Happy Holidays!

Hey

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and have rested up for the new year! We haven't really done much ASCE-ing (yes, now its a verb) since the December member meeting, but we have quite a few things going on in January and February!

The January Happy Hour will be on Tuesday, January 4th, 2011 (5:30-7:30) at Milly's in Manchester, NH.

The Board of Directors Meeting is on January 5th, 2011.

The first ever YM Lunch is happening on January 27th hosted by Kleinfelder-SEA!

Also ERYMC is coming up on January 14-16, 2011! If you want to register please email me as soon as possible.

ASCE YM's are going to try to put on a Panel Discussion about "what to expect after graduating" for the ASCE Student Section at UNH on February 8th, 2011.  If you are interested in being on the panel please email me.

Engineers week is February 15-19 and the Engineer's Banquet is on February 17, 2011.

I hope everyone is getting excited about the new year!

-Logan

December Breakfast Meeting

Hey,

We had a great showing of younger members at the December breakfast meeting! The NHDOT commissioner, George Campbell, Jr. was the presenter and he talked about all the great projects that the DOT have been working on this past year and what they have for upcoming work.  He thanked all of the innovative work done by the civil engineering community that have been making his projects come in on time and under budget. He also noted the importance of creating strong legislative relationships with all the new politicians coming into office this year. All in all, i think it was an informative meeting and a great way to steal some of the commissioner's time.

There were quite a few younger members there (we had a mostly younger member table going on!) and after the meeting, I tried to grab as many  as I could to take a picture with the commissioner before he left.  Lovely photo opportunity - I had to take it with my phone so the quality isn't awesome and there is a little red-eye issue- but I'm glad that we could all get together for a picture!

Hopefully we continue to see this kind involvement in 2011!

-Logan

December Social Hour

OK, since Logan has been doing everything for the YM's lately, I figure I should take a stab at this.  We had our monthly social hour last night at Milly's in Manchester.  We had one new face last night, Jeff (sorry I didn't catch your last name), who works with Logan.  It's nice to see that we are slowly expanding while maintaining our core participants at these gatherings.  It's not that we aren't trying to expand, last nights social was well advertised via a mass email to all NHASCE YM's, compliments to Logan for spreading the word, we just aren't seeing major growth yet.  We talked about the upcoming ERYMC in Portland and it sounds like we will have a pretty good showing.  Tomorrow's Holiday Breakfast at The Red Blazer in Concord should also be well attended by the YM's.  Maybe another opportunity for some sweet group pictures, this time everyone should look a little more spiffy in their best holiday sweaters!

A new idea was presented to the group and I think it could be a cool way for the YM's to expand while also providing a little insight into how our respective companies operate and feel.  Since all those in attendance work in Manchester, basically within 1 mile of each other, we are going to start eating lunch together on the last Thursday of every month at one of the YM's office.  This gives us an excuse to meet up one more time a month to keep momentum rolling and perhaps recruit some other YM's from each others offices that haven't been able to come to a social hour.  The first monthly lunch will be held on January 27 and will be hosted by Kleinfelder-SEA on Wall Street. 

Well that's it for now, see you guys at breakfast!

Chris

P.S. It was apparent that the beverage prices increased while service decreased at Milly's last night, perhaps a new watering hole will be in store for January's social!

Whats Coming Up?

Hey,

I was going to give an update on the November Member Meeting that happened November 16, 2010 - but unfortunately I could not attend.

We have a Happy Hour coming up on Tuesday, December 7, 2010 at Milly's. Look for the announcement coming out via email soon.

I am also planning on attending the December Breakfast meeting on December 9, 2010. The last day to sign up for the event is this Friday, December 3. The NHDOT Commissioner is the presenter and I think it will be a pretty good meeting that is well attended. Click Here for more info on the December Meeting. I will send out an update on how the meeting goes!

-Logan

November YM Happy Hour

YMs at November 2010 Happy Hour

Hey Kiddos

As promised, I managed to get some pictures taken from last nights Happy Hour! It was a small group but it was still fun.

Paul and Jose playing pool in the Bedford Game Room

One thing that we talked about at the  Happy Hour was the upcoming ERYMC (Eastern Regional Younger Member Conference). The NH ASCE Board is hoping to send a bunch of people this year. The conference is being held in Portland Maine this year on Jan 14-16, 2011.  Maine and New Hampshire are the Co-Hosts so its kind of a big deal that we bring as many people as possible (or at least more than Maine brings).

Here are some questions (and answers) that got brought up at the Happy Hour:

Q: What the heck is ERYMC? What do we do there?
A: ERYMC stands for Eastern Regional Younger Member Conference. It is a conference that (from what i understand) brings younger members together. They have presentations on topics relevant to us (i.e. leadership skills, career development for YMs, etc.), break-out (hands on) sessions, awards banquet, and of course, the chance to network with TONS of people from regions 1-5.

Q: How much does it cost?
A: Registration: $185, Hockey Game: $14/ticket, Banquet $20 for you $40 for a guest, Hotel: $135/night. The total for 3 nights (Thursday Friday Saturday) and the registration fee is about $590

Q: Where can i get the Agenda?
A: The draft agenda is available on the ERYMC Website

Q: Will there be students there?
A: YES. There is a student leadership conference that happens at the same time as the YM Conference that the students attend. There are times during the conference where YMs and students get chances to interact.  At my meeting with UNH in October I specifically requested that they send at least 1 person this year, and that the ASCE NH Board is committed to helping them get there (as many as possible). In the recent past,UNH has not participated in this event. I think this is a great opportunity for them to get involved and to network.

Q: Will there be "older" members there?
A: YES. There is also a workshop for section and branch leaders that is held at the same time. again, there is plenty of opportunities to network with them as well.

If you have any other questions or are interested in attending, please email me! Thanks

-Logan

October/November 2010 YM Activity

Hey YMs!

I'm super excited about the Happy Hour at my house tonight. Let me know if you still need directions!  I have been pretty busy with YM stuff recently so here is an update on everything that has been happening:

October 23, 2010 - New Hampshire Tech Fest,Windham NH

Sweet Sweet Civil Engineering booth
to explain to the kiddies at tech fest
what civil engineering is!

I was unable to attend this years tech fest but I am proud to say that we participated.  ASCE had a booth at the NH Techfest that featured these awesome blocks called CityBlocks and had a "bridge building" contest of some sort. Maybe I can get Chris Robert or Jose Lovell to write something up for the techfest. Both of them volunteered their time to help out Jay Hodkinson who was the ASCE member that took the lead in this project.  It was great to see the younger members step up and get involved in NH Youth Programs that promote Math and Science.

October 22-24, 2010 - ASCE National Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada
Paul Armano attending this years National Conference with Birtt Audet (Current ASCE NH President). He has a great write-up about it in the November 2010 Newsletter. I highly recommend you check it out!

October 26, 2010 - Meeting with UNH Students
I met with the UNH ASCE Student Board to discuss their upcoming year and how the YMs can be more involved in their activities. The idea was to be able to get my face to the students and let them know that we really do want to be involved. I know that it is hard to ask for help when you don't know who you are asking, so I think its really important to break that weird barrier between students and YMs.

We also discussed putting together a panel discussion with a few YMs (i want to try to get a good variety of people, i.e. grad school, right out of school, 5 years out of school, EIT, PE, etc) where the students can ask us questions about various aspects of our career to better prepare them for whats out there. Our preliminary date is Feb 8th. if you are interested in being on the panel let me know.

November 3, 2010 - ASCE NH BOD Meeting
Every month we have a BOD meeting to discuss upcoming member meetings, budget, conferences, etc. This months meeting was held in Concord, NH. I updated the Board on all Younger Member activities including the monthly socials ,YM involvement, the upcoming ERYMC, Student Relationships, etc.

I also got to meet with a fellow YM after the meeting and got some great news!

November 4, 2010 - Website Committee Meeting
I met with Susy Shepard (ASCE NH Webmaster) to check out our website and try to update it - long story short - check back to the ASCE website to see the upcoming improvement!

Finally, i just added the "Upcoming Events" Gadget to the sidebar of this blog, but it doesn't let me prioritize the events based on importance, so here are some important things that are coming up:

November 16, 2010 - ASCE November Meeting (click here for more info on this event)
December 9, 2010 -ASCE December Meeting (click here for more info on this event)
January 14-16, 2011 - ERYMC (co-hosted by ME and NH!!) (click here for more info on this event)
 


I think that is all to report for now - like I said, its been a busy month. I will try to con people into getting their picture taken at the Happy Hour tonight so that I can include some sweet pictures in my next post.

Thanks for checking in!

-Logan

New to Blogging

Hey,

Logan Johnson

My name is Logan Johnson (FYI, I'm a GIRL), and I am the Younger Member (YM) co-chair along with Chris Robert (he's a boy).  

Any-who, this is my first post to the ASCE-NH Younger Member Blog!!  I am hoping that this will get updated after happy hours, member meetings, big conferences (all of which are coming up in the near future). 

I guess I am just looking for an informal way of keeping Younger Members in NH up to date with the activities that are going on.  Despite the amount of time i spend on facebook, the facebook group didn't really work the way i had hoped and it was difficult to keep updated. Hopefully i do a better job of keeping this up-to-date.

So, for those of you who don't know yet, the YMs have started having monthly Happy Hours. They are held on the second Tuesday of the month and are USUALLY from 5:30PM - 8:00(ish)PM at Milly's Tavern in Manchester.  This month (November 9, 2010) we are holding the happy hour at my house in Bedford, NH. Email me if you are interested in attending!

They have been pretty successful other than the fact that the only way people know about them is from word of mouth.  The YM Committee is currently working on getting a YM email list pulled together from national so that we can email out announcements on upcoming events. (we love sending you emails)

Anyways, thanks for checking out our new blog and let me know if you would like to become more active in the YM Community. We are always looking for fresh ideas and new faces! It really is a great way to network with peers.

-Logan