ASA Minutes 4/4/09
Attendance: Keone, Zhao, Dylon, Rishi, Shan, Rachel, Gillian, Nan
Time: 1:15-2:45

GBM: Monday 13th
Elections (Nominations are open)
LEF/Arcade: quick reminder? nah.
Midway, currently have 30 fewer groups than last year. We should advertize,
and take away wordage that says "well, applications are closed, apply if
you want, but you're unlikely to get a spot"
Feedback? Not at GBM. Web forum?
Bulletin boards (Paul)
Tutorial on database updating?
Office allocations, so more applicants probably [than last year]. Also,
Keone has been advertizing and encouraging people to apply.


FYSM: (website app already updated for 2009!). Still create CD? Costs 2000
+ shipping (free if we piggyback off of other MIT mailings). Cost not an
issue. But we should be environmentally friendlier. So no CD, we'll send a
postcard with a link. We should e-mail asa-official about the change.
Piggyback off of May mailing (here's your athena account, etc), piggyback
off of July mailing (orientation stuff), or separate mailing (what we did
last year with the CDs). May too early, Keone will ask the orientation people
about what our options actually are.
We do need to tell people before they can submit, since they no longer have
to worry about the 10Mb limit, and so on.


Sangam:
sketchy elections
we can't really mandate they have new elections, but can suggest things
they should clarify their constitution
do we have an obligation to hold groups to the constitution we approved? Yes.
if we feel like we should step in, we can
we shouldn't jump to conclusions yet, but we can decide to open the case
appropriate to make governing decisions even if we don't have formal policy
written
next step to talk to sangam anyway, get more information. Helpful to have
Jed at the meeting, he's really good at mediation. Invite last year's board
at first anyway, not the new one.


Forum on American Progress:
Hard to find balance between what should happen and what's going to happen
anyway.
They want to change their purpose, and their name, to something more like
two other student groups.
Ie. we wouldn't have recognized them if they'd applied as what they're
turning into to. Ideally we'd dissolve them, but that's hard to do. As an
side note, it's hard to fund them anyway, since they ask for more money for
their publications than finboard can supply.
Decision: if they want to change their purpose, they have to dissolve and
reapply. (Keone will email)


Fresh fund: we pretty much agree that we should take care of this (take it
out of the UA's hands) and move forward on it.

Service frat sigma-alpha-eplison: Got kicked off MIT campus 10 years ago,
new colony wants to start. Weird situation; IFC wants them to get ASA
recognition before they recognize them, but they are either not unique
(APO) or discriminatory (single gender) and it doesn't make sense for us
to recognize them anyway. By their reputation here and nationally we also
don't buy their service story.

-Rishi