Clubs funding set to increase by $10,000

By Daniela Veiga, June 4 2015 —

Students involved in clubs at the University of Calgary have reason to be excited about returning to school next fall. The Students’ Union has proposed a $10,000 increase to the funds available to clubs on campus.

The increase must first pass through the operations and finance committee and will then be voted on as part of the SU’s 2015–16 general budget. There are over 330 active clubs on campus, involving approximately 20,000 students.

Vice-president student-life Kirsty McGowan campaigned on the idea of increasing clubs funding. According to McGowan, clubs are a point of contact between students and the SU, as well as with the University.

“The pure diversity of clubs on campus really engages a lot of different students from different areas of the university, and I think that’s what makes our clubs system extremely strong,” McGowan said.

The extra money will go towards special events funding. According to the SU, clubs requested over $75,000 in funding last year. The SU was only able to approve $18,000.

“We approved less than one quarter of the applications for 2014–15,” McGowan said. “With this $10,000 proposed increase, we are excited that we’ll be able to approve so many more clubs special event funding applications.”

To ensure the extra money is allocated fairly, a stricter set of criteria will be used when evaluating applications.

“That is obviously something that I will be deciding with clubs committee,” McGowan said. “I have come up with markers, kind of a template on how we think clubs committee should be judging the applications this year.”

In addition to the extra funding, McGowan hopes to introduce a junior executive training program. The program would aim to ensure clubs have enough committed members to take over after club executives graduate.

“This year I really want to make sure that we are doing the best that we can to support clubs,” McGowan said. “Obviously the budget increase is a large part of that, but so is making sure that we have other things to support them.”