09 Leadership Mini-Retreat

Introduction

Over the years lots of ideas have been thrown around in club. Some are good, some needed work, and some (mainly the ones involving sex toys and babies) are hilariously absurd. Sometimes these ideas get put action, and sometimes they fall to wayside.
For the 2009 Leadership Mini-Retreat we will discuss some ideas, some of which have been brought up before and some totally new. Then we will put those ideas to action!

Format

One of the best forums for discussing many ideas amongst several equal parties is the round-table discussion. But often these sort of discussions can drag on for hours on end, especially when several topics are brought up and the participants are highly opinionated. One way to curb this issue is to impose a time limit on each topic. And one example of this sort of time-limited round-table is the ESPN show "Pardon the Interruption." (For those who don't watch ESPN go to here and watch here) Each of the participants has been given one of the topics below and will moderate an 8 - 10 minute discussion on that topic taking notes of what was said. A buzzer will be used to signal when its time to switch topics.
After the retreat each participant will take their topic and turn it into a semester long project. At the end of the semester we will celebrate the successful completion of each project!

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Topics

• Financial Software

         ** Moderator: Paul V.
         ** Project: Implement a new financial system

• Who are the RoboJackets: Competitors, Volunteers/Mentors, Hobbyists, or all three?

         ** Mick
         ** Project: 2009 Mission statement and its promotion  
   * Where do we see the club in 1, 5, even 10 years?
         ** Janki
         ** Project: 1 and 5yr plans
   * What are some of the best ways to manage our projects and project teams?
         ** Phillip
         ** Project: Team leader handbook/wiki
   * How can we recruit new members and what are our requirements/expectations ?
         ** Jevawn
         ** Project: Consult on a member handbook/wiki and recruitment
   * How can we make training accessible to members while keeping it easy to implement?
         ** Roman
         ** Project: Outline of topics for training. Training schedule and program
   * What keeps them coming back from more? Membership retention
         ** BB's Jeremy
         ** Project: New member handbook/wiki, recruitment, new member meetings
   * Managing our assets: Keeping track of our stuff and tool policy
         ** Jake
         ** Project: Asset management system
   * How would we spend $1,000,000,000? The RJ wishlist
         ** Stefan
         ** Project: Improvements to ME and EE rooms, wishlist
   * How can we make better use of the wiki and website
         ** Andy
         ** Project: Wiki and website facelift
   * How can we build better bots?
         ** Aakash
         ** Project: Report on current robots and what can be done to make them better

Some other topics if you don't really like yours

   * Club organization and creation of new positions
         ** Project: Org chart with listing of each positions responsibilities
   * How can we build better bots?
         ** Project: Report on current robots and what can be done to make them better
   * What makes RoboJackets fun?
         ** Project: Making RoboJackets even more fun for more ppl
   * Growing new leaders
         ** Phillip may take this one if not picked up
         ** Project: Leadership Dev Kit
   * How can we meet deadlines?
         ** Project: Recommendation report