UMLUG would in some regards be better with the SGA for the reasons that Ben Stern mentions in his post: for generally help remove FUD from UMLUG's existence. I'm not sure how much of this is actually real, since all the other CS clubs have gone for some time without SGA recognition, and only recently made an attempt to become SGA recognized.
On the other hand, SGA membership requires a decent amount of paperwork to maintain "correctly", even if we submit a $0 budget (although the paperwork has been fudged in the past). # 3 is more of a departmental oddity. Up until mid spring 2008 we were able to make reservations through the department. This is very convenient because we can reserve basically whatever room we want, and it requires nothing more than popping into the undergrad office. Mid-semester I was informed that the department was no longer willing to make room reservations for SGA recognized organizations. I didn't question the reasoning behind the policy at the time, but I will look into it this week and see if we can find an alternative arrangement which will allow us to do things the old way while still being SGA recognized. SGA recognition does give us the privilege of reserving a room through the campus reservations office; as far as I know they will not allow students to reserve rooms unless they are doing so as part of some SGA recognized activity. On Sat, 2008-05-03 at 20:40 -0400, Richard Matthew McCutchen wrote: > I would generally be in favor of untying the hands of the officers, but > somehow I find it hard to believe that SGA recognition is something that > an organization would be better off without. I don't see how #1 and #2 > are reasons not to join the SGA; if SGA money isn't useful, UMLUG could > just submit a $0 budget. As for #3, what special status of a > non-SGA-recognized UMLUG would allow it to make campus reservations for > free, or can anyone do that? > > Matt > > On Thu, 2008-05-01 at 14:00 -0400, Ed Kohlwey wrote: > > There's been enough discussion of this that I thought it would be worth > > putting the question to the group: > > > > Should UMLUG amend its constitution to no longer require the officers to > > renew SGA membership? > > > > I ask because we have had a number of SGA-related events that are making > > life unnecessarily difficult for officers (particularly the Treasurer). > > > > 1. The SGA denied most of our 2008-2009 school year budget. > > 2. SGA money is hard to spend to begin with because we are required to > > purchase on 30 day net terms, and its hard to do that with no account > > history. > > 3. Because of a new department policy, as an SGA-recognized organization > > we can no longer make campus reservations without going through the SGA > > scheduling office. The SGA scheduling office: is hesitant to even > > attempt to schedule specific rooms; lost our paperwork last time we > > tried to schedule a room; and must be dealt with by physically going to > > Stamp, which is very inconvenient. > > > > By amending the constitution we will simply eliminate the requirement > > that officers renew SGA membership, but will not prevent officers from > > doing so if they deem it to be useful for the organization. Please post > > comments and responses, and if it seems that there's interest I will add > > this item to the elections ballot.
