By Elizabeth Ballinger
Shouts of “Yay for Ice Cream!” followed after the ASG finally awarded funding for the Ice Cream Club’s “Random Acts of Ice Cream,” during its Oct. 23 board meeting. Funds for directors of El Centro Latino and the LGBTQ center, a contribution to the American Indian Film Festival, and plans for putting student union lockers into use were also discussed as part of the ASG agenda.
Jenny Lina and Nora Lance spoke on behalf of the Ice Cream Club, whose “Random Acts of Ice Cream” contest, brought to the ASG table in a previous meeting, would allow students to vote for faculty they considered outstanding and deserving of free ice cream coupons. The original request of $160 would cover the cost of printing the coupons and purchasing the ice cream in advance. In a previous meeting, it was suggested that the club determine where the money would go if the coupons were not used. Lance explained that having taken the ASG suggestion to tie up this detail, the club has mandated the coupons should read that the receiver “must” buy a $2.75 ice cream with the coupon by the end of the school year.
“It’s a solution,” said Burke Colquhoun, emerging technology and entrepreneurial representative.
A motion to approve the Ice Cream Club’s funding reduction from $160.50 to $116.50 based on the time lapsed between the original request and the new version was approved 6-0-0, and a motion to approve “Random Acts of Ice Cream” was passed 6-0-0.
Next Hector Valencia, representing El Centro Latino, requested $1,100 out of the reserve account to pay for an hourly director position for the center. During the program’s installation last year, the ASG’s calculated allocation of $4500 fell short of the center’s need to fill the position. Explaining that the ASG of the previous year made a mistake, Alva said that the center would have the necessary funds this year to pay the $10 an hour for the 10 hour per week job.
“This fund is for providing resources to student programs,” said Alva. The motion to approve $1,100 for El Centro Latino was approved 6-0-0.
Next, Justin Hart and Sarah Cohen, representing the three-day American Indian Film Festival, came with a copy of the festival’s budget, asking the ASG for a contribution of both funds and ASG participation to sponsor the event. In the event’s sixth running year, it will have 24 films from indigenous filmmakers in Brazil, Canada, and the United States. Due to the ASG president’s prior statement of interest in sponsoring and advertising through the event, Cohen said they wanted to give the ASG the opportunity to do so, though somewhat late in the process. Due to an expansion of the previously two-day festival, and the invitation of an American Indian activist to participate in the festival, the planning committee had fallen just short of it’s projected budget.
“Next year, with budget cuts, the festival will be difficult. But we’ll collaborate with the ASG even sooner in the process,” said Cohen.
The motion to fund $750 to the film festival was approved 6-0-0.
A motion to allocate $1400 for a director of the LGBTQ center was reviewed by the ASG, and was compared against the salary allotted for El Centro Latino. A motion to reduce the funds to $1100 was approved 6-0-0. Then the motion to approve the funding was approved 6-0-0.
Faisal Jaswal, in his advisor comments, asked Chief Justice John Daniel about research being done into the location of keys to student lockers in the student union hallway. With no accessible lockers open to the general population, Daniel explained that research into costs and renovation involved in expanding student lockers was under way, but that no certain answers had yet been formed.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:32.p.m.