FiCom December 12 2009 Retreat

Agenda and minutes from FiCom retreat held on December 12th.

Retreat Schedule
BRING COMPUTERS!

Non-members can't talk. There will be specific times where they can talk.

OPENING DISCUSSION
(Time: 20 min)


 * Lockers (approval of lock funding and contract) - tabled, doing in JanTerm
 * Approval of Frances as FiCom member
 * Review of trip request, climax request (and any other highly timely requests)
 * Approval of Schedule
 * Approval of letter to all signers
 * Email to rest of problem groups re Probation List?

FIRST SESSION: What is FiCom?
(Time: 15 Min)

Low-key opening discussion. Reevaluation and reemphasis of FiCom's mission and core values.

Director Positions
(Time: 25 Min)

Problems:


 * Everybody on FiCom is doing too much work (4 hours/week, accountability responsibilities from October retreat)
 * Director is doing too much
 * No point person in charge of outreach, connecting with signers and the community

Proposals:


 * Divide into three Director positions:
 * Director: in charge of organizing and facilitating. Needs to be on top of everything, sets agenda, follows up with various offices, meets with Pam/Marie every week, ensures that all Directors and members are following through on responsibilities
 * Director of Finances: Should know where all the money is at all times. Works closely with Marie, improves accounting systems, plays major role in ensuring better budgeting, transparency, and accountability on part of FiCom
 * Director of Outreach: The FiCom liaison to the community. The public face, a cheerful outgoing person who takes the time to connect with signers, student groups, and the general community. Expected to field questions/criticisms/reports from members of the community and follow up on issues.
 * Continue to have an Office Manager, but that individual is simply expected to take minutes during the meeting and post them. Have emails get sent automatically via Zoho system.
 * OR continue as is, have Office Manager take on outreach responsibilities as well

Workload in FiCom
(Time: 15 Min)

Brainstorm. How can we reduce workload at FiCom? Make meetings more efficient while not losing sight of the reason why we all meet as a group? Should we move back to 3-hour meetings?

This will be a discussion as a large group. Then, they will break into two small groups, who will each come back to the full group with their proposal.

THIRD SESSION: Permanent Funding
(Time: 5 min)

Quick overview of FiCom's permanent funding obligations:


 * PVTA Fare Free Bus Fee ($14,000)
 * FiCom Office Assistant - 2009's Salary &amp; Benefits ($34,678)
 * Half of these amounts are paid at the start of each semester:
 * UMass Fine Arts Center Performing Arts Fee ($8,600)
 * Student Activities Program Subsidy @ 3.5% of SAF ($16,000)
 * Residential Life Programs ($36,000)
 * AAP – Social Advocacy Centers ($24,000) (1/4 each goes to Cultural Center, QCA, Center for Feminisms, and Spiritual Life Center)

We need to look critically at this permanent funding. Why was it instituted? How is the money being used? Does its use fall under SAF Guidelines? Is this the best way to go about giving out this funding?

Small Groups
(Time: 20 min)

QCA
van Fallenberg November 11 5:30 p.m. in the West Lecture Hall FPH Talk: Pigeons, Punks, Pansies and Pervs: Literary Heroes in Contemporary Israeli Literature/ and is supported by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation. ($600)

Pizza for movies Tuesday’s 7pm in the QCA 11 weeks $60 a week 11 weeks total. Movie included But I’m a Cheerleader, Bound, Ma Vie En Rose, Paris Burning, Noah’s Arc and others that different students provided. ($660)

Pizza for QCA student meetings ($300)

Pizza for QIPOC meeting ($30)

National March for Equality Money for subway in Washington DC and snacks for buss trip down there. $70 for subway $60 water, fruit juice ($100)

Co-sponsor ASK conference ($250)

Queer Thanksgiving Students cooked a thanksgiving dinner to provide a safe space dinner in recognition that everyone doesn’t have this at home. ($130)

The pronoun Money to photo copy The Pronoun a student designed zine ($50)

Translove Coffee House Decorations, including helium tank, balloons, streamers and flowers. Pizza for volunteers who helped set up. Helium Tank $80. Decorations $50, Pizza $70 ($200)

CD Swap $20 spent on blank CD’s $60 pizza ($80)

Safer Sex supplies Supplementing the one’s Sexperts brought for Halloween. ($150)

Trans 101/Awarness Workshop scheduled to take place in January facilitated by Chase Catalano ($400)

Movie screening or small event over Jan term in QCA ($50)

Spiritual Life Center
Speaker Ruth Scott, Workshops, Book Signing, and Movie:

Conflict Transformation Through Storytelling The Question of Forgiveness (in the context of her work with former terrorists) Five Minutes to Heaven US Premiere                                                                            $700

Speaker, Arik Asherman Working for Human Rights $200 Speaker, Evan Fallenberg Literary Heroes in Contemporary Israeli Literature

Queer Arts and Culture in Israel                                                                                     $500

Worshops, Design and Essays, ZiLong Wang

Taoism and Confucianism in China (2) Chinese New Year Spiritual Life Magazine                                                                                                 $200

ChrismaChannuKwanzAdhaRohatsuYule

Food                                                       $500 Crafts/Supplies                                        $500

ASK for Social Justice $300

Martin Luther King Program (not spent yet but planning to in January)

$100

Center for Feminisms
Who’s Your Mama? A talk and discussion featuring contributors to Who’s Your Mama, including: JLove Calderon, Marcella Runell Hall and Marla Teyolia Friday, November 13 7:00pm ($100)

Pre-Hampshire Halloween Consent workshop With Sarah R. Sykes-Goldsmith $75.00 speaker $150 dinner ($225)

Birth Doula Training Courtney Hooks with Courtney providing a doula info session afterward $75 for training $50 for snacks at info session ($125)

Student Lunches Every Wednesday at noon 12 over the semester $65 each lunch total $780 These lunches were started in response to being given this money they provide a chance for anyone who wanted to be involved with the center to talk about programming ideas and have a voice in how this money is spent. The lunches now often have a topic such as breast cancer and other current campus and national issues. They also help to create a community in the center. ($780)

Stupak teach-in Speakers include: Marlene Fried, Dr. Richard Aronson and Safia Albaiti. Facilitated by Akira Cespedes Perez. West Lecture Hall Wednesday December 2, 7:pm Pizza $100. ($100)

Vulva purses An evening making vulva coin purses crafts supplies from Joann’s ($60)

Kehaulani Kauanui Thursday, November 19 from 4:00pm Professor Kehaulani Kauanui an Associate Professor of American Studies and Anthropology at Wesleyan University. Her areas of expertise are, “Native Hawaiian sovereignty; comparative indigeneity; settler colonialism; US colonialism in the Pacific; critical race theory; nationalism and the politics of gender &amp; sexuality; and decolonization &amp; nation-building.” $500 speaker fee ($500)

Hot Chocolate Run Saturday December 5th Money for dinner for participants while they decorated t-shirts for the run. Dinner $60 decorating supplies $40 ($100)

Body Politics, a Production about Women of Color and Body Image co sponsored with Community Health and the Cultural Center. ($167)

V-Day Auditions and First Rehearsal Money for snacks and fruit juice ($90) and money to photocopy scripts ($10). Thursday November 19th and Friday November 20th Dinner first auditions ($65) (total $165)

Co-sponsor ASK conference ($250)

World AIDs Day Speaker Kristin Johnson, research assistant in MGH and a graduate student in Public Health. She is also a member of PATS, the Pediatric HIV/AIDS Treatment Support Project, which provides health care to HIV-positive children in rural china. She is going to present her experience working in the field as student and introduce ways of helping, both domestically and internationally. Red Ribbons and food ($50)

Spa Night All natural face masks and comfort food. December 9th ($50)

Movie Screenings Tuesday Night 7pm Center For Feminisms Films included I Was A Tennage Feminist, Rachel’s Daughters: Searching the Causes of Breast Cancer, The Price of Pleasure, Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority, Beauty Mark, Real Women Have Curves. Pizza ($347)

Magic Board costs October and November ($40)

Cultural Center
$338 - Sodexo food for Multicultural Community Welcome Reception

$250 - Honorarium for Patricia Cardoso for dialogue skills workshop for SOURCE group signers. $325 - Honorarium for Patricia Cardoso for intergroup dialogue skills workshop for SOURCE community.

$880 - Duplications printing costs for Cultural Center's "Inside" newsmagazine.

$80.25 - Stop n Shop food for SOURCE Meet &amp; Greet. $414.00 - Sibies food for SOURCE Meet &amp; Greet.

$103.10 - Sibies food for SOURCE Meeting with President about state of college.

$100.80 - Duplications printing costs for SOURCE Signer Handbooks.

$28.15 - Sibies food for SOURCE Signer Info Session.

$187.57 -- Big Y for Ringing of the Bells event. $248.17 -- Delivery Express food for Ringing of the Bells event.

$4.08 -- Duplications scanning charges for SOURCE historical documents. $32.90 -- Duplications for ASK workshop poster. $7.05 -- Duplications for ASK workshop mailbox stuffer.

CLA
Magdalen Hsu-Li's performance and travel $2500 Magdalen's Concert Refreshments $80 Recital Hall Use fee $150

Tavern Welcome Back Dance Party Food $250 Public Safety/Event Monitor $50

Hampfest Food and Staff/ Dining Services $750 Hampfest Table and Chair Rental/Creedon $1087

Bread and Puppet Performance $3500 Public Safety Officer Detail $ 100

Cultural Center Inside Magazine ad $25 CLA Student Mailbox Candy $45

Res Life
(waiting for report)

Reportback
(Time: 20 min)

Conclusions from your small group: Do all the expenditures fall under SAF Guidelines? How is the money being spent? Is there any possibility of lowering the amount of permanent funding to this body?

FOURTH SESSION: Delineation of Roles
Because nobody understands when to go to FiCom/COCA/Pam/Carolyn/Marie.

Analysis of system structure, discussion of each member/office/group's role in decision-making. Who is in charge of what? How can we improve the systems?

Possibly discuss in small groups.

FIFTH SESSION: Open Hour
@5pm


 * What are the problems? How can we work to improve the system constructively?

SIXTH SESSION: Bylaws

 * bylaws do not properly speak to SAF Guidelines, relationship to COCA/COCD, voting members

Minutes
FiCom Saturday Retreat, 12/12/09 Present: Ananda, Zilong, Jackie, Madeleine, Luke, Daniel, Frances, Julia, DeeDee, James (late)


 * Lockers: locks cost $5 to $10 more than expected – can we find cheaper ones online?
 * Madeleine motions to approve Frances as a FiCom member. No blocks.
 * Two time-sensitive requests
 * Alternative Sexuality Collective


 * Wicked Faire
 * Why 3 vehicles for 10 people? Not all the details are worked out yet
 * If we end up putting caps on groups in the spring, approving this would affect the amount of funding the group would get over the course of the semester
 * Can we fund this now? It has to be approved by FiCom so that the hotel rooms can be reserved on Marie's P-Card
 * Would this go over a cap? The hotel rooms could be canceled


 * Approved $516 to reserve hotel rooms, come back in Janterm with more info!!!


 * Note that NO FUNDS are being transferred right now – Zoho says “approved $0”


 * Climax


 * Publications request
 * The Climax is important for the campus
 * Why 1400 issues? They do get distributed


 * Approved for $341 – Don't let this happen again! Make sure you submit your requests on time!


 * Fund transfer does need to be written up for this
 * Daniel will write this for Marie on Monday


 * Review of retreat schedule


 * FiCom is planning to end the retreat at 6PM


 * Approval of letter to all signers


 * The group recognition form is not going live until Monday at noon, so FiCom wants to wait until that is up to send out the all-signer email
 * Can this be sent out through the house office emails or some other way to not just current signers? It is going in the Student Daily Digest and on Hampedia, also maybe Magic Board?
 * There will be a draft ready on Monday night


 * Emailing groups re: probation list


 * Let's email the other groups this now, because we started letting groups know they were on it already
 * Need to write clearer emails
 * Groups added today:
 * Red Scare – poor budgeting
 * Equestrian Team – spent money which hadn't been approved
 * Grupo Capoeira Angola – promised money which hadn't been approved
 * QCA – spending money for an event which hadn't been approved yet


 * Update on QCA situation


 * There was an event at Food For Thought Books in COCA's pending, QCA promised Food For Thought that they would pay part of a speaker's fee
 * The money was already in their account; they did not need to be funded extra
 * This situation does constitute not following the rules – QCA is going on the probation list


 * Sports Co-op


 * FiCom also messed up here; let them know that if anything happens again, they will be put on the probation list


 * FiCom members: write down your answer(s) to “What do you feel FiCom's mission is? What is our role in the Hampshire community? What should we be doing?”


 * Some ideas:
 * Benefit and serve the community with limited resources
 * Provide ideals and resources to the community
 * Communicate with the students
 * Transparency
 * Give the students a voice
 * Make things happen
 * Build community
 * Do all this responsibly
 * Mutual responsibility
 * Always knowing where the money is – budgeting &amp; accounting
 * A subcommittee of Council
 * What is FiCom not?
 * Not a parenting body for student group
 * But are we a disciplinary body? This shouldn't be part of FiCom's mentality, but part of what we do
 * What might the mission of FiCom be?
 * Although we were created for funding, our job entails more than just funding
 * Serving the student community the highest priority, alongside spending responsibly (which is inherently part of serving the student community)
 * Discussion of what “serving the student community” entails; forward thinking, constructive process, etc
 * What is FiCom's capacity? [these are by no means complete lists!]
 * Money
 * Expertise
 * Connections
 * Decision-making power
 * Peoplepower
 * Power to regulate
 * What is FiCom's support?
 * CLA
 * Business Office
 * Community Council
 * Peoplepower
 * Friends
 * Student groups
 * The other subcommittees of Council
 * Departments of the College
 * Board
 * Campus
 * What isn't there?
 * The values, the mission
 * What is the public value FiCom creates?
 * Serving the student community
 * Thinking in larger terms than individuals; serving the entire community
 * Improve student life
 * Targeting where all these things intersect
 * In thinking about the future: try to figure out what can be done for value that we might not have all the capacity or support for right this moment


 * Director Positions &amp; Workload


 * Everybody on FiCom is doing too much work
 * Director is doing too much work
 * The positions need to be balanced for future FiCom
 * Director of Outreach is an appealing suggestion
 * Why add another Director?
 * What about changing the name to “Outreach Officer” or “Outreach Coordinator”? “FiCom Ambassador”?
 * Title needs to be clear
 * The person who sits in on Community Council needs to be a Director
 * This is so that these are people with access to the information about the money
 * The Outreach person should be the best person to be reporting
 * Reporting about money or about policies?
 * Concern that having this person sit on Community Council might detract from the mission of having this person reach out to the community
 * This is only to be able to find somebody that would be able to go to Council meetings at all times, not so they would have to go to them
 * Council speaks another language than the student body at large
 * Suggestion that if somebody was able to take on both of these at once, this would be ideal, but this all depends on the individual
 * This position was not suggested because there is any problem communicating with Council, but because there is a problem communicating with the community
 * We have no idea what the workload is going to be like before we implement the position
 * What if we called them the Director of Outreach but did not let them be the Council liaison for the first semester?
 * Feeling that if they are not titled a Director, the workload will be expected to be less for them
 * Idea that Director of Outreach fitting in most closely with Office Manager position – the Office Manager does not have as much responsibility, and is already responsible for writing the emails
 * Re-title the Office Manager?
 * Point that the officers have added responsibilities, not added power
 * Council needs a Director to go to their meetings
 * Somebody going to be here next fall should go to Council
 * Key issue of balancing workload
 * Suggestion to add a Director of Community Council Relations as well as the Community Liaison
 * How does this help the Director not have as much work?
 * Ananda has been dealing with a lot of the community issues
 * This position could be merged with the Office Manager position, especially because the Office Manager responsibilities are going to be cut roughly in half because automated emails are going to start going out in the spring
 * Are we going to rework the officer positions to: Director, Director of Finances, Director of Council Relations, and Community Liaison? Yes.
 * Who would take minutes? We don't know yet – let's think about that when we have a better sense of balancing responsibilities


 * Brainstorming discussion on workload of FiCom members


 * Suggestion to move the individual group tallies of money spent to an officer position
 * Idea that it is a good idea to have each person have a group of groups
 * Not having these tallies centrally located can be confusing – consistency to groups is important
 * Maybe while the Financial Director is writing fund transfers, the Community Liaison could write the tallies
 * This might be able to set up automatically on Zoho!
 * The time we spend on numbers is less than on bylaws, crises, etc – although in the first month or two, it is mostly all fund transfers
 * The workload has more than doubled; both the meeting times have doubled from 1 to 2 hrs, and now there are a lot of retreats
 * Should the conversations during meetings be moderated more heavily to be more efficient?
 * What about sectioning off meeting times for certain topics?
 * Suggestion to use “point well made” - so people don't keep talking just to keep talking
 * There seem to be a lot of “gray area” requests
 * There aren't that many of those, they just take up a lot of the time
 * Trying to limit time conflicts with trying to come to consensus
 * If there is a problem with a fund transfer, put it till the end of that meeting, if it isn't decided on that meeting, then send out an email for FiCom members to think about it for the next meeting; instead of trying to deal with it at that time; we tell groups we will get back to them after two meetings
 * If the Zoho isn't able to do the tallies for the groups, which officer would take it?
 * We will know if this is an issue before the officer positions are put in place; then we can decide


 * Permanent Funding


 * This has been an issue because so much SAF money is leaving before we even start funding student groups
 * Overview:
 * PVTA Fare Free Bus Fee ($14,000)
 * FiCom Office Assistant - 2009's Salary &amp; Benefits ($34,678)
 * Half of these amounts are paid at the start of each semester:
 * UMass Fine Arts Center Performing Arts Fee ($8,600)
 * Student Activities Program Subsidy @ 3.5% of SAF ($16,000)
 * Residential Life Programs ($36,000)
 * AAP – Social Advocacy Centers ($24,000) (1/4 each goes to Cultural Center, QCA, Center for Feminisms, and Spiritual Life Center)
 * The SAF money comes in semesterly, not yearly
 * This means that we can't take all this out before the money gets split for semesters
 * We are not reviewing the PVTA Fare Free Bus Fee and the Umass Fine Arts Performing Arts Fee because they are required (from being a part of the five-college system) – we don't necessarily have the power to overturn them
 * If we overturned the Social Advocacy Centers funding, we would lose support of the college
 * The question is not whether to fund them, it is how they use it
 * The Student Activities Program Subsidy was put into place to fund events in the beginning of the semester, before FiCom and COCA start reviewing funding requests


 * Report backs from the small groups – to be added by the small groups later


 * Not sending ResLife an email until they submit their their itemized breakdown
 * We very much appreciate what you do, ResLife!
 * Greenwich and Enfield lumped together – this is a bit of an issue
 * Cultural Center/Spiritual Life
 * Numbers for costs of events relatively useless to FiCom
 * Not necessarily held to the same requirements as COCA holds student groups to
 * Breakdown needs to be more detailed
 * Attendance
 * FiCom does hold groups to a projected attendance – should we ask how many they projected for or how many people attended? The offices have the permission to spend the money, unlike student groups which have to have FiCom approve them first. Estimated attendance is fine.
 * How many events
 * Exact numbers of costs
 * Detailed descriptions of the events
 * Event dates
 * Students are supposed to be deciding where this money is going
 * QCA/CFF
 * Money is being spent on food, which would perhaps fall under FiCom's meeting food jurisdiction
 * Asking them to go through FiCom to do this would mean many more FiCom funding requests
 * Encourage them to spend this on infrastructure? There have been complaints about the building
 * Why is there a delineation between the QCA Center money and the QCA student group funding?
 * Example of how the CFF has student lunches where students decide how to spend the money
 * Does the QCA have something like this? It was mentioned that the workstudy students decide where this money goes
 * If the same students can make decisions from the permanent funding and come to FiCom and COCA, how do we expect them to coordinate that? Would we expect them to use the permanent funding before coming to FiCom, or expect them to use the permanent funding on items under SAF guidelines which FiCom and COCA wouldn't fund, or some other way?
 * CLA (Student Activities Program Subsidy)
 * Reworking of forms to reflect group collaboration
 * Expensive events for the first weeks of school
 * No other permanent funding gets a percent of the SAF; it is all a flat rate, can CLA be changed to this?
 * Suggestion to cap amount to spend per event; feeling that it is more comfortable to put a cap on how much a group can spend per semester, not per event
 * Suggestion to cap the amount that can be spent on an event per group involved
 * This needs to be a conversation with COCA
 * CLA's auxiliary funding comes from the SAF, unlike other administrative offices on campus


 * Brainstorming session with signers about problems in FiCom


 * Signer from QCA attended
 * Clarifies: this signer is NOT representative of the entire QCA
 * Some issues with FiCom:
 * Institutional Problems
 * Inherited a broken system
 * FiCom and COCA interaction
 * Transparency between student government and student body, agreement to students
 * System is still evolving
 * Technical issues
 * Requests disappearing?
 * Emails for every part of the process would be helpful
 * First-come-first-serve allocation of funds
 * Early-in-semester requests need to be reviewed before FiCom actually can do so
 * Conversation with administration
 * Channels of communication
 * Trust
 * Recruiting. Inform students: What is FiCom?, Where does the SAF fee every student pays go?
 * Not understanding the history
 * Impression that signers are supposed to wait to submit their requests
 * Workload of signers
 * Changing the system; people don't realize or understand
 * New groups face issues
 * Estimations &amp; Assumptions
 * Some suggested potential solutions:
 * FiCom &amp; COCA staff member – maybe not too practical, would be helpful
 * CLA responsibility?
 * Carolyn to work more closely with COCA
 * Have student group submit budgets at the beginning of the semester
 * Over $1K to be submitted early
 * Encourage early submission of requests
 * Flexibility is necessary
 * In the informational form, have student groups inform FiCom what big requests they will be submitting
 * These would be projections; signers would still need to submit funding requests
 * Isn't terribly practical, allows for confusion, ups the signer workload a significant amount
 * Recommend groups to submit large requests early in the semester
 * Large expenses (over $1K?) - submit within the first month, follow through with signers to make sure the money is spent and spent properly
 * Encouraging groups to submit requests early is the most well-received suggestion
 * Require FiCom and COCA to meet regularly
 * Joint info session for the community?
 * Also meet with the other subcommittees
 * Have an hour designated every two weeks where the subcommittees and interested members of Council may meet (optional)


 * Meeting adjourned 6:05PM