The French Club, known as EFUT, has cancelled its annual halal Christmas dinner, after finding out its funding from the U of T Students’ Union will be delayed until next year.
EFUT will not find out until January at the earliest whether they will receive funding from UTSU. At a Nov. 20 meeting, EFUT president Sitelle Cheskey was told that the UTSU campus clubs committee could not approve funds for EFUT because the club had not provided a membership list with its application. The club had held back the list due to privacy concerns, but Cheskey sent in the membership list immediately when the funding issue arose.
Approximately 150 of the 300 campus clubs submitted funding requests for the 2009-2010 academic year in October. Clubs with complete applications will be considered for funding at a board of directors meeting this Thursday. EFUT’s request for $17,020.64 will not be considered until the next board of directors meeting in January.
EFUT is already $1,000 in the hole because its executives have been paying for its activities themselves all year. At the halal Christmas dinner, attendees pay $10 for a meal, non-alcoholic drinks, and a chance to win prizes. Fifty people attended last year. As of Sunday, 82 members had replied on EFUT’s Facebook event page that they would attend this year. Cheskey said in an email to The Varsity that the club intends to now hold the event in January.
UTSU’s clubs committee accepts funding requests for campus clubs beginning in late October. This year, the committee required all clubs to submit a list of their active members, including names, student numbers, enrolment status, and email addresses. EFUT, however, maintains that providing this list would entail releasing its members’ private information, and would violate the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
When EFUT tried to set up an online portal for its members in September, the club was told by the student life office that it could not disclose the personal information of anyone who joins their online community.
“In lieu of an actual printed list EFUT invited any member of the Clubs Committee to the office to examine the membership rolls, at any time. The UTSU ignored the offer,” wrote Antonin Mongeau, EFUT alumni chair and last year’s president, in a release entitled “UTSU Cancels Christmas.” Mongeau said that many EFUT members do not trust UTSU with personal information.
Danielle Sandhu, who heads the clubs committee, said member lists were required to make sure clubs met UTSU requirements. Clubs must have at least 30 members, of which 51 per cent must be full-time undergraduates.
Sandhu added that EFUT only told UTSU about its privacy concerns last Friday, three weeks after submitting the application and after the committee had already determined that the application was incomplete.
Mongeau said that UTSU had political motives for denying EFUT’s funding. Mongeau sat on the clubs committee last year, until he was voted out by secret ballot in January. While then-VP campus life Athmika Punja called him “disruptive,” Mongeau said he was ejected because he had put in a request for UTSU’s bylaws, election procedures, and minutes.
“From where I’m standing this is purely political payback and frankly of the lowest kind,” he said.
Sandhu said the issue was purely procedural. “There’s nothing political about this,” she said. “The French Club is not the only club that had an incomplete application. It’s mainly just following the rule that I have in front of me.”
Mongeau also singled out UTSU’s budgeting calendar for criticism, saying that clubs operate from September through January without money from the union.
“I do think that it ends up being later than when clubs need it most,” said Sandhu. “Whether you’re a big club or a small club, there are a lot of expenses that members unfortunately have to bear on their own.” She said she was working with the policy and procedures committee to get a quicker timeline for club funding in place. The policy committee will meet in January.
In the meantime, EFUT and UTSU are in discussions to get EFUT’s funding in order.
