Intellectual Destitution

[aggienaut]

   The Model United Nations club at UC Davis (MUN) recently received $750 from Club Finance Council (CFC) to partially subsidize the upcoming UC Berkeley MUN Conference (UCBMUNC '05). In order to qualify for this money, MUN officers had to convince SPAC that they needed the money.

   During this conference, the MUN officers have planned a "team dinner" whereupon the 37 participants from Davis will eat at a $40 per person restaurant, and it will be subsidized by MUN club money down to $20 a plate (a $740 total subsidation).
   Club officers emphasize that this money is not the CFC money. I stated that the argument that there is no relationship between the two sources of money is the kind of financial knavery I'd expect to only hear only during an ASUCD Senate meeting.

[Poll #438856]

   When it was discussed at the meeting I grilled the officers but they were recalcitrant on the subject. Shortly thereafter we were served up the topic of "sovreignty" to practice debating. After numerous people loudly grumbled that it was a boring topic, I suggested that maybe we practice debating by using the "Team Dinner" as a topic. Secretary General Myung pointedly ignored the suggestion. I found it quite distinctly shady.

   In addition to it being in all likelihood grave misuse of CFC funds (in that we obviously didn't need the CFC money), I object to this because the dinner is STILL way out of my price range.
   I have an appointment with the Club Finance Council Program Director tomorrow morning at 9am, at which point I shall probably file a formal complaint and the SPAC people will contact the MUN officers to establish a hearing.

Comments

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

I voted 10 as in 10 being most shady.
On the other hand, there doesn't appear at this point to be any covering up of the evil activities, so perhaps shady is the wrong word. Perhaps the right word is actually: WRONG, as in "It is WRONG to solicit donations to pay for expensive dinners."

[(Anonymous)]

One day Fricke will learn to be a man. Until then, he will continue to exercise his perceived divine right to 'correct all wrongs' and inflate an already bloated ego, which is only representative of his own insecurities. It all comes down to self-image...

[citizene.livejournal.com]

You're forgetting about that $10 of legitimacy. I imagine they used the remainder to cure AIDS (a task that can only be accomplished on a full belly).

The Model U.N. team did nothing wrong

[(Anonymous)]

Believe me, I know that Model UN can get political and personal. As SecGen for 3 years, I saw 3 different USGs quit for various reasons. But from what limited information I have, in regards to the CFC monies and the expensive dinner, I honestly don't think that the Secretariat did anything unethical, immoral, or illegal. If the team has had a successful year of fundraising, that success should be APPLAUDED AND AWARDED. The Secretariat was awarding the team for its hard efforts both in fundraising and in conference preparation/performance with a very nice, partially subsidized dinner. Furthermore, the team dinner helps create a sense of family and togetherness necessary for team spirit and efficacy. A dinner is also customary, and has been for years. The dinner was not financed by CFC monies. From what I understand, CFC money would have been used for subsidizing students' delegate dues, and a receipt was to be furnished to CFC for this payment. As far as CFC is concerned, not "all money is green." If a student group has other means to afford nicer amenities, why shouldn't they enjoy them?

The contrary view would create a situation where the first $750 that the club generated through fundraising would REDUCE dollar-for-dollar the monies that the club was eligible for from CFC. This logic and its creation of disincentives to fundraise is totally ludicrous!!

If CFC felt that the functions of the Model U.N. team were unimportant to the University, or that the Student Programs and Activities Center did not want to support the Model U.N. team, then they could not fund the team because it was a bad Student Program/Activity that did not warrant any funding (and CFC would be hard-pressed to make that argument).

If CFC felt that Model U.N. was simply too flush with money to give it any, then they should have WRITTEN STANDARDS that lay out the financial strata at which organizations are simply "too rich" to be eligible for funding.

CFC's demand to have the full payment returned and the subsequent resignation of the ELECTED (and from what I understand, superb) Secretary-General of the UCD Model United Nations team is overaggressive, unfair, and bad policy.

If students did not want "their" money (i.e. team money) being spent on the subsidized dinner, then perhaps they should have either convinced the team leadership it was a bad idea, or convinced the general membership it was a bad idea, or attempted to negotiate with the Secretariat that the member's ($30) share of the subsidy be used for some other item. Even if the member lost in all of these attempts, sometimes your idea is not the winning one, and when votes are taken, sometimes your side loses. Deal.

All of that said, I appreciate Kris' true zeal for honesty and integrity in the organization and his enthusiasm to see the team grow to new heights and capabilities. I think his intentions may have been good, but the means by which he attempted to secure his goals was premature and directly contradictory to those goals. In the end, MUN is PERCEIVED as publicly disgraced and PERCEIVED as having defrauded CFC, which I do not believe to be the case.

I urge CFC to give BACK to money to the team. I also urge Catharine Myung to reassume her position. Furthermore, I implore CFC to do a self analysis about its bullying tactics, threats, and the effects that they have on disempowered students.

I would appreciate your further comment and criticism of my ideas, and if I have ANY facts wrong, I urge the reader to please let me know.

Together in MUN,

David J. Simon

[monetsfinest.livejournal.com]

I did not shoot you down. I gave you my reasons. We told the club that we were looking for a restaurant for a team dinner, and that it would be around $30 a person. When people objected, we found an alternative way to help everyone make it to the team dinner. And brought it down to what club members told us that they could afford. Also I gave you the courtesy of finding a new restaurant. I even gave you 4 nights and 3 days to find a new restaurant that we could all live with. But instead of doing something productive, and spend a little bit of time into looking for an alternative ... you basically ran to SPAC, ruined any chances for next year's club to get any funding from CFC.

MUN

[(Anonymous)]

I'll toss my thoroughly un-informed opinion in.

As a general rule, the CFC is an absolute waste of bureaucratic space (coming in a close second to the Student Court. That's right, I said it). To assume that they would be capable of making a decision based on whatever information you offered them alarms me for a number of reasons:

1). Their penchant for political idiocy.
2). Their inefficiency in regards to everything from delegating money to exisitng.
3). Their almost certain lack of applicable information in this case.

It alarms me that you would go outside of the organization and potentially destroy the years of hard work it took to build the team over something like this (particularly if you didn't even have required time or sentiment for the team to worry about restaurant arrangements, which would have surely taken less time and effort). I expect this type of behavior from a senator, but I was, until recently, fairly certain this was beneath you. You resorted to nuclear warfare when the battle required only conventional arms, have you learned nothing in political science, history or international relations?

One glaring error as well. How the hell does a subsidy dis-proportionately benefit affluent people. Seriously man, that's just idiotic. If two people have varied levels of wealth and each receive the same subsidy, by the laws of mathematics, logic, and all things holy, the poorer of the two will gain a greater advantage. Subsidies disproportionately help the poor (unless its structured to have a minimum wealth requirement).

Finally, you're assuming the only reason (or the main reason) why a person would attend the dinner at AMWest is because they have more money. I can drive a tractor through the logical loopholes here, and here it comes. The secretariat may be disproportionately represented in an AMWest dinner because:

1) They are disproportionately interested in MUN.
2) They have greater personal ties to people who would also attend said dinner.
3) They would rather not spend an evening with a conspiracy theorist and are willing to pay 20 dollars to avoid said person.

Just because one possibility happens to support your assertions doesn't mean it's true. And if this is the type of argument you made to CFC it only shows:

1) How incapable they are of reasoning logically.
2) How presenting facts to SPAC in such a light would be unethical (lies made baby Jesus cry, half-truths gave him constipation, and unsubstantiated assertions gave him a skin rash). And if it hurt baby Jesus, you can be sure it's on the wrong side of the ethical fence.
3) How much better the world would be if Dave Simon still ran the show.

And I hereby end my rant, it's been real ladies and gentlemen. And, when in doubt, ask yourself: WWJD (What Would Janet Do?)