Damn, I thought this thread was for bickering, not something useful. And yes, one of the goals of BAA is to promote buggy and participation - if we can do so by helping organizations get the necessary funding to compete that would be an excellent way of doing this.Carleton wrote: Wasn't part of the original reasons for founding the BAA to combat the school's seeming efforts to eliminate buggy? Perhaps instead of bickering about who gets more money and whether teams should be allowed these pushers or those, we, as alumni, should be discussing ways in which we can bring our (limited) influence to assist buggy.
Coming up with a base amount that a team needs to operate (e.g. $x to just exist, + ~$y per race team) that could be a standard for the various funding sources to utilize would be nice. With JFC/SDC Execs/whomever still obviously having the discretion to adjust as they see necessary to deal with their budget restrictions and/or unique needs of a team/year.
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Certainly wheels have become a much more expensive proposition than in the recent past. We have recently gone from the original Xootr wheels which were competitive for very cheap (probably the cheapest stock solution to be available for buggy), to wheels that are probably the most expensive buggy has ever seen (for a stock solution). Having BAA (a third-party organization) making JFC/SDC execs etc aware of such changes in the cost of doing buggy on a general level should help all organizations. I personally don't care if fraternities get funding from the activities fee. Certainly it'd be nice to have drivers using newer safety equipment - helmets that don't crack on impact etc, so defraying those costs at a minimum makes a lot of sense - the fact that alumni are expected to make up a sizeable portion of budgets [independents and I assume fraternities as well] is fairly unique for a student activity. Basically, instead of the pervasive statements that SDC has the wrong take on things ($ amount may/may not be higher than necessary) we should be trying to figure out a way to convince the powers that be that buggy should be a more fully funded activity for all organizations. (Hence a baseline budget amount etc. with some restrictions/regulation over how funds are spent... so that student funds aren't needlessly spent)
