Volume 82, Issue 2 \Neb Edition
clarion.brevard.edu
SERVING BREVARD COLLEGE SINCE 1935
Look for the trail
review on page 7!
September 7, 2016
SGA starts off
strict and strong
New rules and enforcement from SGA
By Jessica Wiegandt
Arts & Life Editor
“Alright, everyone, let’s get this meeting
started. It’s 8:00 and we are starting on time,”
Lauren Fowler, President of SGA, said as she
called the first official meeting of the school year
to order on Aug. 31. Members of the governing
body informed club representatives and the
student body on plans for this year.
The meeting began formally as Fowler had
printed out a meeting agenda, referred to as
minutes, and the SGA Constitution for every
attendant. The Constitution was referenced
throughout the meeting and contained all the
powers each representative held.
Once Fowler had the attendants approve the
notion for the proposed minutes of the meet
ing, Secretary Audrey Ashburner gave a report
of the past minutes and discussions from last
semester’s final meetings.
The SGA is continuing the support of the re
cycling project on campus this year, which was
initiated last year by BC Greens president, Kate
Brandhuber. Brandhuber was at the meeting on
Wednesday and gave a short description of her
hopes for the recycling bins to become a large
presence in the campus community.
“Right now we don’t recycle. I really want that
to change and I’ve had a lot of students who have
come to me with the same feeling,” Brandhuber
said, “I want these bins to become a permanent,
lasting thing on this campus so we can help the
planet instead of throwing away all the plastic
we use so much.”
Treasurer Christina Bailey then took the floor
as she introduced the new budget proposal,
which gave $2,000 to Grassical and Earthfest,
$1,000 to the recycling initiative, $1,300 to the
“Chillaxin’ Committee” which will find a way to
get ENO Hammock structures around campus,
$750 for a discretionary SGA fund and $3,150
for club funding.
“Now, while we have $3,150 designated to
the clubs, we aren’t giving it all out right now,”
Bailey explained. “Each club will receive $150
initially and then each club can petition to re
ceive more if necessary.”
The hope for giving each club $150 to start
is to force clubs to submit budgets and be more
active in the process of communicating events
to SGA and the college media team. “Too many
clubs have events we never know about and too
many clubs exist but never even host a meeting,”
Bailey said. “Clubs need to be responsible for
talking to us [SGA] and telling us what they’re
doing throughout the semester.”
All active clubs for this year must submit
a tentative budget for the semester to Bailey
by Sept. 15, 2016. Clubs who do not submit a
budget will no longer be recognized by SGA as
active and the $150 allocated to that club will
be put back into the SGA budget.
The budget was approved and Speaker of the
Clubs Lance Perl then explained what SGA de
fined as an active club. In order to gain funding
and recognition from SGA, each club must have
10 active members, host at least one event per
semester, complete at least one service project
per semester and must be registered in the SGA
data sheet. The data sheet was sent out via email
to all students on Sept. 2 and is due Sept. 7.
There are currently 12 clubs registered as ac
tive, and SGA is open for new club proposals
during the weekly meetings.
Perl also discussed how clubs are to properly
engage the student community. “Last year we
always had confusion about what was going on
and when. This year we’re implementing that
clubs have to contact Gabby [Mellendorf] first
to get approved for anything,” Perl said, “This
means t-shirts, hats, posters, meetings and events
all go through her.”
Perl said this new step will benefit the clubs
because they will have the BC logo attached to
any event advertisements. SGA will also be in
formed of all club events and will help promote
meetings and events. “The catch here is that all
events must be planned two weeks in advance
for Gabby to approve and post them online,” Perl
said. “Which just means club representatives
need to plan events earlier than the day before
it happens.”
Two clubs gained monetary approval from
SGA during the meeting. Brandhuber requested
$20 from SGA to use for food and drinks for her
BC Greens meeting on Sept. 4 and Davis Jones,
a Paddling Club president, requested $175 to
purchase four new whitewater lifejackets from
Astral Designs, a company in Asheville that gave
the club a discount on gear.
A club fair will take place on Sept. 15, 2016
from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in front of the caf.
This fair will involve all 12 active clubs and
will have more information given out as the
date approaches.