Checksum Arcanius

I had a nice long talk with Liz Vandenberge today, and learned some important things about the changes we are being told about, and the reasons behind them. First and foremost, I was happy to hear that the ASB is on our side. They want the clubs to succeed, and as one of the most widely recognized clubs inside and outside of IS, they definitely want us to succeed.

In order for that to happen, however, since we are an ASB club, we must function within the ASB guidelines, which have not been consistently enforced before. Sinc we often didn’t know about, or bother to find out about, these regulations, we often felt like they were punitive, constricting and arbitrary. And while I am no friend of bureacracy, remember that the reason it exists is because someone has screwed over the system before, and they want to prevent it from happening again, so they make rule. True, often they are arbitrary, but once we know about them ahead of time, we can plan with them in mind, and in reality, there is very little we are prohibited from doing once we get the proper approval.

I will now transcribe the list of what we went over:

1. If we want something in the bulletin, we need to get it approved by the advisor [Brad]. Marty’s preferred method is email, and this should make it really easy for us too. Once the executive board decides on a course of action that requires an announcement in the bulletin, an officer emails the announcement to Brad, who looks it over and (presumably) approves it by sending it on to Marty. We can also submit things on written clearly and legibly on paper, and signed by Brad, but I don’t see why we would bother; email seems a lot easier.
2. As most of you are probably aware now, if we want to schedule the building for use, we must do so at least a week in advance. According to Marty, this is as a courtesy to the custodians who need to scheudule their work around the activities going on in the building to maximize their limited time. The custodians have always been extremely generous with the TRC and we should definitely try to make their lives easier when possible. Besides, planning things at least a week in advance is always a good practice.
3. Most of the fundraising rules that we need to abide by are due to various federal, state, and local laws governing non-profit organizations and public money (since we are part of a public institution). In order to comply with these laws and pass an audit, if that were to ever happen, we need to work within the bounds of these rules. They may feel restricting at first, but I trust they are much nicer to deal with than an auditor who is finding discrepencies.
4. Liz gave me a packet, called “ASB Fundraising.” I suggest we go over it at the next leadership meeting. Speaking of leadership meetings, last Sunday’s seems to have worked for most people, and when I talked to Genevieve Sunday night, she indicated that in the future, Sunday afternoon/evenings would work for her too. I move to make Sunday leadership meetings a regular activity. What times are best for everyone?
5. Liz also gave me the form that we need to fill out to get a fundraising plan approved by the ASB. The timeline for this is as follows: We submit the completed form (including signatures) to Liz before Tuesday at lunch, and it will get onto the General ASB’s agenda for Wednesday, and presuming that it is approved, we can begin fundraising that Wednesday afternoon. Thats a pretty good turnaround – we never have to wait more than a week to get a fundraiser approved.
6. Raffles are a form of gambling – as such, the police must be notified, and tickets can only be sold to adults (18+). Of course, the ASB must also approve it as a fundraiser, since they are only allowed to have three raffles a year for all the clubs in the IS ASB.
7. I also got an “ASB Activity Coordinator Guide,” which is basically a guide for us on how to make Brad’s life as advisor easier. We should go over this at the next leadership meeting.
8. As far as spending money goes, the big deal is that we show that it was students that decided to spend the money, not teacehers, mentors, or anyone else; but the students in the club. As such, I suggest we hold off on ammending the constitution with the current proposal and wait for a new ammendment which will embrace this new reality. In other words, its ok for only the executive board to vote to spend money – as long as the executive board is composed of students in the club. This is a big improvement over what I thought would turn into a requirement of having the entire club to vote on every expenditure. I also think this is a vast improvement over the way we have been doing things in the past, where most people had no idea we were spending club money on. All expenses must be preapproved, and that is also a good way to run things. Also, its easy, since now pre-approval simply means a vote of easily-accessible club officers, in a meeting where official minutes are taken.
9. Brad, or another staff memeber who willingly accepts responsibility for us, must be in the building whenever we are in the building. This one is pretty straightforward.
10. As a part of the ASB, we can’t spend money on anything that gives students credits or a grade.

So student leaders – write back to the list on wether Sundays are a good day for you, and what times work for a weekly meeting.

Remember, ASB is on our side. We can not fail now :-)

I did.

Its amazing how good I felt about myself after choosing, finally, to vote libertarian in this primary election. Now the ballot is filled out and in the mail – gotta love the absentee system. I took a picure of both sides of the ballot just for fun too.

Voting with a free conscience is a great gift. I pity all the republicans and democrats who can’t do that because, as I explained cheerily to the rest of my family, the political landscape is like a slope descending on one side into the water. The democrats pull down and to the left; the republicans pull down and to the right. Their combined effort takes us straight towards the water. Alone, the democrats and republicans would still each take us underwater (financially as well of other metaphorical ways). Only the libertarians pull our government away from drowning all of us (greens, in case you are wondering, dig down and to the left. Their lpolicies will lead to not only drowning, but dronwing in filthy mud, probably among our own waste as well.

Vote Libertarian. You won’t regret it.

Sometimes when I sleep, I have strange dreams. But when I’m awake, I dream big dreams. Big like Mt. Everest. Like about the great things the TRC will do, and the ways that I’m going to change things when I’m president, and good bionic inventions to have. Then I finish mowing the lawn, and one guy shows up for the hack session, and Bush and Kerry are the only viable choices, and the FDA stifles all medical innovation. So I keep on dreaming.

The TRC has a new logo – tenatively. Thanks to my dad and my brother for suggesting fewer teeth. Thanks to me for insisting that it look like a gear that could work :-D. I like it a lot, and everyone I’ve shown it to so far seems to agree. Would you buy a window decal with this on it for $5 or $10? Let me know what you think about the logo and buying the thing.

I slept for 8 hours, and woke with strange dreams in my head. Work was good, but uneventful, then i went with Beth and Shai to see Without A Paddle, a reasonably fun but ultimately useless movie, whose main excitement was the fact that we went in the exit and I snuck in a Jamba Juice. Afterwards, we ate at Chipotle and I took everyone home before settling in for a night of CS and TRC letter writing, punctuated by the realization that the TRC’s old site doesn’t work, and Firefox treats the new one like a giant text box that it can delete everything in, if I just place the cursor and hit backspace…. although everything looks right otherwise….

I think its time for bed…

…or so I’ve been told. But Blog I will anyway, because somewhere back in the archives (I can’t find it now or I would link to it), I said I would try to Blog everyday, and if I had just gone to sleep, I wouldn’t have been trying very hard.

I was in a pretty foul mood yesterday, but I seemed to pull out of it today. Work was good, food is good, and life is good too.

A little end-of-the-weekend jaunt into Portland to see my sister and my nephew turned out to be quite a bit of fun. The main activity was OMSI, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, which has a wide variety of exhibits – enough to keep all of us – from my 4-year-old nephew to my artist brother to my engineer dad – entertained for a number of hours.

One of my long-range plans is to get the TRC to bring down the entire International School to watch the Pacific Northwest regional in Portland, and have them stay Friday night at OMSI, something I know is possible because I did it once during a high school retreat. Combine the regional competition with some exhibits, some food, and a laser light show, and a trip to the Lloyd Center and I think we’d have pretty much the entire school happy with the TRC. Good times, yes.

Now, however, I must soon consider sleep, because my newfound duties as the lead mentor of the TRC seem to be requiring more and more time. So far, its been worth it, and I expect that trend to continue.