Fishing Club and Geology Honors Society get funding for rods, flights

Members of Student Congress had tough decisions to make Tuesday as student clubs came before the Finance Committee asking for everything from money for flights to fishing rods.

The committee met for the final time in the fall semester Tuesday night. Representatives of several organizations headed to Gardner Hall to face the committee hoping to receive money to pay for planned activities for this semester.

The common theme for the night could be summed up in a few choice words by Student Congress Member Craig Amasya.

“I’d like to fund that, but we can’t,” Amasya said.

Josh Aristy, chairman of the committee, said the group’s allocable money ran out early for a few specific causes.

“We ran out of money quickly because we had a new committee,” he said. “And people typically spend more in the fall.”

In the Spring of 2014, Student Congress received requests from 70 student groups, allocating a total of $151,640-worth of student fees — the groups requested more than $217,000 in total.

According to analysis done by The Daily Tar Heel, only 22 groups received all of the funding they requested. Fifteen of the 70 groups got less than half of the money they requested from Student Congress.

The budget for the meeting was $19,800 — an amount that was lower than some of the organizations’ original budget requests.

Student Congress struggled to decide what to cut and what to spare, especially when listening to Eric Dean, president of Carolina Fishing Club.

Congress struggled to find anything unnecessary to cut in the Fishing Club’s budget. After a long silence, the Finance Committee reluctantly proposed cutting funding for two tents Dean had hoped to use for a fishing retreat.

Members of the Sigma Gamma Epsilon Geology Honors Society, expressed legitimate concern about their members having to pay more than in the past. Sarah Hinshaw, president of Sigma Gamma Epsilon, raised concern about paying for flights to an upcoming international geology conference.

“The conference we are trying to go to, the Geological Society of America, is a really great way to represent Carolina’s geology at the international level,” Hinshaw said.

When members of the committee suggested to cut payments for flights by half, Hinshaw was hesitant.

“I feel uncomfortable asking people to pay more than $50 for their flight because in former years it has been fully funded,” she said.

After Student Congress finished cutting down each budget, they calculated totals to decipher if they had any more money to give.

Fortunately for Sigma Gamma Epsilon Honors Society’s president, the budget was able to provide extra travel funds for a trip that may not have happened otherwise.

Other organizations also received some of the money originally cut. The Carolina Fishing Club was able to receive money for both tents on their next fishing trip and club fishing rods.

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