Navigating the Brock Outdoors Club referendum

By: Cody Boyko

Posted: 3/16/10

Do you support a refundable per credit fee of $2.50, used for operation of Brock Outdoors, to be collected by BUSU, as per the Memorandum of understanding?"
This question will be put forth to Brock's student population on March 23 for a vote.
The Brock Outdoors Club has proposed a referendum for a per credit levy, which will be collected from all students as part of ancillary fees and put towards the clubs' operation.
"We are projecting it to be in the $170,000-$175,000 range," said Ken Richardson, Vice-President of Brock Outdoors, and third-year General Social Science Student.
"We are for the referendum because Brock Outdoors needs the ability to reach more students by making its services more accessible, affordable and therefore more used by the entire student population at Brock," he said.
Brock Outdoors is an event-based club, that according to its Facebook page, promotes getting outside and offers a variety of camping and excursion trips for Brock students.
"In a survey of the Brock population, the students identified several areas that need to be improved. Trip costs are beyond many students' budgets," said Richardson. "Students identified trip costs as their number one concern with our service. A consistent on-campus office space is the number two student concern."
According to the Memorandum of Understanding for the Brock Outdoors Student Levy, students will have the opportunity to opt-out of the $2.50 per credit fee, as long as a request is completed by the first week of October.
"As for expecting students to pay for services that they may or may not participate in, in our case, students have the ability to get a complete refund during the first month of school, no questions asked," said Richardson. "If they don't want to use our services, we will happily issue a refund."
However, Byron Krauskopf, a fourth-year History major and Humanities representative for the Brock University Students' Administrative Council (BUSAC), feels that, "many other clubs at Brock are able to not only function, but thrive through the hard work and initiative of their members, without turning to the students for a handout".
The potential gross revenue of $170,000 that is being proposed, would be generated by adding to ancillary fees which students pay for services such as the Rosalind Blauer Centre for Child Care, Brock TV and The Brock Press.
"Brock Outdoors has offered high quality services to the students for the past three years," said Richardson. "We are now at a point where we feel that funding is the only way to solve many of the main concerns from students about our service."
According to the 2010-2011 Budget Proposal that Brock Outdoors presented to BUSAC earlier in the year, nearly half - $80,200 -will go just to paying the wages of five staff members within the club itself, said Krauskopf. The remaining will almost entirely go into overhead costs. Only $20,000, or just over 10 per cent, will go towards lowering the cost of trips run by the club.
The proposed budget for next year would allocate $80,200 - about 46 per cent of their yearly funding - towards salaries for staff salaries and a legal retainer, while $63,900 would be spent on equipment, repairs, marketing, insurance, office space rental and a contingency fund.
An additional $20,000, as mentioned by Krauskopf, will go towards a supplemental trip fund. This allocation of funds has raised questions from some around Brock, who oppose the referendum.
"The students, just one month ago, passed a Clubs Levy which gives BUSU $140,000 to spend on clubs initiatives, to be spread out across all ratified clubs," said Rob Lanteigne, Vice President University Affairs for BUSU. "It is simply unnecessary for one individual club to come and now ask the students for $175,000 on their own."
Yet Richardson feels that all Brock clubs have the right to hold a referendum.
"If they feel they have a top quality service they can provide to students [I] would encourage them to investigate the process," he said.
Although the debate will continue this week as both sides campaign, the decision will be made by students, who will have the opportunity to vote either "yes" or "no" to the referendum from March 23 to 25.