You are invited to our annual Wichita SWE Banquet where we will celebrate another great year, thank our outgoing officers, install new officers, and hear from our own Vicki Johnson about her career. Please RSVP for the banquet before May 15! All current members please remember to vote in the FY14 Officer Election! The FY14 Officer Ballots have been emailed to all current members, voting closes on Friday, May 17th.
Last week our section hosted a Pizza Party for the WSU SWE section. Thank you to all the professional and collegiate members who attended and thank you to Cassie Schroeder for planning this fantastic event! Good Luck on your finals WSU SWE!
Have a fantastic week and don’t forget to renew your SWE membership!
This last month has been busy as we have already started planning the 2014 Region i Conference. If you are interested in helping please contact me at wichitaswe@gmail.com. We still have plenty of short and long term tasks that are available. We had a fantastic Professional Development event, a BIG THANK YOU to Lili for setting up these great learning opportunities!
Our April Professional Development meeting is all about weather! We hope you will join us to learn about how to be prepared for our ever changing Kansas weather. Also, remember your punch cards! Our punch card pilot is going very well; you can find more information on the punch cards here, we welcome your feedback and look forward to continuing this in FY14!
Wichita SWE invites you to attend our Annual Banquet to help us celebrate our 31st year of being a section! Save the date of May 21 for the banquet…more details will be posted as the event is planned! Our FY14 slate of officers is now posted on the website and also included in the April Newsletter. An email will be sent in a few weeks with a link for the official vote. Thank you in advance for participating in our Wichita SWE FY14 election.
THANK YOU to all who helped plan and execute the 2013 Engineering Expo! We were able to reach OVER 500 kids and their families! We enjoyed our new location at WATC’s NCAT facility and look forward to being back in this amazing location again next year. Save the date now for 2014 Engineering Expo…Saturday, February 22, 2014!
Our Region i 2013 Conference in Omaha was a great opportunity for learning and a great time to catch up with friends! And the most exciting news…Wichita SWE won the bid to host the 2014 Region conference!!! Now the planning begins…if you would like to help plan the conference (help is needed on big and small tasks) please let us know!
Our March Professional Development meeting will cover personal finances and SWE members will have the opportunity to win a purse! (Don’t worry…I didn’t pick it out so it is fashionable!) If you weren’t able to attend the conference, I invite you to our April Networking meeting for a recap of the region conference.
February is what I often refer to as Outreach month. Wichita SWE has several STEM Outreach events that have already happened this month and several coming up soon! Already happened include NAWIC sponsored Block Kids where we provide judges and activities for the kids. Just this last weekend was WSU Shocker Mindstorms Trial Day where the kids are given the opportunity to practice on the actual competition course.
Coming up this week is the annual WCES Banquet to celebrate E-Week; the speaker will be discussing the topic of “Well Fracturing – Bane or Blessing?” dinner and awards are also included in the evening. And this coming Saturday, February 23, is Engineering Expo 2013! We are VERY excited to be hosting the event at WATC’s new NCAT facility this year. We have also expanded our hours to run from 9am-2pm. We are still looking for volunteers and are happy to have help from anyone…no science experience necessary!
The first weekend in March we will be attending our regional conference in Omaha, NE. During this conference we will be presenting a bid to host the 2014 regional conference here in Wichita. We have a great bid put together…good luck to our presenters and stay tuned to our website and twitter feed the first weekend of March for an update!
This month we have already held our mid year planning meeting and round two of Poker 101. Our Cards for the Cure team is being formed and even if they don’t win I am sure they will have a fantastic time! We had a great mid year planning meeting and have several fun events lined up for this Spring and early Summer. Check out the calendar on the website to see what is coming.
Next month starts what I refer to as Outreach Month, or a month full of fun outreach activities and events! We are getting closer to Expo 2013, see the newsletter for more information about how to sign up to help and how to help us spread the word! We are also getting ready to kick off a new mentoring program with the WSU students, if you are interested in learning more about this or becoming involved see the post in this newsletter.
Have a wonderful 2013!
~Allison Wright
FY13 Wichita SWE President
This last month we had a fantastic Professional Development event with the topic of communication in the workplace! We also decorated our tree for the Festival of Trees and I am very happy to announce that our tree was sold for $900!!! Thank you to all who helped build ornaments and decorate the tree!
Coming up we have our annual Holiday party (Friday 12/21/12) as well as an outreach work day (a day of fun and playing with/learning all the outreach kits we have) on January 6th. We also ask that you help our section by signing up for SWEeter Futures. You can find information about this in the newsletter, it is a fantastic site designed to help National SWE collect information about the amount of time SWE members spend volunteering.
Stay warm and hope to see you at the Holiday Party!
~Allison Wright
FY13 Wichita SWE President
This last month has been a blast! SWE’s National conference was held last week in Houston, TX. Over 6,400 people attended the largest SWE National conference to date. I am happy to announce that our section won the Outreach Award for a medium size section! THANK YOU to everyone that helped with Expo this last year…and we hope to see you at Expo 2013!
Coming up this month we have our annual Christmas tree decorating! Our tree is themed “Building Joy” and our tree will be decorated with Lego ornaments that we have been building throughout the year! Thank you all who have helped!
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month! Instead of having a letter from the President we have a letter from Wichita SWE member Misty Frank, a recent Breast Cancer conqueror. Check out her letter below and an article about her on pages 13-15 of this Via Christi magazine!
Hope to see you at one of the upcoming events!
~Allison Wright
FY13 Wichita SWE President
Letter from Misty Frank – Save the Ta Ta’s & Save Your LIFE!
Did you know that October is breast cancer awareness month? By now, most people are aware of this since it’s heavily advertised. Most of you also know that in August 2011, I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 30! That was a huge shock to me, my family and friends to hear that news.
I want to share with you the importance of early detection and how VERY important it is for you to do your monthly self-examinations and annual mammograms. I NEVER did my monthly self-exams and that could have cost me my life. Luckily, my tumor hit a nerve and caused pain. Only then did I decide to check it out. If it wouldn’t have hit a nerve, most likely I wouldn’t be here writing this message to you. NOW I know how very important it is to be proactive and listen to your body. Once cancer starts growing, most times, it’s growing extremely fast. If it spreads to your lymph nodes, it gets in your blood stream and it acts as a super highway spreading the cancer to other parts of your body. Luckily, mine hadn’t spread yet when I caught it.
Breast cancer is very common. Did you know 1 out of 8 women will have breast cancer? Breast cancer does not discriminate; young, old, rich, poor, with family history, or without can get breast cancer. I never had family history of breast cancer. If you catch breast cancer early, it’s treatable and one can live a very long healthy life after treatment. The key is to catch it early. So please, I’m begging you from the bottom of my heart, please do your monthly self- examinations and your annual mammograms! It can truly save your life!
We have had a fun first month of FY13! Our planning meeting produced a lot of great ideas that we will be incorporating into this year’s activities. We started the month off with our first Networking Meeting, it was a great dinner which provided time to get to know and catch up with each other.
I encourage you to check out our newsletter for this month, and specifically the article about our new Secretary, Misty Frank and her defeat of cancer! There is an awesome video in the article…Go Misty!
Coming up this week we have our first Professional Development Meeting and next week we have our first planning meeting for the 2013 Engineering Expo! Detail about both of these meetings can be found in this newsletter and on the Wichita SWE website. Some of our section’s leadership will be attending a leadership summit sponsored by the region at the end of the month; this will be a great time for networking with other sections in our region. We will be bringing back great ideas!
Hope to see you at one of the upcoming events!
~Allison Wright
FY13 Wichita SWE President
Welcome to FY13! I am excited to be back as the Wichita SWE President for the second year in a row and very excited for the activities we are planning for this year. Thank you to the FY12 Officers for all of your hard work, Vice President – Jessica Stitt, Treasurer – Heather Jones/Lynn Howitz, Secretary – Cassie Schroeder, and Section Rep – Jennifer Marshall. I am thrilled to have Lynn and Jennifer on the Executive Council again this year and look forward to working with our new officers, Vice President – Michelle Boehm and Secretary – Misty Frank.
Thank you to everyone who filled out the End of Year survey, your feedback was appreciated during the planning meeting. This year we are trying a new way of programming events. The first week of each month there will be a Networking event. Networking events will vary in location, day, and time. Be sure to check out the website and newsletter for dates and times. The first Networking event, the Kickoff Meeting, will be Tuesday, July 31 at 6pm at Bella Luna in Bradley Fair. Check out the Upcoming Events section of the newsletter for more information.
The second week of each month will be the General Meeting. The General Meetings will be the second Wednesday of each month from 6-7pm. The August meeting will take place at Margaritas, just west of Hillside on Douglas. The third week of each month will have our new Professional Development meetings. For the first half of the year the Professional Development meetings will take place on the third Thursday at 6pm, locations to be announced. Look for e-mails or check the website to find out where the meetings will be! The fourth week of each month will be Technical Meetings/Tours. Days, times, and locations will vary based on the months topic.
We are hoping this meeting structure will allow you to attend the events that you are interested in and be aware of when they will be happening! If you have any suggestions for this year or would like to help plan a meeting or event please contact me at wichitaswe@gmail.com.
2012 Society of Women Engineers Wichita Area Section I05 PO Box 1096 Wichita, KS 67201 E-mail: Wichita@swe.org
This non-profit organization is tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code
