presentation – 1 for elementary schools & 1 for high schools
Joe advised he has prepared two presentations and brought hard copies to meeting. Moreover, he has the instructions for building a space launcher.
Vincent asked that Joe email him copy of each presentation as well a digital copy of the instruction on how to build the space launcher.
b) Events Committee – Vincent/Vitali/Gabriel/Ariel
i. Renfrew County Science Fair (Vitali)
On April 12, the Algonquin Chapter participated in the Renfrew County Regional Science Fair. The chapter participated in judging and bridge building/busting activities. The chapter was represented by Vincent, Gabriel, Lawrence, Paul, and Vitali. The students showed great interest in participating in building and testing 17 bridges. Winners for both the junior (up to grade 6) and senior (grades 7 to 12) categories were selected and awarded certificates.
Vitali also suggested considering the possibility of participating in the future Science Fair as a sponsor of a special prize. Vincent responded that in previous years prizes were handed out. While it was intended to hand out prizes to the overall winning team this year, it was not done because we had only purchased 2 prizes and the winning team had 3 members. Gabriel suggested we purchase more prizes for next time and keep extras for future events.
ii. Future Social Events - Possibilities (Ariel/Vincent)
a. Visit to Pembroke Water Treatment Plant
Vincent informed that a future event to visit Pembroke Water Treatment Plant has already been scheduled. The tour date has been confirmed for May 13th at 6:30 pm.
b. Visit to Pembroke Ice plant refrigeration system
The event is planned for October.
c. Visit to Whitewater Brewing
d. Annual BBQ
The event is planned on third week of September.
iii. Tech talks – Gabriel/Vincent
Vincent said that the technical talk previously considered for April has been postponed to May, and two technical talks are also ready: one about the state-of-the-art of EV batteries and another one on waste water purification. Vincent invited the Board Members to make a proposal for technical talks or to prepare a talk in their areas of expertise.
9) Other Business (Vincent)
a) Members to select committee(s) to serve on & appointment of chair
A list of Algonquin Chapter Board Committees Roles and Members for 2025 has been distributed to the Board Members.
The Education Committee consists of Joe Van Meter (Chair), Aurora Dranga (scholarship chair), Lawrence Lupton, Gabriel Josafat Hernandez Vasquez and Mike Pinet. All confirmed their interest in continuing serving on the committee in their present roles.
The Scholarship Committee consists of Aurora Dranga (Chair), Lawrence Lupton, Joe Van Meter and Bob Radenovic. All agreed to continue on committee in their present roles.
The Events Committee consists of Ariel Nunez Garcia (Chair), Vincent Donato, Olivia Jennings, Sara Lion, Paul Ballantyne, Julia Kazachkova, Stephanie Thomson and Vitali Kovaltchouk. John Dranga was added to the committee. All present agreed to continue with committee in their present roles.
The Finance Committee consists of Sreeyuth Lal (Chair), Bob Radenovic and Lawrence Lupton.
The Government Liaison Program (GLP) Committee consists of Rob Radenovicc (Chair), Paul Balantyne and Vitali Kovaltchouk. Bob agreed to continue as GLP Chair.
Bob plans to contact the MPP office to arrange a date for the visit. Vincent expressed interest in participating in the visit.
The Nomination Committee consists of Rob Radenovic (Chair) and he agreed to continue as committee chair. John Dranga agreed to assist with this committee.
Campaigner, Eventbrite and ZOOM - Aneesh is presently responsible for handling all of these functions but is looking for a replacement. He will however continue in this role until a replacement is found.
Qingwu Cheng will be responsible for posting and maintaining the chapter website.
Detailed information on the roles and committee members of the Algonquin Chapter is provided in Attachment 8 (2025 Algonquin Chapter Board Committees Roles and Members ver(3)).
b) Zoom & MS Office 365 – who pays? Switch Zoom to MS Mtgs? MS Copilot
The chapter currently has a subscription for MS Office 365 and Zoom. Vincent asked about the possibility of adding MS Meetings to our current subscription of MS Office 365 as this would allow us to drop the Zoom subscription and potentially simplify things. Bob reported that the Chapter has MS Office (“family” option – 5 users).
Aneesh advised that the Zoom subscription has already been paid for this year. He further noted that MS Teams has a lot of useful features and presented a table comparing MS teams with Zoom. He suggested however that we test MS Teams software before purchasing the product.
Vincent suggested finding out which software is more acceptable for the Chapter. The Chapter should decide next year which software to use. Gabriel agreed to work with Aneesh on testing MS teams and report to the Board.
c) Cloud storage of chapter files – MS Office 365, Google or leave as is? (Vincent)
Vincent suggested looking into what file sharing option might be best for the chapter (MS Office, ZOOM, etc.).
It was suggested that a Zoom meeting be held (Bob, Aneesh, Vitali, Gabriel, and Vincent) to discuss options and report to the Board.
d) Dropbox – do we have membership? Do we need it?
It will be discussed in the Zoom meeting.
10) Chapter Equipment Storage
Vincent reported that at a previous meeting, it was suggested that a heated rental space was available to store the chapter’s equipment for ~$2,000. Currently the chapter's equipment is stored at Vincent's place. Decision had been made to continue storing equipment at Vincent’s place.
11) Other Business
a) PEOs new expenses claim process vs chapter business plan
No comments.
b) New chapter volunteers (Vincent)
The Chapter Board members and volunteers must be registered with a Certify account (https://expense.certify.com/Login.aspx) in order to submit and receive reimbursement for chapter related & approved expenses.
c) Chapter minutes (recording of; publish on website; confidentiality?)
Minutes for the Chapter Board meetings will be placed on the chapter’s website.
12) Next Meeting
The date and time for the next meeting will be announced by e-mail.
13) Adjournment
Paul moved to adjourn the meeting and Bob seconded the motion. All in favor. Carried.
The meeting was adjourned.
List of attachments:
1. Attachment 1: AGENDA April 24 2025.
2. Attachment 2: 2025.01.30 (draft) Minutes.
3. Attachment 3: 2025.02.27 (draft) Minutes.
4. Attachment 4: 2024.02.15 (draft) Minutes.
5. Attachment 5: 2024.01.18 (draft) Minutes.
6. Attachment 6: Chair Report-April24_2025.
7. Attachment 7: PEO Visioning Session 2025.
8. Attachment 8: 2025 Algonquin Chapter Board Committees Roles and Members (r5).
Latest Revision: May 1, 2025