Events

Voting to approve minutes for 6/3: approved (8-0-1)

-VSOs-

Persian Student Association:

The event is for the month of Ramadan, an event for the breaking of the fast. It will be held on Saturday, 6/27, and the event is already on the GSC calendar. Attendance will be 180-190 students (numbers based on previous years). Regarding funding, this event technically falls under the 2014-15 fiscal year (based on the date of the event), and the PSA has already reached their hard cap of $6000. Thus, Kali’s recommendation is $0 for the event. However, the equivalent event last year was also from the 2014-15 fiscal year due to the fact that Ramadan shifts depending on the year. PSA is requesting to take the funds from the 2015-16 year, but then the group might run into this problem next year. The question is, should we allow VSOs to request funds from future fiscal years? The consensus is that Ramadan is a very unique situation, and it shouldn’t be a problem to process the funds after the start of the new fiscal year. Request to fund this event is approved (9-0-1)

GradQ:

GradQ wants to host a post-Pride decompression event. The request is 485 for food, $192 total. Kali’s recommendation is for $192. Funding request approved (8-0-2)

Speaker’s Bureau Funding Bill:

The Speaker’s Bureau folks forwarded the bill to us earlier this week, and we need to vote on this now before the end of the fiscal year. Their request is one-time and for $60,000. Sam brought up that we should have them add language to include the undergraduate portion in the same bill so that there aren’t two separate bills. The council vote will be conducted with this change in mind. Funding bill approved (7-0-3).

General Announcements:

NGSO and GoPass:

Gabe received an email from Sarah Divel who is planning the schedule for the New Grad Student Orientation (NGSO), and they want to know if we want to keep the same events as last year or change events. Last year we had the pizza lunch and the informational dinner at the GCC. About 200 people came for the pizza lunch and 150 for the dinner. Sarah needs the schedule finalized by mid-July. After some discussion, the council agreed to stick with the same events. Gabe and Qian will organize food. Last year we handed out GoPass information and some GSC SWAG. (We may need to plan to order more to promote the GSC.)

Regarding GoPass, there is going to be a meeting next month (Monday, 7/13) with folks from VPGE and SURPAS to talk about GoPass marketing and how to improve sales. Gabe met with the Vice Provost for Student Affairs, Greg Boardman, who also had some marketing ideas. Greg stressed that the folks at VPSA are here to help us with whatever we need.

GSC Summer Event:

Terence and Gabby have been planning behind the scenes. Should we do a BBQ event again? The last BBQ event was two years ago and several hundred people came. We could potentially collaborate with the movie screening that Isa proposed at the last meeting. As for the date, late July might be best so that we can space out events a bit more. Trevor suggested that the planners ask Sebastian about the grill. Gabe and Ed agreed to help out with planning for this event since Gabby is away.

School of Ed and Law Reps:

Gabe has been emailing about this like crazy. The GSE forwarded the email to their students, and a graduate student expressed some interest, but she did not make it to this meeting. The School of Law hasn’t responded at all. Trevor suggested that we should send an email to the law students ourselves. Trevor still has access to those email lists, so we might do that.

Shengkai has updated the officers page on the GSC website. If you still haven’t sent in a picture/about me info, please do so directly to him.

Sam is looking into getting some GSC vests since we have extra funds to do so before the end of the fiscal year.

The next meeting will be Wednesday, July 8th.

Meeting adjourned.

Gabe sending Bios to webmaster. Some people still have not submitted it.

Gabe will ask Pau to send out a doodle to determine what date next week we can do retreat. It will probably be dinner and then karaoke.

The bill would be $60k from buffer and $15k from GSC reserves, and SB will use $80k of their own reserves too. They will split it up into 2 bills, one for buffer and 1 for reserves. Isa says she talked to some of her constituents, they didn’t really know what the speakers bureau is, and they said that they had issues getting tickets for some of the more popular events. Wonders if they can reserve a certain number of spots for grad students at these events. Can we include provisions for them to reserve a certain % of spots for grad students, and also for them to have a certain number of open spots a certain number of days before the event? They said, this year they did not reject any grad student groups for funding; for popular events, everyone had difficulties getting tickets for events (undergrads + grads), for Katherine Bigelow’s event last week 30% of all students were grad students and they didn’t turn anyone away, they have also been making pushes to get into more grad student lists (such as GSB lists, etc). They said they emailed Sam about putting the event on the calendar but it wouldn’t show up, they emailed Sam 3-4 times but didn’t get a response and were not able to make it work. Trevor suggests that they reach out to the Grad Life Office to put their events into grad-events. Maria says they perhaps don’t need to change how they hand out tickets, but need to change how they advertise. Gabe says, just keeping in touch with GSC will help. Dorian asks how they determine who the speakers are, are there any grad students on the SB committee? They said their president this year is a grad student, they would like to have more grad students. Dorian asks how big is the committee, they say 12, he asks why they can’t not bring it more grad students?  They say it’s open to all people, it’s a matter of not having enough grad students who are interested. Gabby says she thinks they understand they need to improve advertising. She asked the people in her department whether they are in favor of giving them money or not, they said yes. Having these speakers is a perk of coming to Stanford, and the SB has to do a lot of work because you have to work with their agents and stuff, they have to deal with bigger speakers. Isa says if they are looking for grad students, they might want to consider going to GOALIE at the friday of New Grad Students Orientation, talk to grad life office about it. Trevor asks how much $ they have in reserves, they say right now they have $97k, and they are agreeing to transfer out $80k of it. Jieyang asks, what is the buffer fund? Trevor says there is a buffer fund and there is a reserve fund. Buffer fund comes from student activity fee, we make people overpay a little to compensate for students who opt out of paying. The SB makes their budget by estimating from previous year’s budgets. Next year the  budget is about $165k honoraria, $20k cosponsorship, etc, they break it up. We are holding off the vote until June 24. Dorian asks, if they do not use up their budget, can they give some money back to the GSC? They would have to look into it, perhaps they can return their excess money by the % of remaining amount in the budget.

VPGE asks who is going to work on it this year, it will be Gabe, Rujia, and Trevor. Trevor says that during the summer they should work with NGSO and the school deans.

Isa says that the movie screening for PhD movie during the summer is about $250 license fee to pay it, but she does not know how many grad students will attend? She is wondering about budget for the food and drinks. Probably get pizza and maybe ramen?

Finished! Maria says it was annoying to deal with the GSB. At the night they had to call an ambulance to pick up a girl who passed out in the bathroom, and also 1 female person threw her soda at the caterer at 12:30. David says security were letting people in the back. Isa says it could have been really easy to sneak in, because they had problems with not being able to scan the eventbrite tickets. Isa says the artichokes and cabbage were inedible. Maria says she hates the caterer. Never use Bon Appetit again! They served giant pieces of vegetable that were totally not finger food. Maria also likes the support that Event Services offered. Isa says she has potential reasons why not as many people attended. One reason was price, why was it more expensive even though it was on campus? She also thinks dead week is too late for this event.

Meeting Adjourned

Approved unanimously.

Thai Student Association:

-This Sunday, startup session. The company is a Thai startup coming to talk about valuing investments and stuff. Asking for food money for lunch, expect about 30 ppl to show up, expect more than half to be grad students. Recommendation is $15 event services, $360 food. They’ve hit their soft cap, so the recommendation has been revoked to $0. The second event is a farewell event, plan to celebrate and make a gift for people who are leaving, they expect about 50 people and are recommended about $650 (though soft cap has maxed already). The other events that they have had which were funded by the GSC are Teach for Thailand info session, and Thai Night. For the info session they will not receive any money from the company. The info session is a combination of recruitment and info session. Voting on the first event (company info session), 5 for, 3 against, 4 abstain. It passes. Dorian asks if they have had many non-Thai people attend their events, they say yes. Isa says that for future events we should be more careful about the soft cap. Jieyang says we need to take into consideration that other  groups will just disregard the caps too. Maria says the point is that the group that is funded should accommodate 30% non-group members so that other people know about it, but there’s no way to enforce that. Sam says the soft cap is an art and not a science, so as long as budget is sound, but if we go over all the time then it’s not a good idea. Jieyang agrees with  Sam. Kali says she recommends half of the amount because the attendance reported was incorrect. Kali amends the recommendation (ignoring the soft cap) would  be $12.50 event services, $300 food. Terence asks what happens if they don’t get funding, they say they will make it happen somehow. Rujia asks if they have any other funding source, he says he is not in charge of it. We are voting on half of the amount (the new recommendation), 9 in favor, 2 opposed, 1 abstaining. It passes. David says he doesn’t believe that we should be funding recruitment events. Isa says she attended an event previously, and that event had recruitment, and it wasn’t too bad. Isa wants to ask about what the funding auditor is supposed to attend or not, maybe we can add an auditor to go to events? Jieyang says maybe we can give out surveys to attendees of these events. Gabby says we need to share the responsibility if we want to do this. Voting on the other half of the money for the farewell dinner, 1 in favor, 9 opposed, 2 abstaining. Does not pass.

Stanford India Association:

-Farewell dinner and dance this Friday. Expecting 100 grad students will  show up. Recommendation is $800 food $400 alcohol and $130 event services (programming + karaoke machine rental). Isa asks, about karaoke machine, is there an advantage over like youtube? They say customizable hardware is needed. Voting on recommended amount, passes unanimously.

Black Grad Student Assoc:

-Annual BGSA graduation ceremony. Celebrating the people who are graduating. Sat June 6th at the Black Community Center, expected 75 attendance, it’s not on the calendar. Recommendation is $600 food $75 alcohol $317.80 event services (programming + table clothes). They need to put it on the calendar before they leave. Voting on the recommendation, passes unanimously.

Korean Students Assoc:

-Budget modification for a past event.  Lunar NY dinner at end of Feb. At the  time they requested for event services at Tresidder Oak Lounge, but they saved some money in food and want to use the money for the event services. They are transferring $438.84 to cover Oak Lounge, from food to event services. Voting, passes unanimously.

The bill total is $990.64. Voting, passes unanimously.

-Liquor license: caterer is not providing it, GSC needs to provide it now. Trevor is going to drive down to San Jose to do this.

-Bill for budget not yet out because they don’t know how to phrase it. They spent more money than last year but they should have more money left because they didn’t do a big event last quarter. Catering is a big issue for budget, almost more than $12k more than last year.

-Blankets are coming tomorrow.

-Sign up for volunteers.

-Cash box for cash sales right there. Gabby will probably do the cash sales.

-Need coat hangers and mirrors.

Christina and Julie are here, directors of the  ASSU Green Store. They want to allocate discretionary funds to the green store. They drafted a bill. They sell eco-friendly products to VSOs, and provide free deliveries for the products. They have a break-even model  so it’s hard to have a budget for recruitment and stuff. They are not  at a good financial standing. They are asking for annual $500 budget to help sustain the store’s operation and growth. Isa asks, how much do grad student associations buy from them? They say the GSC buys stuff, currently they serve academic departments, they are trying to expand their reach to graduate housing and departments. The Belgian students assoc orders from them. They do deliver to EV and Quillen. Sam asks about revenues, they have expanded a lot since last spring, sales have been good, they have expanded sales from VSO accounts to credit cards / cash too. The total amount they delivered 2 weeks ago was probably around $600. The break-even portion of the budget is written into their constitution. Isa says groups should be make sure they have compost bins when they have compostable products. They say the Green store is part of “Gaia” which is the sustainability group at Stanford, there are lots of bureaucratic barriers. They understand the concern about no compost bins, but they can reduce the demand for other non-compostable and non-recyclable things.

Gabe sent out PDF’s. The dates will be June 24, July 8, July 22, and Aug. 5, after that we won’t have another meeting until Sept. 23. We can vote online for anything that we need. Bring proxies.

Isa says guidelines says we have to contact schools, ask for nominations, and then we have to vote on the nominations. They can email the deans of the schools and have the deans forward the emails.

Rujia says, annually the GSC will give $50k per year, and also $5k for campaigning and marketing. Every  year Stanford will buy around 3000 Go-Passes from Caltrain, for all the students who live off campus. In previous years there are events to market the sale of the Go Passes. In 2014 the total number of students who bought tickets was 800 students, for this year until May there are only 650 students. VPGE are asking if they should sell the tickets for a discount price to advertise to the new students who are coming in September. Secondly they ask if we are going to have a committee of 2-3 people in charge of this program. Thirdly they are asking how to advertise this program to the general grad students. Gabe met with Ken at the Grad Life office, the biggest obstacle to Go Pass is that if grad students don’t buy it then the program will just end. Trevor says in the Biosciences, the school buys a  bunch of tickets and then re-sells them to students / give out to students. Gabby says last Sept it was really hard to have students to buy the tickets, they event went around to all the different schools. It was hard because people think public transportation is hard, and also people who live off-campus have already figured out a way of getting to campus. The solution is probably to convince the departments to sell them out.