Pusher Eligibility Rules

[TommyK]

I won't speak to the others, but as a Kap Sig I can tell you that every single one of our pushers was at every freeroll starting at Mini Raceday. Just because we pushed off from Hill 2 until Truck doesn't mean they weren't there.

You seem to be the only one doing any tearing down right now.

That's awesome dude - keep up the good work, sorry to lump you in with the other slackers.

I described the self-determined barriers of joining a fraternity, the benefits and detriments speak for themselves. I'm not the one proposing rules to match those restrictive notions that will literally keep people from participating and then suggesting those rules will help buggy.

[shafeeq]

- "huge budget" -- can we, for once, justify this without just taking it as "fact"? I hear Fringe uses their activities fee money to throw cocaine and hooker parties at an off campus house! Proof? None, but you know, someone who KNOWS [McCue] told me, so it must be true.

- EVERY student, whether living on or off campus, undergrad or grad, pays the Activities Fee which goes to fund the budget of every independent under StuSen (or whatever), which is all the other ones besides SDC. It goes both ways.

When I was an undergrad, the copy of SDC's general budget I was shown had a buggy line item of $~8k, of which I don't know how much came from the dorm fee. All the other independents had buggy budgets of $2-3k, of which about half came from the activities fee. Granted, everybody keeps certain expenses under the table. And I believe SDC included things like clothing, parties, etc, that other teams may have just passed the hat for.

Having to compete against double the budget was annoying, but so was having to compete against double the athletic talent, and there's nothing to do about that but man up and deal with it.

In any case, I hear that the activities fee subsidy for buggy has been going steadily down in recent years, this might be a moot point in the future. Some changes, like not subsidizing safety gear is just plain stupid.

[emblood]

If one pays the Student Dorm Fee, shouldn't they be allowed to see where their money is going? If SDC would really like to defend the position that their budget isn't "huge," why don't they just make it transparent? And if its already out there somewhere, can someone point me in the right direction?

[TeachMeHowToBuggy]

If one pays the Student Dorm Fee, shouldn't they be allowed to see where their money is going? If SDC would really like to defend the position that their budget isn't "huge," why don't they just make it transparent? And if its already out there somewhere, can someone point me in the right direction?

Even if they were to make it 100% transparent, do you really believe they'd provide you with fact through and through? They're smart kids and creative accounting hasn't gone out of style.

If you live in a dorm, you paid for some kid's track spikes. Sure it pisses me off too, but what can you do about it?

Who cares though, Fringe still won.

[Carleton]

If you live in a dorm, you paid for some kid's track spikes. Sure it pisses me off too, but what can you do about it?

Who cares though, Fringe still won.

Just like if you go to CMU, you paid for Bonsai.

[TommyK]

Just like if you go to CMU, you paid for Bonsai.

Factcheck: 1/2 of Bonsai. Soon to be reduced by Student Senate to 1/4 of Bonsai 2.0

What's the member/alumni pitch-in % at SDC?

[dennis]

You can easily find the school's contribution and member's contribution to groups funded by the Joint Funding Committee. Fringe's budget for FY 2012 can be found here: https://stugov.andrew.cmu.edu/budgettra ... e/show/393. Since SDC is not funded from this source, it's our best guess as to how much SDC buggy receives from the school and its members.

The latest rumor I've heard about SDC buggy's budget is that it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40k and that member contribution is zero. But that just seems ludicrous.

If you live in a dorm, you paid for some kid's track spikes. Sure it pisses me off too, but what can you do about it?

Who cares though, Fringe still won.

Just like if you go to CMU, you paid for Bonsai.

I think there's quite a difference between paying for a portion of a buggy versus paying for the entire push team's shoes.

Factcheck: 1/2 of Bonsai. Soon to be reduced by Student Senate to 1/4 of Bonsai 2.0

According to the link I just posted Fringe's JFC subsidy only went down $500 between FY 2011 to FY 2012.

[tbach0729]

Just like if you go to CMU, you paid for Bonsai.

Factcheck: 1/2 of Bonsai. Soon to be reduced by Student Senate to 1/4 of Bonsai 2.0

What's the member/alumni pitch-in % at SDC?

Which is still more than any greek org gets for buggy, since no greek org is eligible to even be considered for JFC. Greek orgs have to rely pretty much exclusively on those dues you railed against and alumni donations.

For those who don't know, Greek Orgs can't get JFC because COSO considers them not valid student orgs (because we are single sex, despite having a Title IX exemption).

[galexkeene]

I've heard about SDC buggy's budget is that it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40k and that member contribution is zero.

This conversation is now officially stupid. I know you said it seemed ludicrous, but that's not ludicrous it's idiotic. 40k? REALLY PEOPLE?!

If people on campus are going to talk shit on SDC in such bad faith, why are we even having this discussion?

If Fringe can make a great "half" buggy with their "small" budget that is so much smaller than SDC's must be, how come SDC must automatically have some super huge budget to be able to do well? You all already said it's because we "hog" all the pushers, which clearly you don't need much budget for... well except for the coke and hookers. (p.s. money is fungible... you can't say that bonsai was only half your budget unless you're saying bonsai took ALL your budget, doubled)

P.S. They aren't track spikes, those would be stupid to wear on pavement. Also, they are not given to the pushers, SDC has a collection saved for quite a few years. They are worn at most 4ish days a year (truck & raceday) so they tend to last a while. They always tend to look new because, well, they kind of are as far as wear and tear go. As far as I am concerned, a little money spent on one or two pairs of flats a year, if that, (they aren't that expensive as far as shoes go, especially if you don't buy the latest and greatest, these aren't US Olympian quality or anything) is the same as buying some wheels or any other equipment, since they stay with the org.

[jixson]

Student Activities Fee: $94 per semester per fulltime students.
~45 members in Fringe = 45 * 2 * 94 = $8640
Fringe JFC subsidy = $3900

If it helps you sleep at night, the Student Activities Fee from Fringe members alone is over double what we receive from the school, we paid for Bonsai by ourselves. Everyone can complain from now til the end of the world about their money going to rival orgs, but the fact of the matter is if everyone in the school besides the people in Fringe said "don't give my money to Fringe", we would still get the same amount of money. I'm pretty sure this will be the same for every independent org out there.

So SDC has a big budget, obviously a big budget isn't the key to winning. Was anyone complaining about this before 2009? Or is this just everyone's response because independents are finally winning? Because something tells me if PiKA or SigEp had won this year, no one would have brought up budget or pusher eligibility issues.