Project beggining- Initial staff meeting

Today is the first day of spring semester 2010-11, and the new staff of our project has met for the first time. Project Director Gloria López Colón held her first staff meeting.  Earlier in the morning the new staff met with Marta Meléndez, from Human Resources Office for initial orientation.  Present in the staff meeting were Ms. Karina- Assessment Technician, Benjamín Ruiz-Counselor, and Michael Rodríguez-Instructional Designer.  Absent were the Financial Counselor, the Life Coach and teh Programmer.  The Life coach has been selected but has not been approved yet by the Dean, and The Financial counselor and Programmer are yet to be selected.  This week we hope to finish that process.

Sadly, the Grant Manager notified us this morning that he will not be working in the Project.  This is an important drawback, since the Grant Manager is one of the key personnel.  As plan B, we intend to ask Sagrado Corazón to provide us with a Grant Manager from its regular employees.  This plan was discussed  early in the set-up, but was abandoned when we selected the candidate that now has withdrawn. 

The agenda for the meeting was as follows:

1.     Welcome

2.     The project

3.     Documents

a.     Work plans

4.     Technology

a.     Set Blog

b.     Skype

c.      Dropbox

5.     Tasks for January

6.     News

After introductions, an overview of the project was presented in Powerpoint.  Next, a document kit was given to each participant.  This included a precis of the proposal, the 1st-year plan, the implementation plan of the pertinent component, and a charter of the project detailing team members, project milestones and quality descriptors.  Blank forms were distributed and explained for participants to break each milestone into subprojects and make their own work plan. 

Next, this blog was introduced.  The idea is to allow all coordinators and personnel to participate as authors, so all information pertinent to the performance report is in one place, along with the documents in their context.  The new personnel were also invited to register in Skype, and a short demonstration was made.  The web application Dropbox was also recommended as back-up for important documents. 

The next staff meeting will be on January 25, and every Tuesday morning thereafter. Tomorrow the new personnel will meet with officials from the Human Resources Office for another orientation on marginal benefits.