Jeremy, thank you for bringing this matter to my attention.
Mark Balzer
DI President
but Mark the DI member would like to say:
>The story so far: At the September club general meeting, the club
>was constitutionally required to approve a budget. The budget was
>prepared but not voted on; the club carried on as normal.
>In addition, new speakers were bought for the sound system.
>Some believe that there is a problem in this situation.
And some believe that there isn't a problem in this situation.
This group calls buying necessary equipment "carrying on as normal."
You see, one of the existing speakers was broken this summer during a
workshop. Maybe you remember it - the one I wrapped with wire in an
attempt to hold it together until it could be replaced.
>The club went through a fair amount of hassle this summer to prevent
>unbudgeted expenditures from happening. Still, at September's
>meeting we did not have the numbers on hand to vote in a budget,
>although the proposed budget was already written up (it just
>wasn't at the meeting).
>Since we didn't have a budget, should the club have shut down?
>Constitutionally, until we had that budget, the club should not
>have spend a dime (except that the officers can make discretionary
>unbudgeted expenditures of $50 per month per officer). What that
>means is complete shutdown: no rental of space in Freer or at the
>Regent except what is already paid for, no publicity for classes,
>even if we could find places to hold them, no money spent anywhere
>for any reason. I don't think anyone is such a stickler that he
>honestly believes that obeying the rules at that price is a better
>option than breaking the rules to keep the club going.
>But there is another issue. The club also spent about a thousand
>dollars for new speakers. I believe it is agreed that if we had
>passed the budget last month, we could not have bought the speakers.
>Yet, a number of the officers, believing that these speakers were
>a necessity, did make this purchase. The decision was made fairly
>quickly
The stereo was moved from the Opera Rehearsal Room in Krannert to the
huge Freer Gym on September 11.
The need to upgrade the stereo was identified on September 12.
The need was described to all officers and instructors on Sept 17.
A detailed proposal for the upgrade was presented to all officers and
instructors on September 18.
A discussion of the proposal took place over email on September 19
The speakers/amps and associated hardware was purchased on September 20
The hardware configuration was completed by September 22.
The upgrade was tested and a training session for all officers and
instructors was held on September 23.
The upgrade was placed in service on September 23.
Quickly? Well, I count 11 days from identification of the need to
sucessful implementation of the solution. Not as quickly as hoped for, but
then we all have other demands on our time that slow us down. Still, I
think the solution was in place before potential DI members were turned
away from taking dance classes in which they could neither hear the
instructor nor the music.
>there were those who objected, some for other
>reasons than the fact that it was an unbudgeted expense (and wasn't even
>on the budget as initially proposed).
Nobody "objected" to upgrading the sound system.
One officer questioned the need. This was addressed in a separate reply.
One instructor questioned the cost and durability of the solution but concluded
"if we have enough money..., great." This was addressed in a separate reply.
One instructor changed the subject and whined. He was summarily ignored,
so he went looking for attention at the October general meeting.
>The purchase was not voted on, even by the officers.
I spoke with the officers individually and obtained their approval.
>So where do we go from here?:
>All right. We have rules. They weren't followed. If we as a club
>are going to continue to have rules, we really need to make sure
>they are followed. If we aren't going to follow the rules, we
>need to at least be honest enough to get rid of them.
>There used to be an emergency funding provision that an expenditure
>could be voted on at any club function. This led to a lot of
>unbudgeted expenses through poor planning, and was part of the
>reason the club's constitution was changed. Still, it provided
>an escape clause which would have prevented the recent problems.
>All right, that won't work. We could punish the offenders and hope
>that the example would prevent the situation from ever recurring.
>Leave aside the issue of _how_ the club could punish anybody
>(perhaps I'm the only one who finds the idea funny). Who is to
>blame? Well, for lack of a budget let's start with:
>1)Scott, for failing to bring the budget with him, then for failing
>to immediately go home to _get_ the budget when he realized he
>didn't have it with him.
>2)Mark, for adjourning the meeting without a budget approved.
>3)The other officers present, for letting Mark adjourn the meeting,
>and for not collaborating to propose a rump budget.
>4)All the other members present, for letting Mark adjourn the
>meeting. I'm included in this one; it's documented that I was
>present.
>5)Any member who doesn't care enough about the club to take a few
>minutes to attend the meetings.
>Have I spread the blame around enough? OK. Let's forget the idea
>of punishing the offenders.
>
>Can we make sure this never happens again, without changing the
>rules? Personally, I don't like the idea that whenever we don't
>have a budget, Mark and Scott can get together and spend anything
>they want out of the club's account, and later try to rationalize
>it to the rest of us. The argument that waiting for the next
>meeting to spend any money is too long is valid, though.
>What can we do?
>Well, first of all, the September meeting should not have been
>adjourned without an approved budget. Period. Not even to set
>a record for the shortest meeting in club history. This is not
>just Mark's fault; all of us (including those not present)
>contributed to this. This would have solved the problem of the
>usual operating expenses.
I think any realistic person can see the problem with asking 10 officers
and chairpersons, on the fly and without notes, to try and duplicate in 1
minute a task that takes prepared people at least an hour to accomplish.
Not to mention the problem of asking all the members in attendance to sit
through such a fiasco and then having to amend it at the next meeting
anyway... all because one person simply didn't get enough sleep and forgot
the handouts on his desk.
>That still leaves the issue of the
>"emergency" purchase of the speakers.
>Frankly, I think the club should be able to anticipate anything
>as important as the purchase of the speakers was supposed to
>have been. In the real world, things don't always happen that
>way. That's why the officers have their little slush funds.
>Well, that wouldn't have covered the speakers, yet we "had to
>have them."
All true.
The officers knew for a month that the old speaker was broken.
During the summer "brainstorming" sessions the president even suggested
that the club upgrade the stereo, and the treasurer posted it to the
discussion list for all to see.
The purchase of the new speakers was somehow forgotten while the officers were:
organizing 5 different August field trips, 3 officer meetings for planning
the Fall events, organizing the August Tango class, requesting rooms for
fall classes, moving the storage cabinet from Krannert to Freer, creating
the class schedules, finding and hiring the instructors, organizing the
Quad day effort, typing in 750 email addressess, submitting proposals to
the Illini Union Board for dances, submitting proposals to the Illini Union
Courtyard for dances, meeting with the IUB, submitting proposals to the
Illini Union space utilization office for dances, buying new CD's, taping
new dance music, holding 3 dances in September, holding an effective
teaching workshop, updating the web page, producing the approximately 2000
copies of 10 different flyers and calendars that we distributed, buying new
videos, planning the competition, submitting the SORF applications,
registering the club with the UofI, starting the Salsa Formation Team,
organizing the Swing Formation Team, and answering phone calls and email
from club members.
Well, OK, but what have they done for us... LATELY? Forgetting to add a
line item for new speakers to the 50 line budget is inexcusable. What do
they think this is, a volunteer organization?
>There is a proper way to handle this. It involves taking responsibility.
This insinuation is outrageous. I believe that you owe all the officers a
public appology. No pun intended, but put your money where your mouth is:
after you appologize, become an officer.
>Nobody should be spending club money unless it's authorized by the club.
That may be your opinion, but that is not what our Bylaws state.
>That doesn't prevent anyone from
>spending his own money and later being reimbursed by the club.
Been there, done that. I have given the DI many interest-free loans.
Hundreds of dollars of interest-free credit on each of several occasions.
As much as $600.00 at once. Scott does it all the time too. So does
Yahna, Sheena, Tanja, Derek, etc. I fact, as I look through my stack of
receipts I see that the club owes me over $60 right now. How much does the
club owe you, Mr. Responsibility?
>Yes, the speakers were $1000, and this was September, after
>the dreaded month where assistants don't get paid. Still, if
>it was really that urgent and important to get speakers,
>those who thought so could have paid and hoped that the club
>would later vote to reimburse them.
Been there, done that. It didn't need to be done this time because not
having an approved budget created a loophole: one which closed with the
approval of the budget at the October meeting. It was a "fortuitous window
of opportunity" if you ask me. My credit card agrees.
>And if the club doesn't vote to reimburse them, the club's
>money should not have been spent, and they effectively punished
>themselves. Of course, if next month a bunch of officers come
>back saying that they made an emergency unbudgeted trip to
>Hawaii and they want the club to reimburse them, the club
>needs to be free to tell them that that's not an appropriate
>expense and vote it down.
If, if, if. You don't seriously consider this to be a threat, do you? If
you do, I'd suggest that you attend one of the free Treasurer workshops
offered thru the Registered Organization Office in 280 Illini Union. There
you'll get a 30 page handbook of procedures for handling money, and learn
that the Treasurer is personally responsible to the UofI for all
transactions. Do you want to talk about responsibility? In the workshop I
organized this summer, I was personally responsible for the $1300 in
receipts - if the money collected didn't match the number of tickets sold,
guess who would have had to make up the difference? I spent all that time
organizing it, I took all that risk and what happened? I didn't even get
to dance; I watched the whole workshop in black and white through a
half-inch viewfinder so the DI could have it on tape. Responsibility?
Let's talk about selflessness. Let's talk about devotion to a cause.
Let's talk about how this club would have 23 members right now instead of
230 if it wasn't for the ongoing efforts of the current group of officers
and their desire to provide the highest quality of instruction and a
forward-thinking, sensible curriculum.
>That means that the meetings need to be run in a way to
>encourage discussion, which isn't happening -- I believe that
>if that ridiculous expenditure were actually made, the club
>would probably approve it because we would be too timid to do
>anything else. Can this situation be improved? I think so, but
>it means stepping on a few people's egos, so I guess we're stuck
>back where we started.
>
>--J
>"The river's just a river. . ."
I have yet to hear one negative review of the stereo upgrade. If you come
across one, please post it here for all to see.
Since you can be assured that "ridiculous expenditures" won't be made (see
above), may I suggest you turn your attentions elsewhere? Here's a problem
that might benefit from your analysis: I just found out that two
tutor-instructors (coincidentally, the same two people who came to the
October meeting, ate their fill of pizza, instigated and abetted the
criticism of the stereo upgrade, then stormed out) used their keys to the
DI storage cabinet to remove the club stereo last weekend. They took and
carted it across state lines for their personal enterprise.
Imagine that.
I can't.
Hell, I couldn't make up something like that if I tried.
How should this be handled? Should they be asked to give their keys back?
What if they've made copies? Should they be charged $50 so the officers
can buy 3 new padlocks and issue new keys to the members who haven't abused
their key privileges?
I've never heard of anything like this happening before - it's certainly
one for the books.
Mark Balzer
DI member