Posts Tagged ‘Minutes’

GSC Meeting 2007-10-31

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007

Proceedings of the October 31st, 2007 meeting


Agenda

1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Anwei!)
2) 6:00 Welcome with introductions (Kristina)
3) 6:05 Announcements (Kristina)
i. Please be aware that all meetings are recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
ii. Approve minutes from the last meeting (10/24/07).
iii. Retreat this weekend! Talk to Kristina about your attendance at the retreat, and if there is anything that you would like to add to the agenda for the retreat.
4) 6:10 Funding (Polina)
i. BioMASS
ii. Sanskriti
iii. Hindu Students Council
iv. Asha for Education
5) 6:20 Programming Update (Adam S. and Justin)
i. Grad Formal
ii. Tailgate for the Big Game, discretionary funding request
iii. Programs for winter break, discretionary funding request (Mafia Night, Chili Cookoff, New Year’s Day Social)
6) 6:30 ASSU Update (Hershey)
7) 6:35 Promotional Items (Kristina)
8) 6:45 Karaoke Proposal (Andrew Poon)
9) 6:55 GO Pass information (Kristina)
10) 7:05 Flicks Policy Board Legislative Bill (Mondaire)
11) 7:25 New Business

Attendance

Voting members present:
At large 1: Maxim Afanasyev
At large 2: Hanna Muenke
At large 3: Kristina Keating
At large 4: Zeng Fan
At large 5: Lan Wei
Business: Rhyan Uy
Earth Sciences: Kyle Anderson
Education: Unfilled (proxy Michelle Brown present)
Engineering 1: Melahn Parker
Engineering 2: Marja Mullings
Humanities: George Bloom (proxy Polina Segalova present)
Law: Shireen Barday (proxy Yan Yan present)
Natural Sciences: Fen Zhao
Social Sciences: Euan Robertson

Voting members not present:
Medicine: Yana Hoy

Others in attendance: Adam Beberg, Justin Brown, Hershey Avula, Adam Sciambi, Anwei Chan, Alex Ene, Maria Spletter, Donna Winston, Anna Khan (Sanskriti), Kousalya Balasubramanim (Asha for Education), Priyanka Shah (Stanford India Association), Raghav Goel (Hindu Students Council), DC Jagasundera, Andrew Poon

Minutes

1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Anwei!)

2) 6:00 Welcome with introductions (Kristina)

Listen to this segment

3) 6:02 Announcements (Kristina)

Listen to this segment

i. Please be aware that all meetings are recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
ii. Approve minutes from the last meeting (10/24/07).
iii. Retreat this weekend! Talk to Kristina about your attendance at the retreat, and if there is anything that you would like to add to the agenda for the retreat.

4) 6:05 Funding (Polina)

Listen to this segment

i. BioMASS:
– They get funding from sources in Medical School primarily, but ask GSC for funding for some social events that help with recruitment. Have events in April, February, January, May, November, expect 150-200 people in attendance. Recommend $2,100. Passes by consensus.
ii. Sanskriti
– Group of South Asian students, primarily Undergrads currently, so most money comes from ASSU. However, have had grad students attend their social events, and would like to make a concerted effort to recruit more graduate students. Are planning to have weekly movie events held in central campus. Rhyan asks about whether $25 is enough for recruitment, but this does get one a lot of copies, some of which will be put around grad housing areas. Recommended $385. Passes by consensus.
iii. Hindu Students Council
- Diwali, Hindu festival of lights, Working with Stanford India Association on this.
- Weekly events including yoga.
- Multifaith activities.
- Quarterly speaker series.
- Recommended $4390, passes by consensus.
iv. Asha for Education
– Same event we’ve seen before, now need more money for security guards. Old Union opening up has created some problems for student groups in terms of costs for room reservation costs and security. This apparently has been official practice before, just being more enforced now, particularly for events that are open to people outside the community. Asha had been told by someone when reserving the room that they wouldn’t need security, but that person has left, and their replacement disagrees and now is requiring them to have security or the reservation won’t be held. $215 recommended, passes by consensus.

5) 6:20 ASSU Update (Hershey)

Listen to this segment

– Mausoleum party tonight! Shuttles running, so don’t drink and drive or bike. The Castro St. party in the city isn’t happening this year, which may lead more individuals to come by the Mausoleum Party. Remember, alcohol free.
– Gender neutral housing meeting happened this week. Will get updates later.
– Bylaw revisions coming up, which Adam Beberg is working on.
– Would like to work on the Axe and Palm, to make it more like what we want in terms of performance space, etc.
– Will request funding for a Thanksgiving Airport Shuttle next week. $2750.25 request likely. Hope to make it self-sustaining in the future.

6) 6:23 Flicks Policy Board Legislative Bill (Hershey)

Listen to this segment

Make policy board for Flicks. SSE had been running it as a business, but it was losing money, so transitioned to be an ASSU service project (run by Special Fee), but the transition didn’t go so well. They only had 3 people running it this year, hard to manage money and equipment and various details necessary for a successful Flicks. Looking to create an oversight board to make sure that it’s going okay, make sure that this break in moving showings doesn’t happen again. Technology in the auditorium is being updated, should also make things cheaper. Could potentially be self-sustaining in the future.
Vote: 12 for, 0 against, 0 abstaining. Passes by 2/3 majority.

7) 6:30 Programming Update (Adam S. and Justin)

Listen to this segment

i. Grad Formal – have met with contact at museum, and have the space reserved. Have insurance and busses, still need to organize catering and music. Will meet with the contact again in two weeks to plan more details. The formal will be February 23rd. Budget not set yet entirely set, but are thinking 1000 people with $20 tickets, so $20,000 from ticket sales, plus, $16,000 from GSC, or about $36,000 for whole thing.
ii. Tailgate for the Big Game. Will be on Dec 1st. Rob Hennesey with GSPB would like to co-sponsor event. Justin will have budget request next week, probably asking for $1000. Money going for food, reserving space should be free. Kristina suggests asking Athletic department for help, since they want graduate students at games.
iii. Programs for winter break. Will submit a budget request for this next week. Plan to have one event a week during winter break, with a Mafia Night, Chili Cookoff, and New Year’s Day Social. Justin will be here over break to oversee the events. Suggestion to send the projected budgets of these events and the Tailgate to Kristina, Polina and Euan ahead of time.

8) 6:35 Promotional Items (Kristina)

Listen to this segment

Want to have things like pens and bottle openers with GSC logos – in general, small stuff to give out at events to increase awareness of the GSC. Will also have the GSC website printed on them. Ideas for possible items include pens, keychains, post-its, little lights, bike reflectors, and bottle openers. Metal bottle openers are about 1.00 each. There are concerns that the GSC logo rubs off of the metal. Pens cost about 50 or 60 cents. Melahn wants information about where the products are made, would prefer local options. Kristina will look into some more options from our brainstorm, and will submit a proposal at some point.

9) 6:48 Karaoke Proposal (Andrew Poon)

Listen to this segment

Looked into what Rains had for their karaoke previously, found the company, but couldn’t find the Rains contact to find out exactly what package they had chosen. Probably $200-400 per rental.

Low end system would cost $150, with 105 songs. 2 wired mics. Added discs range from $1-$2 a song probably. This and other systems were chosen to match the existing GSC speakers and projector, so those are not necessary components.

Middle end system includes two wireless mics. Can read a different formats of discs, so each disc can hold a lot of songs.
Machine and mics costs $259, big discs of 1234 songs cost $49 each, discs of 50 new songs cost $40.

High end system is a 400GB hard drive player costing $800. It just stores all the songs, no need to switch discs, as all songs are loaded on the HD. Doesn’t come with microphones, but could add that on. However, it might be hard to keep track of songs on the HD. Separate discs are easier to keep track of and have discs of particular themes.

Melahn asks whether other people might already have the discs so the GSC wouldn’t need to spend as much on those. People might have some, but this does not seem like it would create a sufficiently large database.

Andrew recommends the middle end, because the idea of discs seems easier than a HD. There is general agreement from the room that the middle end system is best. Michelle suggests looking into carrying cases.

Official proposal: $526, which would cover machine, two discs of old songs, two discs of new songs, tax and shipping. This money will come from reserves.

$526 passes by consensus.

10) 7:09 GO Pass information (Kristina)

Listen to this segment

Passing out history and current state of Go Pass. There are currently no plans to fund it next year, as there was a ballot measure that did not pass last year. Some students are looking into funding from the University, and will bring it to the GSC for putting it back on the ballot if they find funding. Justin asks if there is anything for the GSC to be involved in on this, but Kristina reports that there are 47 students interested in working on this, and have 3 students in particular heading that up. The FAQ Kristina hands out will be posted online soon.

11) 7:13 New Business

Listen to this segment

Michelle is interested in being the new GSC representative from the school of Education. Michelle has been involved with School of Education student group and heard about the need for a person on the GSC, and also met Donna. Approved by consensus. Will be sworn in at the beginning of next meeting.

Adjourned 7:14.

GSC Meeting 2007-10-24

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007

Proceedings of the October 24th, 2007 Meeting


Agenda

1) 5:45 Welcome with introductions (Kristina)
2) 5:50 Announcements (Kristina)
i. Please be aware that all meetings are recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
ii. Approve minutes from the last meeting (10/17/07) with the following changes:
– Add Michelle to the attendance.
– The vote on the eGroups Bill should have been recorded as 11 for, 1 against, 1 abstaining.
iii. Retreat is coming up! (First weekend in Nov). Talk to Kristina about your attendance at the retreat, and if there is anything that you would like to add to the agenda for the retreat.
3) 5:55 Funding (Polina)
i. Stanford Rollerhockey Club
4) 6:00 Programming Update (Adam S. and Justin)
5) 6:05 ASSU Update (Hershey)
6) 6:10 New Business

Attendance

Voting members present:
At large 2: Hanna Muenke
At large 3: Kristina Keating
At large 4: Zeng Fan
At large 5: Lan Wei (proxy Polina Segalova present)
Business: Rhyan Uy
Earth Sciences: Kyle Anderson
Engineering 1: Melahn Parker (proxy Justin Brown present)
Engineering 2: Marja Mullings
Law: Shireen Barday
Natural Sciences: Fen Zhao

Voting members not present:
At large 1: Maxim Afanasyev
Education: Unfilled
Humanities: George Bloom
Medicine: Yana Hoy
Social Sciences: Euan Robertson

Others in attendance: Peter Kimball, Andreas Rauschecker, Priyanka Sharma, Michelle Brown, Maria Spletter

Minutes

1) 5:48 Welcome with introductions (Kristina)

Listen to this segment

Introductions including a recently seen or favorite movie.

2) 5:51 Announcements (Kristina)

Listen to this segment

i. Please be aware that all meetings are recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
ii. Approve minutes from the last meeting (10/17/07) with the following changes:
– Add Michelle Brown to the attendance.
– The vote on the eGroups Bill should have been recorded as 11 for, 1 against, 1 abstaining, rather than 11 for, 0 against, 1 abstaining.
iii. Retreat is coming up! (First weekend in Nov). Talk to Kristina about your attendance at the retreat, and if there is anything that you would like to add to the agenda for the retreat. Will be at the Wild Palms in Sunnyvale.
iv. Thursday, 10/25/07 is Grad Night at Blue Chalk, 9pm or so.

3) 5:53 Funding (Polina)

Listen to this segment

i. Stanford Rollerhockey Club – Requesting money for:
End of season party – watch Stanley Cup finals together and get pizza.
Recruitment event – want to expand the team by having banners and fliers up, and have a recruitment dinner. Asked for money for player awards, but this does not fit into the GSC caps for student groups. $550 recommended. Passes by consensus. Priyanka, chair of Undergrad Senate, offers her help in fliering and spreading the word among students.

4) 5:57 Programming Update (Justin)

Listen to this segment

Events with GSPB on their way, working on that stuff. Location for the grad formal has been officially rented, so yay!
Peter, who is a Rains CA, is here to talk about their budget for the Halloween party. Had the funds for the entire event available, just asked for the GSC to contribute, given that it is an event available for all graduate students, not just Rains residents. Much of the event is paid for from Rains house dues, but they want to keep some of that money for their own future activities for their residents, who have actually given them their budget. We have a discussion about other potential sources of funding for the Rains parties in the future, and a reminder that our funding process typically takes two weeks. Peter will create a list of Rains events that the GSC might consider being a part of financially and will be in touch with Kristina and Euan about a possible line-item for the future, which could be a general ‘GSC working with Rains’ line-item, rather than specifics for particular parties.

5) 6:04 ASSU Update (Hershey) – Hershey is not present, so no update.

6) 6:04 New Business
No new business, adjourned 6:04.

GSC Meeting 2007-10-17

Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

Proceedings of the October 17th, 2007 Meeting


Agenda

1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Anwei!)
2) 6:00 Welcome with introductions (Kristina)
3) 6:05 Announcements (Kristina)
i. Please be aware that all meetings are recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
ii. Approve minutes from the last meeting (10/10/07).
iii. Dinner at the VPSA’s (Greg Boardman) home on Wednesday October 24th for active GSC members. It will be held during the regular meeting time, following a short amount of business. Please RSVP to Kristina if you have not done so yet.
iv. Anyone interested in being part of an advisory committee to think about how Axess can be made better? Only a few meetings per quarter are anticipated. Email Kristina if interested.
v. Health Insurance Info Sessions with Towers Perrin are Oct 31st and Nov 5th from 12-1:30pm.
vi. The retreat will be the first weekend in November.
4) 6:10 Funding (Polina)
i. Korean Student Association at Stanford
ii. Persian Student Association
iii. Asha for Education
5) 6:20 Programming Update (Adam S. and Justin)
6) 6:25 ASSU Update (Hershey)
7) 6:30 Approval of Constitutional Council Nominees (Hershey)
8) 6:35 eGroups Bill (Matt McDonald)
9) 6:45 New Business

Attendance

At large 1: Maxim Afanasyev (proxy Polina Segalova present)
At large 2: Hanna Muenke
At large 3: Kristina Keating
At large 4: Zeng Fan
At large 5: Lan Wei
Business: Rhyan Uy
Earth Sciences: Kyle Anderson
Engineering 1: Melahn Parker
Engineering 2: Marja Mullings (proxy Adam Beberg present)
Humanities: George Bloom (proxy Matt Turk present)
Medicine: Yana Hoy
Natural Sciences: Fen Zhao
Social Sciences: Euan Robertson

Voting members present:

Voting members not present:
Education: Unfilled
Law: Shireen Barday

Others in attendance: Yan Yan, Susana Montes, Koussalya Balasubramanian (Asha), Donna Winston, Mohammad Shoeybi (PSA), Hershey Avula, Justin Brown, Maria Spletter, Alex Ene, Anwei Chan, Matt McDonald, Chris Elmore, Michelle Brown

Minutes

1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Anwei!)

2) 5:59 Welcome with introductions (Kristina)

Listen to this segment

3) 6:01 Announcements (Kristina)

Listen to this segment

i. Please be aware that all meetings are recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
ii. Minutes from the last meeting (10/10/07) are approved by consensus.
iii. There is a dinner at the VPSA’s (Vice President of Student Affairs) (Greg Boardman) home on Wednesday October 24th for active GSC members. It will be held during the regular meeting time, following a short amount of business. Please RSVP to Kristina if you have not done so yet. For the meeting part, we will meet in the ASSU office in Old Union. It’s on the 1st floor, on the right hand side. Meeting will start at 5:45.
iv. If anyone is interested in being part of an advisory committee to think about how Axess can be made better, you should email Kristina. Only a few meetings per quarter are anticipated. Justin has expressed interest, but others are welcome as well.
v. Health Insurance Info Sessions with Towers Perrin are Oct 31st and Nov 5th from 12-1:30pm. Towers Perrin is the company that looks for health insurance for Vaden, so they’re the ones who negotiate our health insurance. If anyone is interested in being on the healthcare committee, you should really try to attend.
vi. The retreat will be the first weekend in November (Friday the 2nd to Sunday the 4th). Will be held in Sunnyvale, so some flexibility if people can only attend for parts of it.

4) 6:06 Funding (Polina)

Listen to this segment

i. Korean Student Association at Stanford
Having the following events:
– End of year party – goodbye to graduating students.
– KSAS Welcome Party – social event among Korean students. Expect 100 new students, 350+ members.
– Lunar New Year’s Day Party.
KSA is one of the largest student organizations on campus, which is why reason for the very large budget, which is the maximum for a student group per year.
We had talked about last year about having a cohesive Lunar New Year’s Day Party, but Fen looked into that with leaders of possibly interested student groups and found that they preferred their separate events.
Recommended $8000, passes by consensus.

ii. Persian Student Association
Having a Fall party – night of dancing and socializing with DJ. For honorarium, we give first $100, after that, groups have to match.
Recommended $800. Passes by consensus.

iii. Asha for Education
Had been here before, but the recommended amount wasn’t enough due to missing information at the time. There wasn’t money given for a location at the first request, because we thought it’d be for free, but Tressider is charging, so $180 is given for that. Also hadn’t given money for sound equipment because the GSC has some equipment to give out to groups, but figured out afterwards that the GSC equipment would not be sufficient for the event’s needs, because they need to be able to mix more mics than our system allows. Had previously given ~1000, an additional $900 now recommended.
$900 passes by consensus.

5) 6:15 Programming Update (Adam S. and Justin)

Listen to this segment

Down period now, supporting other groups in their programs. Coming up next is the Rains Halloween Party, organized by their CAs. Will ask for money from the GSC soon for security, because they’re a little short. The Rains CA did help a lot at our Welcome Back Party, so us helping at their Halloween Party would be good. An email will go out about that. Event will be on Saturday October 27th.
The Grad formal, put on by the Programming Committee, is still in the works.

6) 6:19 ASSU Update (Hershey)

Listen to this segment

– Hershey did an update for the Senate recently, but we’ve gotten most of the news via the weekly updates.
– The Housing Committee is meeting for the first time in 2-3 weeks. Kyle is on that committee, and Alex is an alternate.
– The Registrar’s office, in collaboration with a Senate member is working on updating Axess.
– Mausoleum party is in two weeks! (On actual Halloween at 9pm.)

7) 6:21 Approval of Constitutional Council Nominees (Hershey)

Listen to this segment

Two representatives on the Council left because they graduated, so need new members. The Constitutional Council Interview Committee met on Monday, selected the students from among the 5 applications they received. Have chosen Lindsay Heyen, a 2nd year law student, and Bernard Fraga, who is an undergrad who was Elections Commisioner last year. The GSC needs to vote to approve the nominees.
13 for, 0 opposed, 0 abstaining. Passes by required 2/3 majority.

8) 6:23 eGroups Bill (Matt McDonald)

Listen to this segment

Capital Group, which is a part of SSE, has run an eCommerce site. Ran it as service, not for profit. Would like to update the system to make it more robust and let it better fit student needs. Will use $15,000 from their money, asking $1000 from both us and undergrad senate, as a primarily symbolic gesture of student support for the system. Asking University for $55,000. It is in the university’s best interest to keep this running, so they’re hopeful the university will give the needed money in support. eGroups needs to bill some transaction fees, but this mostly just covers required fees of the University, and barely covers costs. Keeping this site up and running would definitely be cheaper than other alternatives, particularly for students. It is our code, so we’re allowed to work on it. Are working with the same developer who made the site the first time, and ongoing maintenance will also be through this person, which will reduce costs.
The site has served approximately 70 groups, with 26,000 transactions. This includes graduate student groups, including GSC for the recent bus trip to San Francisco, the GSPB, big ticketed events use it too. Future costs for us will be only transaction costs, which isn’t too bad. For the bus trip for example, there was a total $26 fee for the 94 $5 tickets sold.
Melahn objects to consensus because the $1000 is negligible for what they need, and doesn’t feel it’s a good use of graduate student money. Thus, the bill goes up for a vote.
11 for, 1 opposed, 1 abstaining. Passes.

9) 6:32 New Business

Listen to this segment

i. Justin presents funding request for the Rains CA Halloween party. Need to pay for 5.5 hours of work for 2 Stanford security guards, which comes to $412.50. The Halloween Party is open to all graduate students, and most of it is paid for by Housing. In the past, the GSC has given money to this event, but the CAs didn’t request it as a line-item this year. There is a question as to why the CAs are needing to request additional funds for this event. It may be because they have had many events this quarter already.
Rhyan is concerned about giving them more money just because they have overspent. Justin points out that we are paying for security specifically, which is perhaps a little better and more necessary than contributing to having more drinks for example, but Rhyan would have wanted them to budget better and include the cost for security in their budget. Kristina reminds us that the CAs help a lot at our parties, so it is appropriate for us to help them out.
Voting on giving $415.
1 objection from Rhyan, because he wants to know why they have overspent their budget. Doesn’t want to set a precedent of groups not being careful with their budget and then coming to us for money to bail them out. Because of the objection to consensus, we put the matter up to a vote.
12 for, 1 opposed, 0 abstaining.
There is a suggestion that Justin will get one of the Rains CAs to come in next week to talk about their budget situation.

ii. Kristina has an update about the bus trip to SF which was organized by Annemarie. She reports that the event was a success, with all 94 available seats sold out. We also managed to fit some last minute people too because the company sent slightly bigger busses than expected. We only charged $5 for the event this time, but a break even point would be about $18.00 per person, which includes the pizza they bought. Annemarie reports that she got many compliments and few complaints about the event. Justin reports that students did apparently have issues with paying even $5 and thinks that the event is too expensive as a whole for the GSC to pay for again. Fen says that other people would have wanted to come, but found it sold out, and thinks that people would pay more. Donna suggests that if Annemarie has contact information for the people who bought tickets for the past trip, she could contact them again and ask how much they would be willing to pay for tickets. Chris from eCommerce reports that this info can be gotten, so this could be pursued. Donna points out that CAs might be willing to chip in with part of their neighborhood funds, which would also bring the cost to GSC down.
Adam B. likes that the event sounds like it could be self sufficient, so yay!
Rhyan thinks that $15 isn’t so bad, and agrees that self-sufficient would be nice.
In terms of the event itself, Fen reports that the bars were contacted ahead of time, but they couldn’t find one that would fit everyone, so people got spread out. Also couldn’t get bar specials (bars over there are pickier are apparently), but this didn’t seem to be too big a deal to participants.
Alex wonders whether $5 each way would sound better than asking for a higher price in one piece.
Michelle brings up the point that $15 is still more expensive than hanging out at home. Kristina suggests that Annemarie listen to the recording of this section of the meeting, so that she gets the comments without the editing of the note taking process.
Overall expenses were $1395 for the bus, $248 for pizzas, and $59 for barf bags, for a total cost of $1702.40. Estimated ticket sales were $362.90 (94 tickets sold). Thus, total cost was $1341. Splitting this cost with the GSB, our half of the cost was $670.65.

6:52 adjourned.

GSC Meeting 2007-10-10

Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

Proceedings of the October 10th, 2007 meeting


Agenda

1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Anwei!)
2) 6:00 Welcome with introductions (Kristina)
3) 6:05 Announcements (Kristina)
i. Please be aware that all meetings are recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
ii. Approve minutes from the last meeting (10/3/07).
iii. GSB student activities fair is on Wednesday October 31st from 11am-2pm. Can anyone be there to man the table with Rhyan?
4) 6:10 Funding (Polina)
i. Hellenic Association of Stanford
ii. 49ers Academy Teaching Team
iii. Mexican Student Association
5) 6:20 Programming Update (Adam S. and Justin)
6) 6:25 ASSU Update (Hershey)
7) 6:30 Thanksgiving Dinner update (Zeng and Kyle)
8) 6:50 New Business

Attendance

Attendance:

Voting members present:
At large 1: Maxim Afanasyev (proxy Polina Segalova present)
At large 2: Hanna Muenke
At large 3: Kristina Keating
At large 4: Zeng Fan
At large 5: Lan Wei
Business: Rhyan Uy
Earth Sciences: Kyle Anderson
Engineering 1: Melahn Parker
Engineering 2: Marja Mullings
Humanities: George Bloom (proxy Matt Turk present)
Law: Shireen Barday
Medicine: Yana Hoy
Natural Sciences: Fen Zhao
Social Sciences: Euan Robertson

Voting members not present:
Education: Unfilled

Others in attendance: Maria Spletter, Adam Beberg, Anwei Chan, Carlos Lever (Mexican Students Association), Matt McDonald, Donna Winston, Justin Brown (49ers Academy), Justin Brown, Susana Moltes, Thanos Bismoigiannis, Gabriel Tarridis, Paris Georgoudis (HELLAS), Alex Ene

Minutes

1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Anwei!)

2) 6:00 Welcome with introductions (Kristina)

Listen to this segment

3) 6:03 Announcements (Kristina)

Listen to this segment

i. Please be aware that all meetings are recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
ii. Minutes from the last meeting (10/3/07) are approved by consensus.
iii. GSB student activities fair is on Wednesday October 31st from 11am-2pm. Can anyone be there to man the table with Rhyan? Will send out an email to ask for volunteers.
iv. Bylaw updates are coming up, to reflect changes made to the constitution. Adam B. would like someone who will be around for the next couple of years to join in, so that they can absorb the history of the governing documents and how they’ve been rewritten, and then pass that knowledge on in a few years. Talk to Adam B if interested.

4) 6:06 Funding (Polina)

Listen to this segment

i. Hellenic Association of Stanford.
Hosting the following events:
– BBQ in last days before Easter fasting, which is a Greek tradition.
– Goodbye dinner at end of year, honoring those graduating.
– Greek Green Monday – Beginning of the Lent fasting for Easter.
– Greek New Year’s Celebration.
– Greek Night for Halloween – Masquerade party.
– Greek Orthodox Easter.
– Welcome Greek BBQ.
70 Graduate students in organization.
$2400 recommended, passes by consensus. (The actual voting occurs later in the meeting due to computer error because the overall amount could not be shown).

ii. 49ers Academy Teaching Team
Community Service group that teaches science labs 4 times per quarter at the 49ers Academy. Teaching 7th graders biology, and 8th grade physical sciences. For each lab, the team (about 5 people) brings in all the materials, and work with the students in small groups. Schools don’t really have the supplies to do these labs on their own, so this can make a big difference. Are requesting funding for the following:
– At end of year, 7th and 8th graders come to see labs, students and faculty members, with the idea of promoting the idea of higher education. Want boxed lunches for the students.
– Volunteer recruitment meetings. Right now there are 4 people that put together plans, need more people interested in going to classrooms and pulling those plans off.
– Volunteering at 49ers academy, for which supplies are necessary.
Recommending $1940. Passes by consensus.

iii. Mexican Student Association
– Mexican Dinner with traditional Mexican food and sweets (not TexMex)
– Mexican Posada recognizing the approach of Christmas
– Three Wise Kings Day
– Welcome BBQ
Recommended $1718.00. Passes by consensus.

5) 6:19 Programming Update (Adam S. and Justin)

Listen to this segment

Welcome Back Party was a great success and was a fun and safe event, with an estimated attendance of 1142 people. There are some cleaning fees and possible damage fees to Rains areas still pending, but event should come in under budget. Email Justin if you have comments about the party, or ideas for future parties. Adam S. suggests buying taps for future parties, because they cost $20, while the rental deposit is $50, and often a tap disappears at some point during parties. A photographer from the Daily took some pictures, which have been posted online. We view some of them during the meeting.
The next big plan for the Programming Committee is the Grad Formal, which doesn’t occur until February.
However, the GSC is doing work with the GSPB, which meets 12:30 on Tuesdays in Old Union, if anyone would like to join them. The SF Night trip is this Friday, co-sponsored with GSPB and GSC. Also working on Tailgate for Dec 1st Big Game between GSC and GSPB. Will most likely be able to get money from GSBP, but may ask GSC later.

6) 6:25 ASSU Update (Hershey)

Listen to this segment

Matt McDonald’s update – This Friday is the last day to request a refund of student fees.
Hershey’s update –
-The Constitutional Council Interview Committee will be meeting on Monday.
– Applications for the Old Union Programming Board were due yesterday, so this group should be starting soon.
– Old Union doesn’t have an online reservation system yet, instead have paper calendars by the door of each room, so you can sign up there.
– The Mausoleum party will be on Halloween night, 9pm-midnight
– They organized an impromptu party after Stanford football beat USC, which included a DJ and had very high attendance.
– Homecoming is this weekend. There will be diversity events during Homecoming weekend including students and faculty and alumni. Marja will have more details later.
– Working on consolidating a class website with textbook exchange, course feedback including qualitative, etc. Perhaps even include individual graduation updates with requirements met and such.

7) 6:30 Thanksgiving Dinner discussion (Zeng and Kyle)

Listen to this segment

– Previous attendees report decent food, fun event, and that the greater number of spots open last year for participants was a good change.
– The cost last year was $25 per person, probably $26 this year (not charged to individuals, but covered by the funding from Provost’s office, which George is working on securing). They will get an official quote in upcoming days. Much of the cost is renting supplies, tents, chairs, etc, so there is some discussion about indoor places on campus that might work instead. Suggestion for using Old Union, have big main space, some courtyard space. Jeanette Smith Laws is person to contact for that. Kyle will look into the cost of the tents, and Kristina will look into whether Arrillaga or the Alumni center are available, though people suspect that those facilities require Stanford catering to be used, which is likely more expensive. Adam S. suggests looking into using Maples.
– Another point is that labor cost is a big portion of the expense, since it’s Thanksgiving, and therefore ever helper gets double time. Hopefully more people will be able to volunteer to bring the cost down.
– They have an email set-up for the Thanksgiving event, Stanford.thanksgiving@gmail.com. There will also be a website with reservations and such that Matt is working on. The fall mailing will go out soon, so web site should be up before that.

8) 6:41 New Business

Listen to this segment

i. The GSC Diversity Committee met today and has some updates.
– The VPGE diversity steering committee is looking for at least one member, and would like some representation from the Medical school. Also, many on the committee are 4th and 5th years, so younger students would be good as well. Are also looking for someone to read applications to the committee, which Kristina volunteers to do. Polina points out that the Med school has its own governing board, which would be a good recruitment point. BioAIMS and BioMass would also be good contacts to get in touch with.
– This Saturday morning, 9-11am, on the second floor of Old Union, there will be a discussion on faculty and graduate student diversity, as part of Homecoming weekend. Encouraging all to come.
– Are working on a program called ‘Standout’ with the goal of encouraging PhD hopefuls to attend Stanford. Are looking for volunteers for that, with a specific request to the programming committee, because social events will be needed for that event. Marja will send out an email reminding about these points.

ii. Fen needs help entering in a couple hundred names that signed up for the Grad Events list at GOALIE. Kristina and Marja volunteer.

iii. Birthday wishes to Kristina and Donna.

iv. Adam S. asks about equipment rental policy, because there was some confusion at the party with locating the projector. They GSC is working on this problem. So far, Matt has created a website so that equipment rental doesn’t overlap, and there are plans to label all items, and move them to the GCC office downstairs.

Adjourned 6:48.

GSC Meeting 2007-10-03

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

Proceedings of the October 3rd, 2997 meeting


Agenda

1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Anwei!)
2) 6:00 Welcome with introductions (Kristina)
3) 6:05 Announcements (Kristina)
i. Please be aware that all meetings are recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
ii. Approve minutes from the last meeting (9/26/07) with the following changes:
a. The Constitutional Council Interview Committee has a total of 4 members, including the two found in the recent search.
b. Reword paragraph regarding the numbers and cost of comics that the Comedy Club has been in touch with to be as follows:
So far, 176 comics have performed, and 66 are will not perform until we can pay better. Of the 176 comics, 30 would likely perform for free, 54 would require a little payment to at least cover their gas, and 92 require more significant payment as they do this or a career. Want more funding this year to be able to pay the 66 new comics who have higher fees and continue to pay the past comics who won’t come out for free.
c. Add that other members of the Comedy Club, not just Melahn, state that attendance at events approaches 100 people.
d. A correction to what was stated in the meeting is that half of the tips collected during the Comedy Club events go to the pub bartender, and the other half to the comics. (During the meeting it was stated that all of the collected tip went to the comic).
iii. Chris Griffith has a new position with the VPSA as an Associate Vice Provost, so she will be stepping down as director of the Graduate Life Office.
iv. The Comedy Club will be charging a $5 admission fee to non-members who want to attend comedy shows.
v. Need volunteers for the Dependent Health Insurance Information Session tomorrow (Thursday 10/4) from 5-7pm.
4) 6:10 Funding (Polina)
i. Russian Student Association
ii. Black Graduate Student Association
5) 6:15 Funding Request for Bar Night in SF (Annemarie)
6) 6:20 Programming Update (Adam S. and Justin)
7) 6:25 ASSU Update (Hanna on behalf of Hershey)
8) 6:30 Karaoke machine purchase proposal (Andrew Poon)
9) 6:40 New Business

Attendance

Voting members present:
At large 2: Hanna Muenke
At large 3: Kristina Keating
At large 5: Lan Wei
Business: Rhyan Uy
Earth Sciences: Kyle Anderson
Engineering 1: Melahn Parker
Engineering 2: Marja Mullings (proxy Polina Segalova present)
Humanities: George Bloom (proxy Matt Turk present)
Law: Shireen Barday
Medicine: Yana Hoy
Natural Sciences: Fen Zhao
Social Sciences: Euan Robertson

Voting members not present:
At large 1: Maxim Afanasyev
At large 4: Zeng Fan
Education: Unfilled

Others in attendance: Adam Beberg, Constantine, An wei, Alex Ene, Maria Spletter, Justin R. Brown, Adam S.

Minutes

1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Anwei!)

2) 6:00 Welcome with introductions (Kristina)

Listen to this segment

3) 6:01 Announcements (Kristina)

Listen to this segment

i. Please be aware that all meetings are recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.

ii. Approve minutes from the last meeting (9/26/07) with the following changes:
a. The Constitutional Council Interview Committee has a total of 4 members, including the two found in the recent search (total membership was stated unclearly in the previous minutes).
b. Reword paragraph regarding the numbers and cost of comics that the Comedy Club has been in touch with to be as follows:
So far, 176 comics have performed, and 66 are will not perform until we can pay better. Of the 176 comics, 30 would likely perform for free, 54 would require a little payment to at least cover their gas, and 92 require more significant payment as they do this for a career. Want more funding this year to be able to pay the 66 new comics who have higher fees and continue to pay the past comics who won’t come out for free.
c. Add that other members of the Comedy Club, not just Melahn, state that attendance at events approaches 100 people.
d. A correction to what was stated in the meeting is that half of the tips collected during the Comedy Club events go to the pub bartender, and the other half to the comics. (During the meeting it was stated that all of the collected tip went to the comic).

iii. Chris Griffith has a new position with the VPSA as an Associate Vice Provost, so she will be stepping down as director of the Graduate Life Office.

iv. The Comedy Club will be charging a $5 admission fee to non-members of the Comedy Club who want to attend comedy shows. The comedy club is working on a process of membership, possibly including a membership fee.

v. Need volunteers for the Dependent Health Insurance Information Session tomorrow (Thursday 10/4) from 5-7pm. Matt Turk, Polina Segalova and Rhyan Uy volunteer.

4) 6:06 Funding (Polina)

Listen to this segment

i. Russian Student Association
– International Women’s Day Celebration on March 8th. Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day mix in a sense.
– Maslenitsa celebrates beginning of spring / end of harsh winter.
– Modorass – A local Russian band will be performing, with GSC funds matched from other sources.
– Victory Day celebration – marking end of WW2.
– Welcome BBQ.
Recommended $2750 total.
There is an inquiry about membership numbers, which is reported to be 100 people.
Giving $2750 passes by consensus.

ii. Black Graduate Student Association
– BGSA wrapping party over dinner – Angel Tree gifts for local children.
– Black plaza – Convergence on White Plaza celebrating Black heritage. Different local organizations, such as representatives from local churches, will be present.
– Fall PhD event – Invited Black faculty member to speak to 15-20 students about their path towards an academic career.
– Graduate School advice panel – seminar coming up this week. 70 members expected. Upper level students from a variety of majors to give advice to those getting started.
– Journey’s Forum and Visible Men Forum – Gatherings for women and men respectively, chance to have discussions about a variety of issues.
Requesting total of $1890.
The getting a lot of money from other sources, including individual schools, member fees, Provost office, event fees, etc.
Giving $1890 passes by consensus.

5) 6:14 Funding Request for Bar Night in SF (Annemarie)

Listen to this segment

-Annemarie is a member of the GSPB, and proposes a Bar Night in San Francisco sponsored by both groups. They had a good Nola’s night recently (~250 participants), which they’ll repeat through the quarter and year at various local bars. Are now organizing a pub night in San Francisco, to be held next Friday (October 12th). Busses will go from various places on campus to the North Beach area of San Francisco. North Beach is an otherwise difficult area to get to with public transportation, so it’s a good service to be able to drive students there. Food wise at the event, will have snacks at the bar in a reserved room, and will have subsidized pizza next door. Total projected cost of $1785.63, split with GSC and GSPB.
-Logistics: Will have two busses, one leaving campus at 7:30 and the other leaving at 9pm. Will leave SF at 12:30am and 2am respectively. Each bus will only really have time to make 1 trip, due to long turnaround. There will be an online reservation system, to get a better idea of space on the bus.
Melahn suggests CalTrain up, bus back, but Annemarie points out that where CalTrain drops you off wouldn’t help much in terms of getting the North Beach, and the chance to go to a new area may be a draw for participants.
There is a suggestion to have tickets, particularly since there is already an online reservation system, which might even take credit card. However, protocol is still to vote on the full amount, in case they can’t sell all the tickets. Money from ticket sales would then go back into the funding pool for GSPB/GSC events.
Vote on $895, with the requirement that tickets are sold for $5. Passes by consensus.
Annemarie would like help to load people on the second bus, because she will already be in the city by then.

6) 6:26 Programming Update (Adam S. and Justin)

Listen to this segment

Things are going well for the Welcome Back Partay. Have lights, decorations, plans for setting up, the DJ is just about set, etc. They still need more volunteers, so the sign-up sheet is going around again. Everyone who is an active member should sign up or find a proxy.
Fen reports that off-campus students are probably not hearing about the party as well as they should. Justin asks about suggestions for reaching out to them. They plan to flyer around on-campus eateries. An electronic flyer for the party has been sent to members, who should forward to constituents, which would catch some of the off-campus crowd. Kristina will try to get an ad into grad announce, which also goes to off-campus people.

7) 6:29 ASSU Update (Hanna on behalf of Hershey)

Listen to this segment

– We have created a new Old Union Programming Board (applications are out and about) and this board will be in charge of selecting events to take place in Old Union.
– Constitutional Council applications are out and we would love to have Grad students serve/apply.
– Old Union is now on its official hours (open until 2 AM, which includes the eatery)

8) 6:30 Karaoke machine purchase proposal (Andrew Poon)

Listen to this segment

Andrew is part of the Asian American student group, and they had a very successful karaoke party in Tressider last year, which they would like to repeat. Last year, they had borrowed the equipment from a student who had one. Andrew reports that other student groups are interested in using a karaoke machine / collaborating on events with one, but haven’t done so because it’s expensive to rent. If there were a machine available to borrow for free, those groups would likely make use of it and have fun events. One idea to help keep track of the machine when lending it out is to have a checklist with all the included equipment listed, which the borrowers would look through to make sure everything was packed and returned.

Andrew estimates that a machine and microphones would cost $350-500, which would not include speakers or a projector to see the words. Maintenance wouldn’t be expected to cost too much, but buying new song discs to update the offerings might add to the expense.

Go around the room to get opinions of the group. The condensed comments are below.
– People would enjoy it, and there would likely be sufficient group interest to make it worthwhile. The GSPB is apparently working on a karaoke event in the near future, and Grad night at the 750 would likely also use it.
– Concerns about the system of lending it out, but the GSC is already working on that for the speakers and should have a smoother system in place soon. The speakers being lent out have stayed in good condition, so yay for responsible students.
– Given the relative cost of renting compared to the cost of buying, might as well buy, but should look into the quality of equipment in both cases.
– Should get a system that matches with current speakers and projector.
– Suggestion that Andrew return to a future meeting with more specs for a range of systems (low, medium, high cost), including their compatibility with current equipment.
– Overall, there is enthusiasm for buying a karaoke to lend out to student groups.

9) 6:43 New Business

Listen to this segment

T-shirts are in! The women’s small are very small, but other sizes go up to Men’s XL. Justin suggests wearing GSC t-shirt to the Welcome Back Party when helping.

6:44 Adjourned