Meeting Start Time: 6:30 PM

 

Attendance:

Committee:  Lachance, Feeney, Vutech, Taylor, Colicci, Cimbal

Excused Absence:  None Unexcused Absence:  None Non-Committee:  Howard, Menard

 

Committee Discussion:

 

1. Topic 1: Thanksgiving?
2. Taylor wants to know how everyone’s were.

Topic 2: Student Org Manual

1. The committee only has two more meetings, it wouldn’t be helpful to keep pushing for the manual this semester
2. Many organizations are not very anxious to get grants passed, and they have not come forward to the committee to discuss their requests.

Topic 3: Priorities for Upcoming Semester

1. Taylor is personally very concerned with the fact that organizations don’t seem to know what they are doing in terms of the accounting office
2. Taylor stresses that committee should go around the table and state everyone’s individual goals, and what the committee thinks that it should start or stop
3. Feeney thinks that committee should make the Fin. Handbook more accessible
4. Lachance voices that he wants to educate organizations on their rights pertaining to financing and grants.
5. Vutech wants a system to educate organizations pertaining to what they are entitled to. He believes that education is important, because people don’t realize that they have the ability to ask for funds from the Senate.
6. Cimbal believes that papers should have an easier process for submissions. She believes that nobody seems to submit any paperwork to us on a regular basis.
7. Feeney is curious as to if we can make forms digital. This would help with going toward paperless.
8. Vutech believes that Bills going to the floor should not need to be as complicated as they now are. He wants the message to get across more easily.
9. Feeney wants to stop editing bills on the floor, and he wants to stop moving forward with bills that come out quickly. There should be more room to edit, so that things go more smoothly on the floor.
10. Cimbal wants to keep being a, “solid squad.”

Topic 4: Anime Contingency Grant Request

1000. Anime came in several weeks ago with a request. They have an amount that they need to pay for hotels to go to Anime Boston. We can only pay for half of the full cost for travel and lodging expenses for the first ten members. This would be approx. $1000. However, the committee only approved them for $615, and paid for about $300. Committee only paid for half of what they need, and they are requesting the other half so that they may go to this event.
1001. Vutech voices that this is confusing. He believes that we shouldn’t give only fifty percent to a group in any case.
1002. Finance committee will be voting on another amount of $615, to which the committee will pay for half.

Topic 5: Alpine Racing

1. VP is here, the goal is to keep the cost of training low and reasonably priced so that new members can continue to participate. Alpine wants to transfer money from one account to another.
2. This money would be coming from their own account, and it is simply a transfer.
3. Move to vote on this transfer request.

Topic 6: Priorities for Next Semester

1. Taylor says that he is happy that most of the committee is new to it this year (with the exception of Vutech). It has helped the committee because they have been able to make changes to how the finance committee approaches the way that they do things.
2. Taylor wants a list of priorities for next semester.
3. Vutech wants a document, for when a club has zero knowledge of how to navigate our system, they can open up that quickly teaches them what they need to do to go through the senate’s finance systems. He wants standards to be set for pricing, how much organizations are able to get. He believes that it is unfair for certain clubs to receive so much while other clubs receive very little money, therefore a reevaluation of budgets. Also, no more printing for the Cigar.
   1. Lachance thinks that the Student Org manual is important, as well as taking in inventories of what each of the clubs has.
   2. Colicci agrees with this
4. Feeney thinks for it to be a good idea to cut the FBP, because inhis experience he has not seen any of the clubs actually use it.
   1. The FBP has been a method for decades. A small amount of money will be run for advertising, and we can approve it on the spot, so that this does not need to be seen on the Floor of the General Senate.
   2. Many clubs seem to be not using these funds, and the funds are therefore rolling over into the Senate account line.

• Funds for advertising or recruitment could eventually simply be applied for, but committee could make it so that orgs. are no longer entitled to it.

Organizations must submit a contingency request for the funding. iv.          Vutech voices that if clubs had been using the FBP, we should not take this away from them, as they were actually taking use of the line.

1. The idea of reevaluating a budget is not so content-oriented, it is something that we would need to plan for continuously.
2. Lachance and Feeney voice that the email that liaisons have sent out have in it the fact that the committee has requested information pertaining to if each organization has an external account.
   1. Lachance thinks that we should be filing whether or not each organization has an external account, with evidence included.
   2. Colicci believes that penalties pertaining to this should be reevaluated.

• We have loans out right now that are being paid back. For clubs that are not necessarily on top of things, this could be a real problem.

1. Feeney thinks that a good punishment pertaining to hearing back from organizations would be that we could freeze their account (if we do not hear back from them by the time they get back to school come the spring semester).

1. Taylor says that freezing an account is the most common penalty. Another penalty is derecognition, which is even more penalizing – but there are many other penalties that committee can enact. These are listed in the Finance Handbook, but the committee is apparently not secluded to just what is listed in the Finance Handbook.
2. Feeney does not believe that the Student Organization Manual should be boiled down to something else. Taylor says that if we simply edit the SOM in a successful way, we would not need to create another document. Taylor says he will cross out a supplemental manual.
3. Student Org Manual (indirect education), Reevaluating Budget, Finance handbook, external accounts, direct education, inventory assessment
4. Taylor says that each member of the committee has their own folder in the Finance Desk. We can keep information in these folders that pertains to us or our organizations as liaisons.

 

 

Meeting Adjournment Time: 7:34 PM