7th report of the SMA Midday Rotary Montecillo de Nieto Water Project

Record of Event pg 1 of 3
7th report of the SMA Midday Rotary Montecillo de Nieto Water Project

Where: Montecillo de Nieto Kindergarten
When: 21.4.2010 12.15 – 2pm
Who: Elena & Laura (Rotary), Chela (Cedesa), 19women, 2 men, 8 kids & 2 dogs!

Purpose: Planning of the next phase – ie individual cisterns per families.

Item 1 – Co-ordinator, note taker
Eva was nominated with Margarita taking notes...Margarita was happy to say she remembered the book this time!

Roll was called

Chela prompted Eva to ask her fellow attendees for items for today’s agenda...

Agenda items
1. Who is missing materials
2. Plan the work schedule
3. What to do with those not participating
4. Revision of the work groups
5. Opinions & suggestions
6. Training days in Los Torres (traspatios, backyard production)
7. General

Item 1 – who is missing materials
The crowd was disturbed that only cement, sand & cal has been delivered so far. They are ready for work but are waiting for the balance of the materials.

I explained that Talego had been appointed the new supplier, & they were working hard to get the materials to them. Talego had said all would be delivered Sat, Mon & Tues..

I asked Elena to call Talego while we were in the meeting. She spoke to Fernanda (the daughter of the owner) & impressed upon her the importance of receiving the materials asap. Fernanda said the rest of the materials would be delivered in 2 hours by Rutilio (the owner himself).

Item 2 – planning the work schedule
Chela asked what the benefit of working in groups was called, & various terms were mentioned, including solidarity, & mutual work groups.

They agreed that each group would work on the first 3 cisterns in their group, complete those & move onto the next 3.

Chela asked if everyone agreed – all said yes.

They were asked if they all knew how to do the work – some said they had forgotten, & I mentioned Rafael (the LT technician) is available to assist for 1 day of troubleshooting for each group. Hence they could call on him to come one day & visit all groups, at each stage of construction, or however they chose.

After some prodding they agreed they probably did know how to do it, but felt a little under confident.

Gaston said he knew the process & I lent him the copy of the Cedesa Cistern construction booklet as a refresher.

They have Rafael’s contact details & will co-ordinate with him. They were clear on the 1 day per group allowance...





Record of Event pg 2 of 3

There was then discussion on which day to begin the work, at which time Elena suggested calling Talego again, to confirm absolutely their commitment to the delivery of the rest of the materials.

We called again, this time Elena then Chela spoke to Rutilio, the owner, who said all but one of the products was able to be delivered today, but they were waiting on one type of wire from San Luis Potosi, & that all should be delivered in fact by Friday latest.

The groups then decided best to start work on Monday 26th April, to be certain all materials were received. Incidentally, the MdN primary school is closed & kids off school, on Thurs & Friday, so not so easy to start while they are off school anyway.

There was discussion about the start time each day, Group 1 was asked first, but couldn’t decide, it took more than 5 mins with no answer, Elena & I had been sitting next to Gaston, & prompting him for answers, Elena quickly & quietly asked Gaston what time Group 3 wanted to start & he was very decisive with his response of 9am, with that Chela asked the rest of the groups, “so do you want to start work at 9am too?” all agreed except group 2, they will start at 1pm (?!).

Group1 – Margarita, Eva, Cacilda, Blanca, Michaela, Irene start 26/4 9am

Group 2 - Carmen, Nanci, Baseliza, Leonor V, Secundino, Victoria Start 26/4 1pm

Group 3 – Gaston, Aurelia, Enedina, Leonor R, Soledad, Hermilinda Start 26/4 9am

Group 4 – Griselda, Ma Elena, Lorena, Ma Cruz, Alicia, Saleta Start 26/4 9am

Eva will call Rafa & ask if he is able to come to MdN on Monday, & then they will have 3 more days of his assistance at their disposal.

They estimate it will take about 3 wks for each group to complete all 3 cisterns. So should have them completed by the next assembly.

Steps are
Crocheting
Putting the cylinder in place & leveling it.
Husbands will help in the afternoons. (chela said it’s still daylight at 10pm)

With one month to complete all the first lot of cisterns do you think you can do it? They all answered SI!!

Item 3 – what to do with people not participating
There are 2 people that have not been attending meetings.
1 without any excuse is Victoria.
The community would like to know what to do about Victoria.
Sand has been delivered to her.
Gaston suggested visiting her, asking why she´s not coming & if she´s still interested si or no…if no we should give it to someone else.

Another commented “she should show up, we shouldn´t have to chase her.”
Someone else suggested we give her cistern to someone else.

Chela pulled the conversation back to – do you think Victoria is entitle to a cistern si or no?

“if we leave her out of the project it will be an example to others, participate or you´re out!”

It was to be a decision of the whole group, so each person was questioned in turn, & each in turn said, si, she should be removed from the list, then one woman said she had spoken with Victoria who had said she wasn´t interested (we wished she´d spoken first!), so all voted, remove her from the list.




Record of Event pg 3 of 3

Victoria was in Group 2.
The new person in group 2 was decided – Alejandro Garcia, has a family of 6 or 7, from Los Torres originally, have lived in MdN for 3 yrs.

Item 4. Revision of work groups (completed above)
Item 5. Opinions & suggestions
(not really discussed as a separate topic.

Item 6 Traspastios (back yard production) workshops
Benigno from Cedesa has been going to Los Torres on 1st Wednesday of the month, for 2 months. The MdN community was invited but through a series of miscommunications have not been attending. Chela asked who was interested, & suggested Benigno could stop in MdN on his way to Los Torres for a couple of hours each month.

She reiterated, this is for free, Cedesa are not paid for this, & are happy to do it but only if the people are motivated to attend & learn & put the methods into practice. There needs to be a group of more than 10 to be worthwhile driving all the way from Dolores Hidalgo.

People volunteered, Leonor R, Lorena, Vaselisa, Leonor V, Aurelia, Micaela, Ma Elena, Ma Cruz, Griselda, Eva, Hermelinda & Enedina.

Chela will check with Benigno & advise MdN next month.

Item 7 General
What´s pending apart from materials…
Will need to move the sand from Victoria´s to Alejandro & advise them both.
Doors are in production & will be delivered (once the ordered “niples” have arrived & I deliver them the door guy).

Info – there are approx 60-70 families in MdN.

Rafa has the list of the balance of the measurements for the 2nd delivery of the final 13 cisterns in the project. That needs to be given to Laura to place the next variables order.

Next assembly 19.5.10 at 12pm

Ma Elena is excused – she has a doctor´s appt, she jokingly asked that they don´t give her cistern away since she wont be attending the assembly, everyone had a good laugh.

Next Assembly in Montecillo de Nieto 19 May 12pm at Kinder

Report respectfully submitted by Laura Stewart