Blog #15 | Our COVID-19 Response

It’s likely been quite awhile since you’ve heard from us, so we wanted to give everyone an update on how the team plans to operate next year and how you might be able to help.

Unfortunately last year, club activities ended very abruptly as UNH closed down due to the Coronavirus pandemic. In addition, the Spaceport America Cup rocketry competition was also cancelled nationwide. As such, we have been unable to do much work over the summer on actually building the rocket because our supplies are at the university. However, this club means a lot to so many students, faculty, sponsors, and supporters, so we are currently working hard to create a plan for dealing with this new environment.

UNH SEDS will strive to make our shop space clean and safe for students, with regular cleanings of work areas, a strict mask policy while in the space, and precautions on the number of people allowed in the shop at a time. While certain activities need to be completed in person to be properly taken care of, many of our meetings and planning can be done fully through video calls. For example, one activity many members were engaged in even after school closed was the SEDS book club started up last year.

It’s going to take some time for all of us to get used to not being able to see each other in-person, but we are doing everything we can to make sure students continue to feel engaged in these strange times. On the note of how you or someone you know might be able to help, we are planning to create a request page on our website with supplies that you might have extras of or might not use anymore. In order to be more reserved in our spending as our financial situation is somewhat unclear, any donations greatly help in keeping the club running and are very appreciated!

In the coming weeks, we are planning to release our full COVID-19 plan, so make sure to watch for that as it will contain much more detailed club policies and plans. Thank you for reading, and stay safe out there!