By Faith Lynn
Assistant Photo Editor
This semester’s Inter-Club Council budget passed without incident Monday night, providing funds for each of the 39 clubs on campus.
The council passed the budget by a two-thirds majority after about 20 minutes of deliberation.
Clubs received $14,100 in total and the council kept $900 as a contingency fund for clubs to access by resolution.
Each organization’s representative had a copy of all the proposed budgets, and a few clubs’ budgets were discussed individually during the deliberations, among them the Asian Student Association (ASA), the College Republicans and the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA).
ASA’s budget approached the $30,000 mark, including monthly Asian dinners, a ski trip and membership cards for its estimated 125 members. The group requested $10,000 from the council and ended up receiving $1,495.
Pepperdine Improv Troupe’s representative Justin Schneider questioned the ASA’s budget and pointed out that ASA events are rarely advertised on campus. ASA’s representative, Jennifer Pong, said most of ASA’s members “wouldn’t come” to on campus events, and so most of the organization’s events were held off campus in conjunction with other universities.
Pong also said this semester the club plans to do more advertising and hold more events on campus. She said that previously “it was only our club members who were interested in our events,” but said she thinks that will change this semester.
The College Republicans club requested assistance of about $5,900, which also worried some members of the council. The group defended its position, saying most of its budget will be spent on a speaker and attending the International Conservative Political Actions Conference in Washington, D.C. They received $1,268.
The PRSSA representative Jaclyn Tully defended her organization’s request for $5,800 by describing the regional event they will be having in the spring, which constitutes 87 percent of their budget. The group got $1,690 from the council.
The large event will be open to the whole campus and will include public relations workshops and seminars, which Tully said would be good publicity for Pepperdine. Tully said there was a strong possibility the group would be able to secure both Cameron Diaz and Adam Sandler as keynote speakers for the event.
Another large item in the club’s budget is the Public Relations Student Society of America’s National Assembly, which the club is required to send one member to each year.
Budget padding was again an issue this semester. The Catholic Student Association proposed spending $100 on “socials” every month in conjunction with their meetings, and the Pepperdine Communication Association proposed to spend $160 dollars each month on “Com Coffee” events at Starbucks.
The council gave out amounts ranging from $25 to $1,690, with an average of $576. Clubs received an average of 12 percent of their anticipated costs, though some clubs received 5 percent. Two clubs did not attend the meeting and thus were not allocated any funding.
The council had enough money left in its personal fund to sponsor an Inter-Club Council banquet at the end of the year, as well as the Mardi Carts event.
Inter-Club Council, a branch of the Student Government Association, serves as the “backbone and support for all the organizations on campus,” chairman Giuseppe Nespoli said.
Nespoli said this year he hopes to make the council more useful to clubs.
“Before this year, there wasn’t really a structure to ICC … it really hasn’t been utilized as strong as it could be,” he said.
The council gets the $20,000 it parcels out from part of the $45 SGA fee Pepperdine students pay. Of that, $5,000 is automatically given to the Sports Club Council.
Nespoli said the ICC does not have the capability to support every club on campus, but the group is not meant to be the primary funding of any organization.
Clubs are only allowed to ask the council for 25 percent of their operating costs, and are expected to raise the rest of what they require through fundraising efforts.
Nespoli said this year he hopes to concentrate more on letting students know about all the diverse clubs available, “as well as expand the knowledge of all multicultural groups on campus.”
February 06, 2003