On February 9th, 2021 the Lawrence Committee held a regularly scheduled meeting. The following are the minutes of that meeting:
- It was decided that the minutes sent to the residents will highlight important information with a link to the full minutes on the website.
- Deepen (committee president) will create a to-do list that will be shared with the committee to keep track of all the tasks.
- Deepen (committee president) will e-mail Transportation and put in a formal request for a weekday shopper.
- Saumyashree (facilities manager) will use Housing’s contacts to access a closet where it is suspected that there may be snow shovels stored. Copies of the keys will be distributed to Kevin Fleming (Housing), Saumyashree(facilities manager) and Deepen (president). If shovels can be found then they will be left in common spaces throughout Lawrence (after being marked with bright paint) for the use of the residents. If not, then an order will be placed with housing, who as agreed to shoulder the expense.
- Deepen (president) will compile information as to how residents can collect and distribute furniture from residents moving out. Yunxiu (external relations delegate) will contact the university administrator to see if we can hold a furniture giveaway at Lawrence like the undergrads do.
- Liz (gardening coordinator) will contact Housing and how to create good laminated signs for the outdoor garden and will continue to monitor repair of the shed.
- Saumyashree (facilities manager) will get in touch with Housing and the Office of Sustainibility to acquire materials that can be posted by the composting or e-mailed to the residents on how to compost properly.
- Noam (secretary) will organize the FAQ page on the website and improve its interface.
- Noam (secretary) will include in the minutes a link to this document on health and safety guidelines at Lawrence.
- Nastya (social chair) will get in contact with Housing and the Graduate School for guidelines on how to organize social events.
- Yunxiu (external relations delegate) will look into organizing outdoor recreational events in the spring.
- Yunxiu (external relations delegate) will be in contact with Housing and get an estimate for piano tuning, though this is low urgency as it will be unusable until the pandemic is over.
In attendance:
- Deepen G
- Chadi S
- Nastya K
- Yunxiu Z
- Saumyashree G
- Liz H
- Noam R
- Kevin F
- Kenneth P
- Margaret S
Addendum:
The committee received the following information from the University’s Transportation services office:
“The first thing we did in response to higher demand on the last weekend of January was to immediately introduce more vehicles on the first weekend of February—so we’ve now got 6 of the 20-passenger vehicles servicing the shopper route every 20 minutes on weekends (50% service increase). Drivers are going to need to enforce a 50% capacity rule on those buses, but we’re going to be flexible with trailer vehicles and communication between drivers so that we’re getting a vehicle to students as soon as possible that may not be able to board on a specific trip. Hoping that impact is very low given the extra service we’ve already implemented.
I am in the middle of reviewing some potential service changes based on the ridership we’ve seen the past couple weeks. Our team just needs another two weeks or so, and we can get back to you and other graduate student organizations on what we can and can’t do to help further reduce some of the strain on the weekend shopper. There are some other service plan considerations we’re working through at the moment, including bringing on bigger vehicles.”