The start of the spring semester at Bucknell

Since coming back to school at the end of January, BAPers have been hard at work to make the semester great. Both the executive committee and the entire club has been meeting so far this semester. To start off the semester, the first weekend back, after our winter break, the executive committee met to hear and update of Muyambi's trips to Haiti and Uganda and begin work on the upcoming semester. The executive committee changed this semester after two of its leaders went abroad, Kevin and Nicole. Sarah will now serve as secretary, Erika and Emma will work together as Vice Presidents of Operations, Molly will continue as Vice President of Development, Kylie will continue to hold her position as Vice President of Communication, Muyambi will continue as President, and Dave will head up design for BAP. Looking long term, our next BAP project will be heading to Haiti. With the help of students from Brown University, we will be working on distributing bicycle carts. Muyambi also went to Uganda, distributing more bicycles, and this summer, students will be going back to expand further. The executive committee has been working on organizing behind the scenes, especially working within the guidelines of Bucknell to make sure that we do everything properly. They have been working on rewriting the constitution for ROTU and is seeking individuals to serve on the ROTU board of directors, moving forward with achieving 501 C 3 nonprofit status. Members of the executive committee have also been actively working on improving both the BAP website and are constructing the ROTU website. Executives will be heading to conferences this semester, including the Impact conference in Arkansas in March and the CGI conference in April.

The BAPers have also been holding larger group meetings to come up with events and plan out the rest of the semester. We held a retreat to hatch out many details and held a general interest meeting open to the public this week with great turnout. This semester, the development committee will be working on finding grants, continuing the constitution, and seeking a board of directors. The communications committee will be working on advertising our events, increasing awareness and publicity, and presenting to both churches and the Greek organizations on campus. They will also be working on the BAP newsletter. Operations will be mainly seeking to plan events on campus. BAP is currently selling Ugandan crafts in the Elaine Langone Center, including beautiful jewelry, bags, and t-shirts. BAP will also be planning a month-long event called Biking to Uganda. Students will donate money to participate, and after each workout, students will log the number of miles they biked or ran during their workout. We will track the groups progress on a map, hopefully biking the distance from Lewisburg to Gulu. The person who logged the most hours will win a prize at the end of the month. The event will culminate with a bike-a-thon, where teams will compete to be the last team standing as they continuously bike. As time progresses, the intensity will increase, making it harder to continue. We are also planning another event in the spring like last years Bands and Bikes. This year we will be co-hosting the event with the club, Micro-finance Initiative at Bucknell, or MIB. This year, the musical festival will be held in Smith quad on campus.

All in all, it looks to be a very exciting semester for Bicycles Against Poverty here at Bucknell.