The ASUO Senate allocated $540 Wednesday night to Soccer is Real Futbol, a new student group that will not receive its first budget until 2009.
Jim Cleavenger, the ASUO graduate and law student advocate who drafted the Senate’s anti-Taser resolution, is the director of the program.
“Soccer – it’s the only thing I’m more passionate about than Tasers,” Cleavenger told the Senate when introducing his group.
He said the soccer club has 500 members from 50 different countries, many of whom are international students who thought they would not see any games while studying in the U.S.
Cleavenger said the group has a contract with Taylor’s Bar and Grille to show soccer games between 8 a.m. and noon. Games that begin as early as 4:30 a.m. are shown at Cleavenger’s home.
The Senate approved $340 to purchase banners and $200 for the Football Association Challenge Cup finals and international soccer breakfast events.
Sen. Nick Meyers said that the group received more money than most new groups that went through the Programs Finance Committee this year. “If this is a backdoor way we can fund (new) groups we like, I’m down,” Meyers said.
Senate Vice President Patrick Boye told Meyers new groups that have been recognized by the ASUO but have not yet gone through the PFC process have a higher burden when requesting funds and have to convince the 18-member Senate.
After the vote to approve the funds, Senate President Athan Papailiou said that because “getting money is so slow, this body needs to be responsive to new groups.”
ASUO Vice President Chii-San SunOwen told Papailiou that it was “very frustrating” to hear arguments against the recognition and review process.
“Those same arguments are made by people who say there are too many programs and too much competition between them,” SunOwen said.
She said the process existed “to ensure there won’t be 80 new groups in one year” and said it was hypocritical to promote coming to Senate for surplus funds while criticizing how many programs are on campus.
Senate also allocated $3,500 to the Korean Student Association for Korea Night. Sen. Sean Jin said he was “weary” about the amount, but after hearing the group had to pay for shipping clothing from Korea he approved the request.
Sen. Billy Hatch apologized for “consuming two adult beverages” before last week’s meeting. He said he wished, however, that Sen. Papailiou would have confronted him about it directly instead of raising the issue after Hatch left the meeting.
Sen. Kyle McKenzie was absent for a third week and senators said they are unsure if he is a still a member of the body.
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