General Meeting March 29, 2015

-Minutes taken by First Year Representative Chanel Saidi

SBA MEETING MINUTES MARCH 29, 2015

• Dustin: Move to open meeting
• Shoeb: Seconded

BLSA Presentation:

2) Club Funding Requests

Rule: 40 minutes for discussion and vote

2:30 pm

Presentation by Cornelle Jenkins, BLSA President

• Cornel (President of BLSA): Presentation for incoming students weekend. McGeorge student’s participating in Mcgeorge community. PAD is face painting. Catered by Sandra Dees (soul food) Ordered food for about 150 people. Last year had a bit more than that throughout the day and it was more than enough food. Didn’t up food because a lot left over
• Ernesto: What time do you start?
• Cornell: 12:30
• Lexi: What day is this?
• Cornell: Sunday two weeks from today
• Ernesto: What’s pad doing again?
• Cornell: talked to Joey about doing other games. She said she will be taking care of it on her own.
• Nav: Is there a certain limit to how much we can allocate per club?
• Ernesto: Yes per club $3,000 total minus 150 startup fund per year.
• Dustin: The total on the line item is 2897.22 This is far less than the request of 3,200.
• Cornell: There are other things such as beverages and fliers that I’m not requesting and if PAD doesn’t come through with games I will figure out what games we will figure it out.
• Stephen: Last year was great event
• Lexi: From when to when?
• Cornell: Bounce house 12-4, food will be dropped off around 11:30 DJ leaves around 4-5. Will advertise from 12-4.
• Lexi: I think it’s a great event, always brings people out it is a good community thing, I love it and I’m supportive of it. You are asking a lot and you have money so my initial response is to suggest that we fund at 50% based on the 2900 because you have 2500 in the bank.
• Ernesto: We are usually funding clubs that are struggling on campus. What other events does BLSA dedicate it’s budget to.
• Cornell: We are talking about doing an alumni thing for next year. Also allocating funds for police brutality event. Trying to gear that up without it having it be a repeat event. Academic event will be done next year again. We are going to try and do two bowling events one in the fall and one in the winter next year. I don’t know who the next president is going to be so I’m going to try and come up with a planner with the next president
• Lexi: Of these things what are revenue generating how do you raise money?
• Cornell: Bowling is revenue generating and we have dues. Hopefully we can get two bowling events next year.
• Ernesto: Any other questions for Cornell. So if folks are good let’s move on to wine law.
• Wine Law Society Presentation

Presentation by Melissa Bentz, President of Wine Law Society

• Melissa: President of Wine Law society.
• Ernesto: Tell us about the event
• Melissa: Last year was first year we did Spring Gala. Mainly networking event – wine tasting here on campus at the McGeorge house patio. Last year paired up with CDO and alumni affair, we are trying to do that again this year. It’s just a nice event for attorney’s to come out and students especially night students since it starts at 6-9 so people who have night classes are able to come. Professor Vitiello gave a little speech at the beginning and last year we had a lot of people actually from government work that came in and talking to students to show more what wine law is about. Wine law is a lot of different things, it’s estate planning, it’s environmental and water, there’s a lot of government positions that deal with wine law in negotiating contracts with migrant workers and things of that nature. It’s about meeting people with different people with different ties to what wine law is.
• Ernesto: Who are the attorneys
• Melissa: Mainly done through alumni affairs because it has been made clear to us there are restrictions on how to contact alumni and also personal friends.
• Nav: Is there a reason you need two bartenders for this?
• Melissa: Most of it comes down to it’s wine tasting so we need smaller pour not full glasses and explaining what you are tasting also keeps the flow going. Last year we were lucky enough to have a winery come out and taste so we only needed the one bar tender to pour. Unfortunately this year we do not have anyone, obviously if we get a winery to taste for us.
• Chanel: I might have a contact I can try and reach out to them for you
• Melissa: That would be great.
• Dustin: Line item for what type of wine you are getting.
• Melissa: We try to get all the wine donated. That’s our goal. We have managed to deplete our wine stock because we are giving some to PLSS etc. The 100 is in there if we cannot get enough for the event. The funds from SBA would be used for food, bartenders and advertising costs. This year advertising will be more because printing out tickets for all of the ADR judges as well as invitation. I really like what criminal law did with fliers rather than chalking. I like the flyer idea stands out a little more.
• Ernesto: Is this through courting the ADR club or timing?
• Melissa: It happened to be coincidental. One of our members is on the ADR board but we are not working with them.
• Lexi: Do they have an ADR event that Friday?
• Melissa: They have a negotiation event that night that would lead up to the time we start. It ends right before our event is over. That is why we want to do invitations or tickets for the judges, it is a plus that they are already on campus.
• Ernesto: Talk to Matt to coordinate because I don’t see why ADR would mind having a nice professional event on the side.
• Melissa: Anna Lucido and Caroline are on the ADR board.
• Caroline: Tickets will also be sold.
• Ernesto: Oh so this is a ticketed event?
• Caroline: Yes
• Lexi: Do we have that in our request?
• Stephen: How much are tickets
• Melissa: It should be in there. We’re charging 20 for attorneys and 10 for students.
• Nav: It is not in there
• Caroline: Wine law gets a discount and ADR has talked about giving their members discounts to encourage people coming.
• Melissa: But nothing on that is not set in stone though. At this point in time wine law is the only one who has taken ownership of this event. We are in talks with possibly water and environmental law to co sponsor but at this point that is not official.
• Stephen: How and when are you selling tickets?
• Melissa: eWe are setting up a Cashnet link, through facebook event and hope to table as well through board members during afternoon and evening slots
• Caroline: We found Friday worked really well for evening students and alumni as well.
• Ernesto: Yes timing is good. Do we have any other questions? Perfect. Let’s move on.
• Rugby Club Presentation

Presentation by Rugby Club TBD

• Harshan: I’m requesting funding request for alumni weekend just to talk about it a bit. Every year we have alumni weekend where we have a drink up every Friday where all the alumni come into town, we meet them at a bar and then next day is the actual event, it’s on campus. We have people all the way back from our founding class up until now. We have a game at the beginning of the day a bunch of families show up and right after that host huge barbecue/party at the pool open to the entire student. Professor MacFarlane will be going this year she is our advisor. This year is very big for us because we are requesting all of our alumni, normally asking for alumni but this year sending a message to all alumni through our alumni association because it is an important for two facts. Our alumni president will be stepping down and nominating me for next years alumni association president, we want a lot of people there to introduce so they know who the new president is and who is taking over. Second, we are also trying to set up scholarship fund. We are trying to raise about $50,000 scholarship that will be matched in full and will set up a scholarship that will go out in honor of the rugby club. We are trying to show that rugby will be in competent hands, so it’s really important we get a decent amount of funding. Our school account is at 0 right now, we had a lot of expenditure through the year. We went and spoke to the alumni association first and the lady said they will cover half of alumni gift. We were able to collect money through members and school is giving us $200 for mugs to give to alumni that has school logo and McGeorge rugby. We will be having a solid gift this year but scrapping for funds for the barbecue weekend, it’s hard to ask our members to fund this entire weekend. We also have end of year barbecue and awards ceremony. Also anticipating one last match after alumni weekend. That will be something we will cover ourselves, our coaches will be helping as well. $580 for ourselves. $75 for field to Sac parks and rec, $60 ref fee, for food approximately $300 for food, no funds are being used for alcohol. Had alumni donate home brewed beer for us. He’s trying to start up his own brewery and will donate two kegs. So we have alcohol covered. We also need to hire bon appetite worker to serve food and alcohol, normally take care of food ourselves, we need $150 for Bon Appetite worker minimum of 3-4 hours. E-mailed Kevin and said that was the minimum. That’s what I’m requesting.
• Lexi: That’s not much for food are you anticipating small number of people eating and more drinking?
• Harshan: Current alumni president we may expect more if I can orally amend the request for another $200 for food but this would be bare minimum. But if we can get more than would be great. Amend to $785.
• Aparna: How many people are you anticipating?
• Harshan: Law year we had about 100-150, including current students, alumni and families. This one may go 150-200 so that’s what we are expecting. We are also trying to get some of the faculty to come out.
• Ernesto: Where is it at again?
• Harshan: Here at school at the pool, we give campus tours so will be sprucing up the rugby room a bit.
• Ernesto: Any other questions?
• ADR Presentation

Late request by ADR Club

• Matt: Good afternoon, here to talk about funding request for ADR week. Second time we have been allowed to do ADR week, last year first, now that club has been going for four years, our competition was first year. Four events throughout the week. I know in the initial there was a Wednesday event but we have cut Wednesday due to over programming to maximize participation.
• Lexi: Thank you because that conflicted with GASA mixer.
• Matt: We have four events throughout the week. Will go through specifics. Cumulates with competition at the end of the week on Friday and final rounds on Saturday.
• First event lunches for judges, local mediators and judges, actual judges. We have accumulated for boxed lunches from Bon Appetite. We predict about 12-15 judges giving us cushion in case more who want to participate. We put $150 down for that. We are ordering ADR mugs for judge gifts something simple and less than what we asked for last year we have cut that down to mugs this year. Total of $165.74. Gifts for competition winners in addition to engraving names on plaque as well as $25 gift card for each winner on team is request for gifts. Marketing and printing number is from last year $25 covered fliers and handouts from print shop. Depending on speakers if want thick packets will need to consider. Food had budgeted for four and trying to work with bar prep companies trying to cosponsor and didn’t want to include in budget just in case. Wine law gala tickets, we found as good way to thank judges for being there and to support other clubs. Bringing judges, attorneys and mediators in to speak with students and encourage them to sponsor other events since our event ends right before the gala starts.
• Events breakdown: Monday, kickoff meeting and what to expect during ADR week as well as info about competition, also meeting to talk about ADR opportunities on campus including clinics of civil rights for prisoners with Colatrella, although housing mediation clinic lacks funding and it’s not clear if they will be present here next year. In addition to that ADR courses that are offered to provide range of opportunities available and offered. Last year able to establish negotiation team, we did try outs in the fall, brought home fifth place great for first attempt, Megan was on the team and present. Last time was in 2001. Competition is not just an opportunity for coaches of next year to consider talent but also to get more excitement about team, not sure how many knew expect for people who tried out. Tuesday: First event by Erica England for family law session. Local mediator who does divorce mediation teaches alternative for litigation class. Approved for next year so she will be around. She is also bringing two local practitioners to be on the panel with her. Professor Dijoni will be talking about international contacts, he did alternative in the middle east. Great opportunity for international interest and LLM students. Wednesday: event cut Thursday: Justice Robie coming in. Purpose of having him in is to draw water law interest, he was asked to be a mediator in pretty famous law dispute. Friday: Begins negotiation competition, initial rounds at 1 o’clock. Initial rounds from 1-5 expect it to be two rounds, if more participating will dwindle it down. Also want to quickly address late submission: due to miscommunication on event, Just want to make clear we are very sorry for late submission. In consideration of that have not asked for full amount we have 750 in our account. Tried to cut costs as much as possible in all aspects as far as food and other costs. Hopefully will be as reasonable as possible for asking this much as possible.
• Ernesto: Megan did a good job of giving advance notice this was coming. The total number is all that’s new to us and we appreciate that.
• Lexi: I think this is a great event, its great to see you throwing this, it’s clearly become a vibrant thing on campus and it’s fabulous that you throw this event and we commend you for this.
• Megan: This is the first time seeing the guts of this and fabulous jobs of pulling in all the different types of law, pulling in family, international, wine law and really trying to get the whole community involved I love it
• Matt: Struggle has been participation and that is to something I wanted to do this year, marketing targeting these clubs to makes sure we can at least have two clubs to participate and actively being in classrooms.
• Chanel: May I ask just who the extra family law people are?
• Matt: Josh albert and second still in the talks with.
• Shoeb: This is probably the best put together funding request I’ve seen in this room.
• Ernesto: Any other questions for Matt? Okay then we are probably going back to first request and lets start discussing. Let’s start with BLSA, they have gotten $150 start up funds so the max they could possibly get from us is $2,850. I’ve always thought about there’s clubs that absolutely need our help and other clubs that are doing pretty well and don’t need 100% of our help so I kind of share Lexi’s sentiment but I don’t think we should fund it in full. But we should still give them a decent amount.
• Nav: If give $1,500
• Ernesto: The way I thought about it is, and then I will get to Dustin, we spent about $1,800 for our own school wide event that’s the max I feel comfortable with, because we don’t spend more than $1,800 ourselves to feed the campus.
• Dustin: Their request has been amended to $2,897.22, if we bump the half to $1,500 then I’d be okay with that.
• Lexi: Can I ask before we go on it would be appropriate for us to know generally where we are on the budget. I know Neil had provided some details.
• Ernesto: We have a little over $2,000 in CSO account, talked to professional development committee they don’t see any reason to spend and have no plans to spend so we could reprogram that. Not spending $600 extra in account, we could reprogram that, I have about $500 left in mentorship account, with that our current existing obligation have about $3,000, Neil mentioned there was $5,000 reimbursement from Barristers. I have no clue what that means in our totals so we have somewhere between $12,000 to $17,000 in unobligated funds, keep in mind next year SBA is probably going to collect $52,000 that if keep everything from this year to next year would need about $11,000 surplus to keep it all even. Is that good?
• Lexi: Yes I think the other things I needed questions answered, Neil’s recommendation is that we do not feel we are hampered because we have surplus and the additional funds, his recommendation is making decisions based on merits.
• Dustin: Move $1,500
• Nav: Second
• Ernesto: Would you be okay amending that to $1,800
• Dustin: No I think $1,500 is where I feel comfortable.
• Lexi: I would recommend it be increased, I hesitate because they struggle with only five members to put it on, and the deck is stacked against them.
• Aparna: Last year decided to fund in full because last year did not have enough I went last year and I thought it was a really long period of time and was really hot and people literally, there was no more than 50, I thought the event was a little flat, there was a jumper and food, I feel like that is a lot of money, I don’t know if they can scale back what they are spending on food
• Ernesto: To your point the reality is their decisions on that will be reflected back based on our funding. If we give less they will scale back.
• Stephen: They had this problem last year, they are a very small club, before last year we had only 1 and this year it has been corrected a bit to 5-7 very small amount, their membership is driven by dues and if we are not letting in black students their dues go way down and their club could cease to exist. The event last year I attended it. It was great there was not a good turn out, I don’t think we should take that into funding decisions, one time is not a trend. If they have poor turn out again this year, next years board can decide not to give them a lot of funding. I think Cornell does a great job and will reach out to evening students, last year it was right towards finals and there were lots of review sessions so people took the food and went back to classrooms, all the food was eaten but there wasn’t a lot of attendance.
• Ernesto: So your thoughts on the motion?
• Stephen: I’d say $1,750 or at least 50%, $1,500
• Dustin: I will amend to $1,750
• Nav: Second
• Ernesto: All those in favor of $1,750 raise your hand. And all those opposed, any abstains? I need to check our policy if 2/3 of attendees of entire board.
• Stephen: It is the entire board, we might have to put it to internet ballot or go for a smaller amount.
• Ernesto: Let’s do that in interest of time. They have a lot now but have funding issues. I don’t want to overfund it, we never spend more than $1,800 on our own food events.
• Pro: Shoeb Dustin, Lexi Stephen AJ, Chanel
• Opposed: Aparna, Megan
• Ernesto: Is it 2/3 of room of entire board
• Megan: I was advocating for a little less, I think we can satisfy the needs of this club to allow them to have their event with less money and scaling back a bit and still supporting the club. It’s a lot of money and we could give a picnic to the entire campus for that.
• Nav: What would be your number?
• Megan: I would be okay with $1,500
• Aparna: It’s also on the weekend and I don’t see a lot of people coming on a Saturday.
• Ernesto: Will move for online ballots. I don’t think you have 2/3 for $1,500. I will move for $1,750 for online ballot.

Stephen: Well if you want to make a motion and have a second we have the motion.

• Megan: I would move for $1,500
• Aparna: Seconded
• Unanimous vote for $1,500

• Wine Law Society

• Ernesto: Move on to wine law society.
• Dustin: Abstain
• Megan: Abstain
• Ernesto: I think what we did on the bus event was good because we gave them a lot of funding to run that event because they had a lot of ticket sales. They had a lot of money at the beginning of this year but spent a lot of money on that event.
• Lexi: I like the idea because the timing is working out with ADR. I am troubled about saying nothing about revenue generating through tickets, that is a material omission in my mind I’m not sure we would have had that information if we did not ask the question, they were not forthcoming with that and I’m bothered by that. They have 400 their cost is 1000, they said 20 for tickets for attorney and 10 for students, if only students minimum of 400. So I think offering 200-400 is more than reasonable given the circumstances but happy to consider other things.
• Ernesto: I’d feel more comfortable with taking care of food. That would be $600 I don’t know if you’d feel comfortable with that as a second choice of numbers, I think everything else they would pay out of pocket and may clean out their accounts. The hope would be that they would have skin on the game in each event, I guess this is a circumstance where each SBA request will be dealt with separately. I feel 400 is a little too low.
• Lexi: I’d be okay with $600
• Nav: Move for 600
• AJ: Second
• Lexi: Just leave note for telling us about being forthcoming to all material elements and we are disappointed that they did not tell us.
• In Favor: 7
• Opposed: Stephen
• Stephen: Nay because I thought Lexi made some good points

• Rugby Presentation
• Nav: Abstains due to conflict
• Lexi: I would like to move to fund in full at the revised amount of $785. That’s a small amount, they’re doing good things, they have a lot of their own members spending their own money on their stuff.
• Stephen: Second
• Ernesto: Note for ahead and next years team, they are running into serious challenges this is usually something they have been able to cover in the past, but school and population shrinking, something to be thinking about when budgeting next year rugby will be eligible and requested money for twice because they’ve needed the help.
• Stephen: I’d just like to follow up what you said. I think next years board ought to consider putting them as permanent chairs of sports and giving them a yearly stipend because they are a big organization and it would be really sad to see them falter in the next 3-5 years.
• Shoeb: and their alumni give you jobs, tangible jobs and that’s powerful.
• Stephen: this years team has currently some alumni playing as members and even someone at Lincoln, they are struggling for membership.
• Chanel: And they beat Google
• Lexi: And they’re looking for generating funds for matching scholarships it’s really amazing.
• Ernesto Move to vote then
• In Favor: Unanimous
• Abstain: Nav

• ADR club
• AJ: I was a part of the competition last year, it’s a really good event and I think it’s very responsible scaled back, if we did anything but fund in full we would be hurting their account a bit. They’re already taking the $400 hit because they recognize it is late. They’re also talking to a lot of other clubs and I think that’s responsible. My bigger concern is the event with Justice Robie because he gives a lot of our second and third years their judicial externships. I’d like to move to fund in full.
• Aparna: Second
• Lexi: My suggestion is that we fund in the full amount. I appreciate that they reduced it because of their late request but on the other hand I think this is a tremendous event with great potential and particularly because Justice Robie has two of our students and this is a big event, as we look at alternate ways for our students to find jobs in law that may not be in court, this is a big deal. This is worth our funding the event at $1,382.74 and with our thanks for forthrightness in recognizing the lateness.
• Ernesto: With testament to what you’ve done faculty told you not a thing that would happen and now you’ve make it a thing that happened.
• AJ: revised move to amend to fund at $1,382.74
• Aparna: revised Second
• Ernesto: So then reminder that 2/3 would have to do online vote, 8 of us would have to vote. So we can go ahead and put this online. Is there any additional discussion?
• Lexi: Does anyone have to abstain who is present?
• Megan: will have to abstain.
• Lexi: I would just like to add if we don’t have it then we revise to the $974 and go online with the balance so that ADR has the certainty to proceed.
• Ernesto: Let’s go ahead and do a show of hands for $1,382.74
• Megan: I’m not a member of the club but as a member of team, that’s kind of giving context of my bias, the balance that is left in the account goes on to fund the competition team, if they don’t have enough money to send competition team then no money for next year and no team for next year. We certainly had a lot of positive showing and I think made a name for McGeorge. I would like the opportunity to have our school do that next year and carry the torch. I think we need to keep in mind the damage that would be caused by depleting their account.
• Ernesto: Let’s go with Lexi 990.74 with internet ballot for difference.
• Dustin: I’m more comfortable with that only because of the lateness.
• Ernesto: I will move for $990.74 with internet ballot for difference.
• Nav: Seconded
• Unanimous yes
• Megan abstain
• Ernesto: Motion to amend my recently approved motion to move $1382 onto online ballot
• Dustin: Seconds
• All in favor to amend $1382
• Megan: Abstain

Chanel: Before we close I would like to bring up possibly giving free coffee during finals week. If we could put that on next meetings agenda.

Ernesto: Okay. I’m going to move to adjourn

Dustin: Seconds

Online Ballot results for ADR Motion to amend to increase funding to $1382 – Fails due to lacking requisite eight votes in the affirmative.

Aye Votes

Dustin Kirby

Chanel Saidi

Aparna Agnihotri

Lexi Howard

Stephen Guichard

Abstain

Megan Donaghey (Conflict of Interest rules)

Absent from voting

Navdeep Singh

Anthony Crisostomo

Neil Cacali

Shoeb Mohammed

Christina Godfrey

Kate Casey