…the commission said to me six little words…
And what were those six little words, you may ask? “Sure, you can have ASUN money!” Though I understand what the commission aims to do (after all, clubs do need funding to function properly, do they not?) the inherent flaw in the system is making it far too easy to get this funding legitimized. If the four days prior to this haven’t been enough to convince you of that, let me share a little bit of my knowledge.
As an incoming officer to the club, I’m being learned in the ways of ASUN exploitation. Typically this “top secret” information would be limited to us and our own, but I thought, what the hell, it’s the giving season after all, and I can’t bear the thought of being selfish at this time of the year. We figured it would be appropriate to show you our way of requesting for other people’s money.
It’s simple, really. You start with a club. Of course, we all know that, in order to be an ASUN recognized club, you must have at least ten people registered through the ASUN club and organization website. If you don’t have ten people interested in joining your club, don’t panic! Even if you don’t have ten people interested in your club, you have to have at least ten friends, right? Just send them here, where they need only sign in with their netID and pick your club off the list. It’s as easy as that, and in no time–BAM!–ten registered members.
(Don’t forget, clubs also need advisors, but if you don’t have one don’t sweat it. Just pick a name off of the faculty list. A rather reputable source tells me that they don’t really check to make sure your advisor is actually in on the whole thing. Nifty, isn’t it?)
Members and advisors down, you also need a constitution, but that’s as effortless as copying the ASUN supplied sample club constitution and changing the title to something more “your-club-esque.” My same reputable source has let it slip that they read these about as well as they check on advisors.
Now comes the fun part: your budget. Typically, I’m the kind of struggling college kid that preaches the “conserve your money! That oatmeal won’t buy itself, you know!” route, but this is different. Note, I say “conserve your money,” and the bills that ASUN dolls out aren’t exactly yours, are they? When Mommy and Daddy give you a twenty and tell you to come home with change, do you? Of course not! We here at Students for Liberty take the same approach. If ASUN is willing to give us a ton of money without any real concern, who are we to let them down by spending less of it that we are wholly capable? That’s just ludicrous.
So, like I said: your budget. Get it figured out. Plan exciting meetings, entertainment, events. Then double it. That’s right. Clubs can be allotted ten thousand dollars annually. Milk that sucker for all it’s worth. They wouldn’t offer you that much cash if they weren’t absolutely prepared and totally happy to give it to you, right? Right. So… like I said. Double it. You know you want to.
You will need to represent your budget plan to the commission, and this can be a bit tricky. Here is where they may be able to thwart some of your hard work, but don’t be too alarmed. Just give yourself justification to every activity and item in your budget. Make sure everything has some connection to better the club itself (leadership retreat!), the University as a whole (campus discussion!), or the community (all proceeds to go the ASPCA! Who doesn’t love puppies?). They eat that stuff up.
And… there! The commission is impressed with your load of bullshit–erm, well thought out budget plan–for your extremely qualified and recognized ASUN club, and they accept your proposal and hand out the money. Now that you have it, what do you do? Spend it. Spend it all.
What can you do with ten thousand ASUN dollars, you may ask? Quite a bit–catered meetings, shooting socials, charity dinners, and official conferences are just the beginning. Just like our system’s flaws, your options are limitless–all you need is to know how to exploit it.
However, take this all with a grain of salt. Despite our seemingly ill intents, UNR Students For Liberty truly does embody what a club should be. We are a friendly community of students who share common goals and interests. We have done many influential and helpful events around campus and, contrary to what it may seem, not all of the money we get from ASUN is used for something as superfluous as catered meetings–we’re going to the national Students for Liberty conference this February!
No, the real ridiculous part here isn’t what we do, but it’s that we do exactly what they expect us to do. It isn’t that it’s too easy for clubs to get funding–no matter how much “harder” the process was made, people would still learn how to work the system. The problem is that, no matter how hard ASUN may try, there is no way to spend other people’s money correctly. They are simply too willing to don out vast sums of money for little-to-no good reason.
No amount of amendments to the funding policies will ever solve that.
Merry Christmas!
