The Welcome Back Bash will be Friday, August 29th from 4-6:30 PM. We will have an intro to the OWL/SCAN meeting at the NWC prior to going to Reaves Park for that main event at 4:30. This will be a great time to meet new students and get people involved in SCAN! 

The September Officer Meeting will be Tuesday, September 16th at 6:30. We will have our September General Meeting on September 20th from 5-7:30 PM. We will have food from 5-6 (Pizza – thinking Dominoes, but we will probably get whatever is cheapest), and our speaker will begin at 6. Due to a class, we won’t officially have the room until 5:30 PM. Megan Gold will be speaking at our September meeting to discuss her time at OU and her current career path as well as her Miss Oklahoma Platform! There is a $102 travel fee since she is coming from Tulsa, but this will go to the Miss OK Organization to help with their scholarship!

Our budget is a little tighter this year due to a lower amount of start funds than usual, so we will need to try to recruit many members to help bring in a little bit more in dues. Assistant Dean Aisha Owusu has verbally told us that the college will pay for ⅓ of the cost of new Weather Friends cards which will also help out our budget. We will also have some other minor revenue sources such as SGA funding and donations at the National Weather Festival, however these income sources are not set in stone yet. 

Savannah also went over the inventory of all our merchandise. If we were to sell all of our merch at our listed price, we could make about $1700!

Our t-shirts have finally been approved by OU Printing Services, Marketing, and Licensing!! We will be using ID solutions again this year and we will hopefully have a pre-order link to use at the Welcome Back Bash. Shirts will be $16 + tax and we will sell them for $25. Officers will be able to put their officer title for an extra $5. Despite inflation, our shirts will only be $1 higher than last year!

We have been invited to submit an abstract and present on “Pre-College Education Initiatives” at the 32nd Conference on Education during the 103rd AMS Annual Meeting! They want us to talk about our outreach activities and how we maintain membership. We can do an oral presentation or a poster, and right now we are leaning towards a poster. The deadline for our abstract is currently August 31st. 

We registered to attend the Oklahoma NSF EPSCoR Women in Science Conference on October 4th at the Oklahoma Science Museum. The conference will be from 9AM-2PM. We will be participating alongside the SoM Graduate Student Outreach Group to help promote meteorology. There will be about 1500 students in attendance!

Weather Friends have been invited to be part of the OU Westheimer Aviation Festival on October 1st. We are still waiting to hear about the logistics for this event.

Our October Officer Meeting will be on October 11th at 6:30 and the October General Meeting will be on October 18th from 5-7:30 PM. We hope to have Dr. Naoko Sakaeda come to speak about tropical meteorology. Our October Social Event will be on October 27th. 

The National Weather Festival will be on October 29th from 10 AM-2 PM and we hope to have a Resume Workshop on November 10 at 6:30 PM. 

We have some Fall Service Opportunities coming up as well. We will be participating in the OU Food Pantry Drive. We also have Little Event, a Supply Drive for the Boys and Girls Club of Norman, and several other opportunities later on in the semester!

For our September social event, we will be doing a benefit night at Pinkberry! Marcus was finally able to get some information from them and we will be requesting September 22nd in the afternoon/evening. Marcus is also working on getting us a nationwide benefit night at Panda Express which will be October 13th if it gets approved! 

We opened the meeting by discussing the OWL/SCAN Joint Meeting that will happen on August 26th from 4-6:30PM. We will have a joint meeting in NWC 1350, and then use the shuttles to go to Reeves Park to party! We’ll have food trucks and games and DJ Nexxus will be there. For games, we are thinking about some icebreakers and some dodgeball/pinball conglomeration that Savannah came up with. We will also have a table with OU SCAN merch and for people to pay dues. 

The National Weather Festival will take place on October 19th from 10AM-2PM. This will be a great opportunity for the Weather Friends! We will be getting new stickers and cards for this event. We might also do some face painting. We will have a table to sell some of our older merch.

Savannah just got access to our bank account, so once she gets the bank statement, she will work with Andrew on finalizing the budget for this year, but it shouldn’t be much different from last year. 

We also discussed multiple t-shirt options for members, as well as officer shirts.

Everyone seemed to love our speakers last year and many liked having a zoom option. However, many did not like having zoom speakers or eating so late in the evening. This year we are thinking about having food at the beginning and then having the speaker start a little later so that people can get food at the beginning. We will also be able to eat inside 1313 again! We are also considering changing our meeting day so that more members can come – such as those that are in Pride. Savannah will get in touch with OWL Exec to make sure we don’t have meeting times that collide, and we want to make sure we aren’t having meetings in the same week.

As far as social events went, people really enjoyed trivia and bingo. We are thinking about trying social events in places other than the NWC such as on Campus Corner or even a picnic on the North Oval.

Savannah wrapped up the meeting with some expectations of us as officers. 

This month we had 2 guest speakers: A broadcast meteorologist from KOCO – Taylor Cox and a CIWRO Research Meteorologist – Dr. Matt Flournoy.

Taylor talked a little bit about her career path and how she got to KOCO. She then talked a little bit about her day-to-day schedule including some of the reporting she does during the week and the importance of communication. If you have any questions for Taylor, you can email her at taylor.cox@hearts.com. KOCO is also taking internships, and you can email jcarlisle@hearst.com if you are interested!

Dr. Flournoy talked a bit about his path to working at CIWRO. He then talked about some of the research he is doing right now including a brief explanation of supercell dynamics. He also talked a little bit about TORUS. He walked us through some forecasting scenarios for previous events and talked a little bit about how to decide when/where to go for field projects. If you have any questions for Matt, you can email him at matthew.flournoy@noaa.gov. 

Leia gave a brief overview of all the events we have done this year including the many service events we have done. 

The Weather Friends Book Fair will be on April 28th and 29th from 9 AM-6 PM! This is open to anybody OU affiliated, so feel free to bring friends to come see the NWC, buy some books, and participate in fun weather trivia!

We gave away our attendance prize for the night and then ate Pickleman’s during our awards ceremony!

Nominations for next year’s officer board close on April 16th and then elections are from April 17th to April 24th. 

Our April social event will be on April 22nd and we will be doing BanjoBug Trivia. The General meeting will be on April 25th and we will be having a broadcast meteorologist and a meteorologist that does fieldwork come talk to us. We will be having Pickleman’s for food and announcing election results. We will be giving away our perfect attendance prize as well as our other normal attendance prize.

The Weather Friends Book Fair will be on April 28th and 29th from 9 am-6 pm. This is open to anyone affiliated with OU. This is a great chance for non-meteorology majors to visit the Weather Center! We still need more people to volunteer as Weather Friends.

We finished up the meeting by talking about some ideas for next year including getting cords/stoles for graduating seniors and getting new Weather Friends Merch. 

The officer board met to discuss an amendment to clarify what the definition of a meeting is considered to be and what active status looks like for members. For the remainder of this school year, only general meetings will count toward attendance and social events will be counted as extra attendance. This amendment was created to more clearly define what an active member is considered to be and what meetings members are expected to attend in order to be considered active.

The following amendment was passed by all attending board members: 

“A. Active Member – An individual who has paid their dues to the organization, attends at least 66% of  general meetings, and one (1) social event per semester, and participates in at least one service project each year through the organization. Each additional service event can be used to make-up for a missed meeting, which includes but is not limited to, Little Event, Big Event, food drives, FEMA courses, Weather Friends events, etc. OU SCAN officers may create service events for chapter members and those events/opportunities must be approved by the President and Vice Presidents. Active members of the previous semester who are studying abroad will retain their active membership status and not owe dues for that semester.

Note: A meeting is defined as, “an assembly of people, especially the members of a society or committee, for discussion or entertainment.” (Oxford Languages Dictionary)”

This amendment passed 11-0 and will take effect on May 1, 2022.

Members still concerned about maintaining active status will be able to complete FEMA courses to make up for missed meetings.

Our guest speaker this month was Marcus Landon Aydlett from NWS Guam. He talked a little bit about NWS Guam and some of the weather that they deal with. Their forecast office is built to withstand the worst – they don’t evacuate when tropical storms come through their area. He then talked a little bit about his path to being a meteorologist at NWS Guam including a mini-geography lesson about Guam and its islands. 

He then shifted into talking about tropical cyclones including the largest and smallest typhoons to impact Guam – Super Typhoon Tip and Tropical Cyclone Tracy respectively. He gave us some info about some of the products they issue and some of the wordings they use and how they communicate this information. He talked about some of the key issues with communication such as false speculation from the public and panic. Impact-Based Decision Support Services (IDSS) aims to help minimize public panic and help core partners make the right decisions. There are four phases to IDSS – Relationship Building, Readiness, Delivery, and Assessment. 

If you have any questions, you can email him at marcus.aydlett@noaa.gov! 

After Aydlett was done presenting, Leia gave our general announcements and talked about our upcoming events.

The Big Event is this Saturday (April 2nd) from 10AM-2PM at Hall Park HOA. If you weren’t at the meeting and need to pick up your shirt, please contact your class rep or one of the other officers. 

Nominations for the 2022-2023 Elections open on April 9th and close on April 16th. Voting will then begin April 17th and end April 14th. You must be a met major to run for President or VP. Graduate and Freshman Class Rep elections will take place in the Fall. There are some appointed positions including Historian/Webmaster, Outreach Coordinator, Deputy of Media, and Apparel/Fundraising Chair. 

The next DEI Training is Friday, April 22 from 2PM-3:30PM in NWC 1313. This is only for students. 

Our next General meeting will be on April 25 at 6PM. We are hoping to have a broadcast meteorologist panel. This is our last general meeting of the year. We will announce the election results and give away a prize to somebody with perfect attendance – a Weather Themed Gift Basket! We will also have our normal attendance prize which will be a Galileo Thermometer or a Storm Glass. 

We had our attendance drawings which were won by Andrew Kenny and Lily Raye. 

This was our first officer meeting in person since Covid started! We opened the meeting with some ice breakers for us to do something fun at the beginning.

We then started by going over and voting on three new amendments to add to the constitution. The first amendment was the Vice President Co-Positions amendment. The amendment states as follows:

“First: Co-Positions

This provision cannot occur regarding the office of the President, Vice President of Internal Affairs, and Vice President of External Affairs of the OU SCAN Board. All other elected positions can select this option.“

This amendment passed 11-0, with one board member absent due to class obligations.

The next amendment we voted on was the Transitional Fundraiser Period Amendment. This amendment states as follows:

“If the need for a fundraiser arises in the transition period of the boards the two boards will hold a meeting to discuss how they wish to spend their funds and/or conduct a fundraiser.”

This amendment passed 11-0, with one board member absent due to class obligations.

The third amendment we voted on was the Freshman and Graduate Representative Elections amendment. This amendment states as follows:

“Nominees for Class Representatives should be members of the curriculum class they are running for by the fall semester of the same year. Representatives can only be voted on by members of their respective classes. Freshmen and Graduate Representative elections will occur via a virtual vote.  The nominations will begin on the day of the meeting and close exactly one week later.  The following day, voting will open and will close one week from that day. Voting will be held in the fall semester by a simple majority of active members of their class who are in attendance at the meeting.

• Note: This allows both freshmen and graduate students to understand the conditions of being a student leader within OU SCAN and allows them to learn about the position to decide if they want to commit to the leadership position.”

This amendment passed 11-0, with one board member absent due to class obligations

Our March social event will be on March 25th. We will be playing Family Feud and have Pickleman’s catering for food. March 28th is our General Meeting with Landon Aydlett, and we will be catering Olive Garden. 

Nominations for next year’s board will open on April 9th and Voting will begin on April 17th. 

The Big Event is April 2nd from 10 am – 2 pm and the Spring game does not conflict with it. If you haven’t signed up, be sure to do so before March 11th at midnight!

Our next officer meeting will be on April 13th at 7 PM.

This month we had 2 guest speakers: Dr. Lodangco and Dr. Wootten. 

Dr. Wootten is a research scientist at the South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center. She gave a brief introduction into climate projections including the Global Climate Model. She also talked about one of the projects she is involved with – the Late False Spring Exposure Index. She talked about some of the uncertainty in climate models and how that can be used for impact assessments. Her email is amwootte@ou.edu if you have any questions.

Dr. Lodangco is also a research scientist at the South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center and she talked about drought forecasting in South-Central Oklahoma. She walked us through a simplified version of creating a model and gave some insight into the formula they used. This model will eventually be applied to other areas in Oklahoma and the US. 

After our guest speakers, Kaitlyn announced she was taking over the position of Outreach Coordinator for the remainder of the semester. She gave a quick overview of Weather Friends for any new members or anyone that wasn’t at our first joint meeting. If you are interested in joining, you can join the Weather Friends GroupMe! 

Leia then talked about the changes to our constitution from our last board meeting. She then talked about the upcoming events including the remaining DEI training and the March Social Event. There is a DEI training on Friday, March 4th from 2-3:30 pm in NWC 1313. On March 25th, we will be playing Family Feud. On March 28th, our general meeting guest speaker will be Landon Aydlett – the Warning Coordination Meteorologist for NWS Guam.

Marcus and Kaitlyn then talked about Big Event, which is OU’s official day of community service. The Big Event will be on April 2nd from 10 am-2 pm and members can register under the OU SCAN/OWL group. The last day to sign up is March 11th. 

Nic Nair and Lucas Sims were the winners of tonight’s attendance prizes. 

We opened the meeting with Assistant Dean Aisha Owusu giving us some more information about the DEI training. She shared some information about what Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion truly mean. 

After Aisha was done, Leia went through our new constitutional amendments and we voted on them.

The first amendment we voted on was the Social Media amendment. The text is as follows:

E. As a student leader and officer within OU SCAN, all OU SCAN officers must comply and uphold creating and providing an inclusive environment for all. OU SCAN does not tolerate bullying, injustice, bigotry, discrimination, etc., which is included on ALL social media platforms, including but not limited to: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, GroupMe, Snapchat, Slack, Discord, etc.

• If an OU SCAN Officer breaks this rule and amendment:
  • First time: 1 warning and mandatory training and/or meeting with the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences (A&GS) Assistant Dean.
  • After 1 warning, the officer will be dismissed from the organization and the vacancy will be filled by either appointment or special election.
    • The incident will be reported to A&GS and will be at their discretion to officially determine if the amendment was violated.

This amendment passed with 11-0 with one board member absent due to class obligations.

The next amendment was the Required Yearly DEI Training for Student Leaders within OU SCAN. The amendment text is as follows:

D. As a student leader and officer within OU SCAN, all OU SCAN officers are required to attend mandatory yearly Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training. At the beginning of the academic year, once the organization knows the amount of DEI trainings that are available during the semester, we as the board will vote on the required meetings for officers.  If an officer is unable to attend these scheduled DEI trainings due to an unforeseen circumstance, the officer is required to be in contact with A&GS Assistant Dean to meet and discuss, and/or make up the missed training(s). If an officer refuses to make up the missed training(s), then the officer will be dismissed as a student leader within OU SCAN and cannot run for re-election for any position the following year.  The vacancy will be filled by either appointment by the President or special election.

• If an officer cannot attend a meeting, they must contact the OU SCAN President, OU SCAN Vice President(s), and A&GS Assistant Dean via a formal email to explain why they cannot attend the training.

This amendment passed 15-0 with three symbolic votes from the three appointed board members that do not usually have voting privileges. This amendment will be effective starting May 2022 (2022-2023 administration).

The third amendment that was voted on was the Addition of the OU SCAN Vice President Position and Division of Responsibilities. The text is as follows:

B.1. Vice President of Internal Affairs – The duties of the Vice President of Internal Affairs are to advise and assist the President in overseeing the activities of the organization that pertains directly to the internal affairs of OU SCAN and additional duties that correspond to the position will be given from the President.

B.2. Vice President of External Affairs – The duties of the Vice President of External Affairs are to advise and assist the President in overseeing the activities of the organization that pertains directly to the external affairs of OU SCAN and additional duties that correspond to the position will be given from the President.

• Both (2) Vice Presidents will serve as the liaison to the National Weather Association.
• This is not considered to be a co-position and each Vice President will get their own vote.
• If the current OU SCAN President is unable to complete their duties, a vote from the current OU SCAN Officer Board, will take place immediately following the vacancy of the President’s position.  If both Vice Presidents would like to be candidates for the President position, then they will get the opportunity to give a speech to the board and a vote will immediately follow both (2) speeches.  The two (2) candidates will not be allowed to vote during the special election.

This amendment passed 12-0.

The next amendment is the OU SCAN Officer Active Status Amendment. The text is as follows:

F. All OU SCAN Officers are expected to and must maintain an active status within OU SCAN (See Article III: Membership and Dues, Section A).  In addition to an active member status, an officer shall also attend four-fifths (80%) of all OU SCAN Officer Board Meetings. If the officer has had prior communication at least one week prior to the meeting with the OU SCAN President and OU SCAN Vice Presidents regarding being tardy/absent for the OU SCAN Officer Board Meetings, then they may receive an excused absence, which does not count towards the 80% attendance requirement.  If an active status is not maintained throughout the duration of the elected term, then the officer in an inactive status (under 66% attendance, no service requirement, no paid dues, and does not attend 80% of all OU SCAN Officer Board Meetings) is stripped of any and all voting rights until active status is once again met. The inactive officer is also required to meet with the OU SCAN President and Vice President(s) to determine the best way to move forward and continue in the organization.  If the officer is not an active member by the beginning of election nominations, the officer cannot run for re-election on the OU SCAN Officer Board for any position.

• If studying abroad as an OU SCAN Officer, active status of the previous semester will be maintained; however, officers shall attend officer meetings within reason (time zone differences) to keep up-to-date on OU SCAN information and keep in contact with the OU SCAN President regarding OU SCAN business.
• If the officer misses the first 15 minutes of the Officer Board Meeting, their attendance will be noted as absent.

This amendment also passed 12-0.

The last amendment we voted on during this meeting was the Allocation of Fundraiser Funds amendment. The text is as follows:

E. Any funds allocated for fundraising towards disaster relief and aid that is not used prior to the end of April 30th will be forfeited back to the organization’s general funds and may be used for other organizational purposes.

This amendment passed 12-0.

In summary, all of the amendments we voted on tonight passed and all of these amendments have been added to the Constitution. We also introduced another amendment regarding the VP position which we will vote on during our next officer meeting.

After we voted on the amendments, Leia went over the calendar for the next few months. We decided to move the social event and general meeting in April back one week due to the Easter holidays. 

Next, we talked about our February social event with PSU. This event will be a social meet and greet via zoom.

For our February general meeting, we are still working on finding a guest speaker. We will be having Chipotle. The attendance prize will be a Valentine’s Day themed item. 

We also discussed our Officer Social Event which will be an Escape Room. 

Leia closed the meeting by giving us some little reminders.

Leia opened the meeting by showing us the calendar for this semester. 

• Feb. 9th: Officer Meeting
• Feb. 18th: Social Event
• Feb. 21st: General Meeting
• March 9th: Officer Meeting
• March 25th: Social Event
• March 28th: General Meeting
• April 2nd: Big Event
• April 13th: Officer Meeting
• April 15th: Social Event
• April 18th: General Meeting

Next Leia went over the budget, which was unanimously approved by the attending board members.

For the February general meeting, we plan to have a Climate Research Scientist from Columbia University or NASA. For food, we will have Chipotle and the attendance prize will be Valentine’s themed.

Our March general meeting will be with Landon Aydlett who is a Tropical/Risk and Crisis Communication Expert. We will have Olive Garden for food, and the prize will be a spring break party pack (glow sticks, beach ball, frisbee, snacks, etc).

For the April general meeting, we want to have someone from the private sector or NOAA Corps. For food, we will have Pickleman’s. We will have a “best attendance” prize which will be a weather-themed gift basket, and the regular attendance prize will be a Galileo thermometer or a storm glass.

Our February social event will be a joint event with another AMS chapter (FSU or Penn State). 

Our March social event will be a game show night! We will be playing family feud.

The April Social event will be another trivia night like last semester. We will do meteorology, pop culture, Disney, OU, etc. We will use either Kahoot or BanjoBug.

This semester Asst Dean Owusu has asked us to participate in monthly DEI training along with other student leaders.

We also want to have OU SCAN Alumni social media taker-overs. We could do this once a month, and have OU SCAN Alumni post about why they joined SCAN, how it helped them, what they’re doing now, advice for current students, etc. 

We could also have local restaurant fundraising nights either once a month or twice a semester at Baked Bear, Chipotle, or even Pickleman’s.