Kinks in campus clubs, again

Every year funding is late reaching campus clubs, proving they are obviously not a priority for the Wilfrid Laurier University Students’ Union but need to become one.

This year WLUSU has attempted to centralize the process of distributing money to campus clubs to be more effective and timely than it has been in the past.

They created an online system where clubs could apply for status and budget approval at the same time, unlike the e-mail system used in the past.

Previously, campus clubs have received their funding well into the first semester.

This has caused clubs to pay-out-of-pocket for events that occur before the money is allocated, forcing them to file for reimbursement that is not guaranteed.

Campus clubs provide an opportunity for all Laurier students, non-exclusively, regardless of what interests them, to volunteer and get involved with.

This is something the university markets to prospective students; the culture of volunteerism that is embedded into the Laurier experience.

Getting money to campus clubs for them to operate six weeks into the semester is too late; clubs still do not know the amount of money they will be receiving, as there are no fixed amounts.

Again and again campus clubs is on the receiving end of the disorganization of WLUSU and their inability to create back-up plans to new (untested) systems.

Just because in the past campus clubs have received their funding later in the year doesn’t excuse the fact that even though it may be earlier this year it is still not at the appropriate time, which would be at the beginning of September.

It would be unacceptable in any “real world” situation to be behind on a project by six weeks.

It may be “just” students who are suffering but that does not make such ineffectiveness okay.