Missing formal hearings costs some groups money

Something strange happened at Thursday’s Student Government Board meeting.

People showed… Something strange happened at Thursday’s Student Government Board meeting.

People showed up.

The Pitt Rowing Club, informally known as the crew team, attended the weekly SGB meeting in numbers unheard of this year while the Board received a recommendation regarding a prospective trip to South Carolina for the crew team.

Anyone searching for the usual calm of scattered pre-meeting conversation would have been lost. Crew members clung to the walls and crammed two to a seat, ready to go to war.

Comparatively smaller packs of students snickered and jostled for positioningas the crew team filed in.

Two seats reserved for absent board members were spun around and handed to the audience.

After announcing seven other recommendations, the Allocations Committee chair, Josh Taylor, got to the Rowing Club’s recommendation, in the amount of $0.00. In mass, the crew team took to their feet.

“Is anyone here from rowing?” President Brian Kelly said with a laugh.

Crew Business Manager Kristian Pearson stepped forward.

“First of all, this is our team,” he began with a gesture to the crowd standing behind him. “We know that this is a lot of money. We know that we request a lot of money from you, but just know that we don’t do it on a whim.

“Every single year we ask for a lot of money, [but] we back it up,” he added.

The team raised $20,000 in 2003 through fundraising activities, according to Pearson.

Pearson lobbied for funds to help cover the cost of a trip and training session in the south.

“There isn’t one competitive squad in the Northeast that doesn’t go down and get in the water,” Pearson said. “It’s not a spring-break party trip. It’s not a spring-break anything. It’s spring training.”

Board member Joe Pasqualichio questioned Pearson as to why his organization did not attend the formal appeal of the recommendation before it reached the board.

Pearson responded that, to the best of his knowledge, former SGB President Liz Culliton instructed the crew team’s previous business manager “to wait and talk to [the Board].”

“Suggestion to anyone who runs for treasurer or business manager:” Board member Charis Jones said, “Do not take that advice.”

Culliton could not be reached for comment.

Jones then voiced uncertainty about the club’s protest of the recommendation because of their absence in the appeal process.

“A couple of other student organizations had this same kind of glitch,” Jones said. “And I don’t think that we voted for them to get the funding.”

Pearson and his teammates, however, won at least for the day.

The Board unanimously voted to reject the recommendation. After a week of review in the Allocations Committee, it will return to SGB for a final decision this Thursday.