Club Funding

• The final day to submit club funding for the semester is tomorrow, Friday December 1st at 5pm. Any requests submitted by then will be reviewed by FAB on Monday, December 4th. If you are planning to program early in the winter semester (1/10-1/15), submit a budget request by tomorrow as well. FAB will likely not have their first meeting until 1/15 for the winter semester.
• Your request will be automatically rejected if:
  •  over $1000 (which require more than 1 week planning and a meeting with your FAA)
  • is vague or is missing important information for FAB to know to approve the request
  •  or does not have supporting documentation
• As has been explained, FAB has a more limited funding pool than previous academic years, specifically 37% less than we were able to allocate last year. This is because we no longer have access to a surplus of money that was built up during the pandemic. Please be mindful of your spending and know that a partial funding or rejection of a budget request does not mean we don’t support you! It just means we are trying to balance our funding to make sure all clubs have the equal opportunity to realize their mission, which financially may look different for each club. 
• Please keep in mind because of this FAB’s ability to fully fund all requests, especially multiple requests over $2000 or in some cases multiple requests over $1000, will be limited moving into the winter semester. Keep this in mind if you anticipate funding needs over $1000-2000 multiple times, and be ready to articulate what funding needs throughout the semester are the biggest priority for your group.

Club Probation

• As communicated in October, if 5 club officers in your group did not complete the online modules, your group was put on probation. A club on probation may not request funds, spend funds, or host any activities outside of regular meetings.
• To be removed from probation, all that needs to happen is 5 club officers must complete the online modules. A BCSG recognized club is required to have 5 club officers. FAB does not have the capacity to check who has completed the modules and remove people from every day, so we do it once a week on Mondays at 9pm. The final time we will review this for the Fall Semester is December 4th. We will not be checking for completion and removing clubs from probation again until the winter semester.
• For more information, please see the email from Campus Life on October 11th, or the email from FAB on October 12th.

Club Programming

• Campus Life has hosted 2 weekend programming lotteries for large scale programming this semester and for next semester. At this point, every date has been claimed by a Club/Org for the winter semester and short term. If you are a club who plans on hosting a large scale, or late night social event and does not have a set date, please be aware that a) you should reach out to Campus Life ASAP to claim a date for an event, even if you don’t know what the event may be, and b) the ability to host a late night social / large event is not guaranteed based on staffing capacity, which is why these programming lotteries were hosted and advertised two times during this semester.
• Please also note FAB’s ability to fund off campus travel or multiple large scale events is limited this year.
• If you have any questions, please reach out to Campus Life or Luke Allen, Coordinator of Campus Life Programming & Activities, lallen2@bates.edu.

New Club Applications

• The Funding and Activities Board is accepting New Club Applications for the academic year. This form opened the first day of the fall semester and closes the last day, December 8th.
• If you or someone you know is thinking about starting a club, the New Club Application MUST be submitted by December 8th. FAB will not be accepting any New Club Applications past this date, no exceptions.
  • For clarity, as long as you submit a New Club Application December 8th, even if your club wasn’t reviewed or approved by this date, FAB will still review it. We will review any existing submissions after December 8th, but will not accept new submissions after this date.
• For more information, please see https://www.bates.edu/clubs/start/

For More Information

• The Funding and Activities Board Chair gave FAB’s semester report to the BCSG Assembly on 11/29. If you’re curious about the state of the club ecosystem at Bates, you can view that report here.
• If you have any questions, reach out to fab@bates.edu, your club’s Funding and Activities Advisor, or campuslife@bates.edu.

Have a great semester! We are looking forward to working with you this winter.

Best,
BCSG Funding and Activities Board