This weekend marks the annual ASUO finance retreat where executive staff, senators and administrators will come together to share knowledge about the ASUO and its budgeting process.
This year’s retreat will be held at Camp Lane Park, located in the city of Walton, between Eugene and Florence. Required to attend are ASUO Executive members and finance senators which include seats 1-10.
A number of workshops that look to teach the basic workings of the ASUO are planned for the weekend getaway. Workshop topics include the history of the ASUO, the ASUO’s governing documents, roles of each position, viewpoint neutrality and budget training including parliamentary procedures.
“The goal is to teach people exactly how to do their job and how to do their job appropriately, as well as learning some background as to why we do it,” said Finance Coordinator Grace Bounds, who organized the event. “I’ll be excited to get it over with,” she said of planning the event for two months.
“A lot of it’s down to business, but I’m trying to do it in a way that people can break up into the teams of who they’re working with to get some of that experience working with each other, just getting to know each other,” Bounds said. “We’re making it somewhat interactive, because it’s kind of boring stuff.”
ASUO Accountant Lynn Giordano said the retreat is also important for inter-office relationships.
“It gets everybody to know everybody — maintain civility in the office,” she said with a laugh.
Giordano said it’s importance to hold the retreat off-site to relay the important content that the retreat addresses.
“It has worked better to go off-site,” she said. “My first year we stayed here, which wasn’t very successful. It’s best to go where cell phones don’t work.”
ASUO President Emma Kallaway expressed excitement about this year’s event.
“This is the first time finance retreat has included the entire Senate and entire executive, including office assistants and controllers,” she said. “It’s about getting on the same page.”
Senate Treasurer Lyzi Diamond is excited to go to the retreat because of its benefit on workflow.
“If everybody is on the same page about budgets and special requests and the items that come across the Senate table, we can make meetings a lot more efficient,” she said.
Diamond said she is also excited to learn the names to some new faces in the ASUO office.
“A lot of people in this office I don’t know really well, so it will be good to spend some time with them and get to know them,” she said.
This retreat has in the past brought up issues of misconduct and misuse of student incidental fees.
In 2004, student government members admitted to violating the Student Conduct Code by drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana on the fall finance retreat in Sunriver. The event was billed as drug and alcohol-free.
Kallaway addressed concerns about the event, saying that there will likely be no outsiders, which was the problem in previous years.
“We understand that this has been a concern in the past … It’s an hour away so we will have far, far fewer issues if anyone comes to the finance retreat from outside,” she said. “(There will be) no way to be transported out of there and no cell phone reception means we will be focused on the issues at hand.”
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