By Audrey Reed–Staff Writer &
Christina Littlefield–Graduate Assistant
Get ready for food, dancing, music and giveaways. Get ready for Midnight Madness.
The basketball season kick-off event is scheduled for Oct. 11 at 9:30 p.m. near the Tennis Pavilion and former Communication trailers. Organizers expect 800 people to attend, Student Activities coordinator and Ocean’s 37 adviser Michael Houston said.
“This year we have tried to streamline the program a little to make the transitions seamless as well as be filled with a level of high energy throughout,” he said in an e-mail interview.
Steve Williams, director of special events for Ocean’s 37, said he expects some intense entertainment for Midnight Madness.
“Get ready for fire,” he said.
The function is being funded by President Dr. Andrew K. Benton, who donated an undisclosed amount to the event, and the Student Government Association, Ocean’s 37 Committee Chair Josh Schiebar said.
“A house full of students, two great basketball teams, good music and a strong sense of being a part of the excitement is a near perfect formula for school pride and enthusiasm,” Benton said in an e-mail interview. “If the fans will do their part in the stands, it is all within our grasp because I know the teams are primed. I must admit, I do like winning.”
In the past, Midnight Madness has cost about $26,000 with Benton’s donation covering about one-third of that, Houston said. This year, the current budget is considerably lower than in year’s past, Houston said.
Ocean’s 37, the SGA committee that is planning and partially funding Midnight Madness, recently finalized its budget with the $60,000 allocated to the group for the fall semester by SGA.
Student Activities Coordinator and SGA Adviser Nicole Phillips said the budget was completed later this year because the board is brand new and has a new adviser with Houston. She also said that the group was still assessing where the money needed to be allocated when SGA passed the rest of the budget at an off-campus retreat.
Phillips said the Ocean’s 37 board should have a more outlined budget next semester when it is more in place.
“I’m also an events planner, and I strictly believe that you can outline a budget,” Phillips said. “I have budgets, I love budgets. I’m very fond of budgets. I think it keeps an accountability factor for things. You can use budgets to spell things out and to see efficiencies to make things better the next time around.”
Phillips said she understood some of the critiques in the last issue of the Graphic about budget overages.
“But the same time I can see how people can say that they did have overspending and they did have this and that last year. That is very true and very valid,” Phillips said. “But that was, as we like to say, under the Programming Board. It’s a new year, it’s a new board.”
The new board has guidelines set by SGA, the board itself, the adviser, the Student Activities Center and even the Dean of Student Affairs.
Phillips said the advisers are “very much involved in making sure the money is spent correctly and adequately.”
Phillips said the guidelines are designed to keep Ocean’s 37 talking with each other, SGA and the adviser, with regular assessments and project progress clearings.
The guidelines are a work in progress themselves as Phillips said they are still negotiating how to best run Ocean’s 37 and are open to student comment and suggestions. Board meetings are open to everyone at Seaver College.
If someone wants to have an event, Phillips said, they create a budget and clear it through their director and the chairman. Two-thirds of the board must approve the money to pay for the event, according to the guidelines. If an event budget costs more than $1,000, the Ocean’s 37 chair, SGA president and the adviser have to approve the funding before the board votes. If an event budget costs more than $5,000, it must additionally be approved by Dean of Student Affairs Dr. Mark Davis, according to the guidelines.
Phillips also said that Ocean’s 37 needs some flexibility in budgeting so that if an SGA event overlaps with events from other organizations they can use money for say a typical TGIF event and use it on a coffeehouse the next week. Flexibility also allows SGA to help other organizations plan events they may not know about when budgets have to be reported, such as the Battle of the Homelands event currently being planned by the East Coasters, International Students and the Hawaii Club.
“That is a great event, and a whole ton of people can go to that,” Phillips said of the Homelands soccer event. “Ocean’s 37 may have not known about that because they just cleared that with me now. If they had a completely locked-in budget they wouldn’t be able to help out with something that is so great.”
The guidelines specifically set up an a Flexible Planning fund and Initiative for the Development of Events and Activities fund, or IDEA, to allow Ocean’s 37 to help with events like the Battle of the Homelands or allow students to come up with events of their own.
In addition to the regular sub-committees, the flexibility fund was given $1,000 and the IDEA fund was given a budget of $1,000 and $900 respectively.
Ocean’s 37 began to utilize a new organizational tool which classifies events into levels. Phillips said she did a lot of benchmarking with other schools and came up with this strategy. Each level breaks each event down into what needs to be done — from what permissions organizers need to get to what public relations need to be done. Level one events include general meetings while level three events are major events such as Midnight Madness. It is a new tool they are using to give more structure to the organization, Phillips said.
Communication among groups is also a goal for Ocean’s 37.
“We are trying to build accountability,” Phillips said. “We are trying to make sure things are going well.”
October 03, 2002