The McMaster marching band has faced several challenges this year. The most significant of these is the fact that band just received their yearly funding on Nov. 24, three months after it should have been given to the club.
Meanwhile, the group has been collecting interest on a set of drums, purchased with the intention of paying them off with the 2014-2015 funding allocation.
These funds are collected from undergraduate students as part of their supplementary tuition fees. The University collects 90 cents per student which funds equipment upgrades, travel expenses, and other costs of the McMaster marching band.
At the Student Representative Assembly meeting on Nov. 15, Miranda Clayton, President of the McMaster Marching Band, spoke out about this issue. Until Nov. 24, the band was given no indication when they would receive their funding. That day, they received an email from the university telling the group they could come pick up their funding.
The confusion has resulted because of the dual status of the marching band – they collect a yearly fee from each student, classifying them as a non-university, non-MSU fee-collecting levy group. At the same time, they are an MSU club.
“Because we have this dual status, when I went to go talk to the university about the fact that we did not get our funding, they said talk to the MSU,” said Clayton. “When I talked to the MSU about the fact that we did not get our funding, they said talk to the university.”
This is not the first year that the funding for the marching band has been delayed. Clayton encountered the same problem last year and says that she was promised that this would never happen again.
Scott Mallon, MSU VP (Finance), along with the MSU finance committee is now working with the university to sort out this issue.
“It’s my understanding that the MSU gets their fee from the university and then we pass it on to the marching band,” said Mallon. “We just got our [allotment] at the beginning of November, our fees back from university, so we are in the process of setting everything up.”
“I’m sure that the funding will get resolved, but we are angry that it has taken this long,” said Clayton.
Funding isn’t the only issue that the Marching Band has encountered. The group, which has close to 70 members, does not have an on-campus practice space.
“We will have to pay $800 every two months for practice space [off-campus],” said Clayton.
This year, the McMaster Marching Band is playing at five Santa Clause parades in the greater Toronto area, and is in demand for more. In the past, the marching band has participated in international competitions and even backed Serena Ryder while she played “Stompa” at the ET Canada New Year’s bash.
“We do so many things everywhere but we feel like we’re not welcome at home,” said Clayton. “We love the student body at Mac, and what we want to do is provide a great show for everybody at Mac. But the school itself is making it so hard to do this because we don’t have the practice space.”
Despite this, the Marching Band has made some progress in its relationship with the university. Clayton is currently discussing the marching band’s role at sporting events with Athletics and Recreation, which could result in an increased presence. The marching band may also have a bigger role in Welcome Week in the future.
The university has also donated space in Bates residence for the marching band to store their instruments, which has been a major obstacle for the group in the past.
“[We are only a club], which is a little bit of why we feel like we’ve had some trouble getting more respect from the institution,” said Clayton. “We do feel like we have outgrown clubs, and I have brought it up before that we should be transferred to either a service or something else. Ultimately, we need a better place within the university.”
Watch the live-feed from the SRA meeting on Sept. 29. The bulk of bylaw 5 discussion begins at 40:35. For the full video feed, click here.
After a tumultuous week in the world of student politics, the question of ancillary student fees has been put on hold.
The proposed amendments to a McMaster Students Union bylaw which would see five student groups go to triennial review by referendum did not pass at the meeting of the Student Representative Assembly on Sept. 29.
The amendments, proposed by the Finance Committee under the leadership of Commissioner Daniel D’Angela and with the support of VP Finance Jeff Doucet, sought to bring greater financial transparency and accountability to the set of non-MSU, non-university administered groups.
Each of the affected groups was given an opportunity to voice their concerns at the meeting.
“We think there are better, more effective ways to bring conversations with students, and to create more meaningful conversations,” said Kathryn Chan, co-president of Engineers Without Borders, to those present. She explained that her organization was interested in transparency, though not through what they considered time-consuming referendums.
“We think that [the referendums] come at a cost of decreased quality in the work that we do,” Chan said.
Miranda Clayton, president of the McMaster Marching Band, echoed Chan’s sentiment.
“While the changes have good intentions, they ultimately harm the groups involved,” she said.
The McMaster Marching Band was granted a student levy to the amount of $0.90 per student for the 2013-2014 academic year after winning a referendum in January 2013.
Although each of the five groups opposed proposed bylaw framework, the discussion highlighted that issues with the amendments were rooted in the drafting process.
While the groups felt a referendum was taxing, Doucet and the Finance Committee believed such a model was best for maintaining group autonomy.
“All these groups are very different, so…it’s hard to come up with a solution,” he explained. “But one thing they all had in common was going to referendum to get student money.”
Lexi Sproule, co-president of EWB, felt that the perceived lack of consultation was a miscommunication between groups.
“It’s a pretty classic misunderstanding between people making strategy decisions and people on the ground.”
After nearly two hours of discussion, the decision was made to send the proposal back to the finance committee for a more thorough consultation process.
D’Angela explained that the Finance Committee has now asked for policy suggestions from each group on “how to improve students democratic input into the fee” and a period of consultation is expected to follow.
After paying tuition, many students may not know what happens to their money. But organizers within the McMaster Students Union are working to see that changed, and show students what happens to their fees.
The finance committee of the MSU has proposed changes to a bylaw that would see student groups have their levies put up to referendum on a regular basis. The bylaw in question deals specifically with the five non-MSU, non-university organizations that currently receive a portion of student funding.
“What this bylaw essentially does is give [students] more information on where their money is going,” said Daniel D’Angela, MSU Finance Commissioner and Social Science SRA representative.
The groups that fall under this category are Ontario Public Interest Research Group, McMaster, Engineers Without Borders, Incite Magazine, the McMaster Solar Car, and the McMaster Marching Band. The money these five groups collect from the student body amounts to $10.86 for each full-time student.
And despite the enthusiasm of key players within the MSU, the groups affected have come out in vocal opposition of the motion.
“It’s an inefficient way to consult students,” said Lexi Sproule, co-president of the McMaster chapter of Engineers Without Borders of the proposed system.
Under the changes, EWB and the other four organizations would have their levy put on the presidential ballot as a referendum for students to vote on every three years.
“It’s not very in-depth feedback,” said Sproule. “Even if you get approved, you don’t know if students have any issues with how you run things. It’s so much energy for feedback that’s kind of superficial.”
Proponents of the referendums disagree.
“I don’t think that once every three years having to spend two weeks going out and telling students about what you do, I don’t think it’s that taxing,” said Jeff Doucet,
EWB currently collects 37 cents from every full-time undergraduate student. While not making up their entire budget, the approximately $7700 it receives goes directly to funding students participating in the Junior Fellowship Program, a four-month volunteer placement overseas.
While the dollar amount per student is small, the effect the potential loss is on some of the organizations is significant.
“[Without the levy] I don’t think we’d be able to operate—that’s what keeps us going,” said Yuvreet Kaur, one of eight student board members of OPIRG McMaster.
OPIRG McMaster is one of a network of organizations across the province, which promotes social justice issues through grassroots organizing and through the funding of student and community-led working groups.
Of the five affected groups, OPIRG currently collects the largest fee, at $7.57 per student. However, the fee is refundable within three weeks of the drop and adds date in September.
“We give students the opportunity to take that money if they need it or if they don’t support the work we do,” explained Kojo Damptey, also on the OPIRG Board.
”We’re the only organization on campus that does that.”
The threat of OPIRG McMaster losing its funding is not unheard of; other OPIRG chapters across Ontario, including those at the University of Toronto and at Queen’s University, have come under scrutiny through NOPIRG campaigns, which aim to abolish the system of contributing student fees to the organization.
In the case of Queen’s, NOPIRG organizer Stuart Clark told the Queen’s Journal he was opposed to the levy because of “the use of publically available funds for certain activities that don’t reflect the values of the entire community.”
Mac’s chapter, however, feels that its values align very well with the university.
“Our current president [Patrick Deane] talked about forward with integrity—we’ve been doing that for two decades here,” said Damptey. He emphasized that the working groups funded by the group, which address a range of social justice issues, are the product of student ideas.
“There are certain working groups that a lot of the McMaster population is familiar with,” echoed Board Member Sabeen Kazmi. “Other groups…like the McMaster Farmstand and MACycle started under OPIRG.”
OPIRG and the other four organizations involved are seeking not only to make students and SRA members aware of their role on campus, but also to voice their opposition to the process of the bylaw changes being made.
Sam Godfrey, co-editor-in-chief of Incite Magazine, expressed her concern with the idea of a referendum to determine fees.
“It’s hard to measure worth…by whether the majority of students read [Incite]. If you only funded things that the majority wanted, you wouldn’t have the same kind of community at Mac.”
However, D’Angela said that his impression was that the groups were in support of amendments.
“I met with them midway through the summer, the fee holders, and overwhelmingly, I’d say they agreed with increasing with transparency,” he said.
Sproule explained that while EWB is completely supportive of financial transparency, no mention of the proposed changes was made.
“All we heard was ‘great job’…what are we supposed to do with that? If we’d heard they had concerns, we’d be happy to change things,” she explained.
The bylaw changes were made within the Finance Committee but did not involve any further consultation with the groups.The process of amendment also didn’t involve notifying the groups when the motion was set to go to the SRA for voting; a system that was met with concern by OPIRG, Incite, and EWB, but to others was not problematic.
“If the finance committee decides to make a change because they feel we need more democratic input, should they notify the groups in advance that they make their change, before it goes public? I’m not sure if that will change the conversation that much,” said Doucet.
The discussion on the proposed changes will continue at the upcoming SRA meeting, scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 29.
Despite the opposition raised by the five groups, who are expected to present at the meeting, D’Angela and Doucet stand by the Finance Committee’s suggestion.
“If students want to have democratic input, referendum is the most efficient way to do so,” said Doucet.
“We think that the students are smart, they are intelligent people and they’re able to weigh the pros and cons of any single vote,” explained D’Angela upon being asked about the effectiveness of a referendum.
“We think that students are able to make decisions if you give them the right information and give them the important information.”
In a referendum attached to this year’s Presidential Ballot, students voted ‘Yes’ to award the McMaster Marching Band 90 cents from student fees next year to support their actions.
Marching Band President Joshua Patenaude, a fourth-year BioPsych student, explained how the club has made both short-term and long-term plans for this new wave of funding.
“In the short-term we will be repairing everything we have. Everything needs repairs. But in the long-term, we’ll be building up our instrumental set and replacing instruments that have gone beyond the point of repair.“
The McMaster Marching Band will be receiving close to $20,000 next year because of the new levy. The band has budgeted for the monies to be predominantly spent on instruments, while also allocating some funds towards instructional costs and uniforms.
Queen’s University has a $5 levy attached to their student fees, while Western requires the members of its marching band to pay a $200 introductory fee.
Marching band members at Mac have typically paid a $65 membership fee, $250 in uniform fees and a miscellany of fees attributed to their respective instruments and music.
Patrick Osborne, a Marching Band VP and third-year Business Informatics student noted that this funding does not completely solve all of the band’s problems.
“The $20,000 is not sufficient right away. But we wanted to shoot for long-term stable amount of funding. Five years down the road we think $20,000 is what the band should be able to be sustained upon,” said Osborne.
The members all agreed that the funding will significantly lower financial barriers which would preclude students from joining the band. Miranda Clayton, the band’s promotions director described how certain instruments, such as the sousaphone, the instrument she plays in the band, are more expensive than the average cost of repairs.
Other major expenses include instructional costs, drum line replacements and possibly budgeting for the introduction of a colour guard to perform along with the marching band.
SRA passes motion to allow club to ask for a levy of $0.90 per student
Three years ago, Joshua Patenaude attended the very first general meeting of the McMaster Marching Band.
It was small then. It had just received ratification as an MSU club, and was finding its feet with meager funding and only a few members.
But now that the Band has grown in size and in reputation, Patenaude, who is now group’s president, feels that it’s time to move forward.
“We’ve been doing a lot of it on our own,” he said, “but it’s gotten to the point where we need funding to continue on.”
When the student body votes for the McMaster Students Union’s next president in January, a referendum question will appear on the ballot. It will ask whether students are willing to pay $0.90 each annually (indexed to CPI) to support McMaster’s marching band.
If passed, the fee would provide the band with close to $19,000 next year.
The money would go to costs like buying and repairing instruments, renting practicing space, investing in new uniforms, paying instructors and covering fees charged to play at certain events.
“We think this [money] will go a long way to sustain the band and to keep it open to the McMaster community,” said Patenaude.
Western University has had a marching band since 1938. The Queen’s Bands have been around since 1905.
Students wishing to join the marching band will continue to pay a membership fee, likely in the $65-$75 range, said Patenaude. The added money will, though, make the band more accessible in other ways. Members will not have to provide their own instruments, and the size of the band could expand to upwards of 70 people.
“If you have a passion about music, if you have a passion about committing to the spirit of McMaster, we want to make that a reality for you. We don’t want obstacles in the way,” said Patenaude.
The referendum was approved by the SRA at its Nov. 25 meeting.
In order to get a referendum on the presidential election ballot, a student must either collect the signatures of three per cent of the full-time undergraduate student body (roughly 600 signatures) or get approval from the SRA.
As they put together a proposal for the latter, the Marching Band was also collecting signatures. By the meeting, they had collected 391.
The Marching Band had initially asked the SRA to approve a proposal for a $1 fee per student. According to their budgeting, that number would cover operating expenses while leaving a little wiggle room for growth or unanticipated capital purchases. The Assembly chose to instead approve $0.90, which would only cover the expected operating costs.
Balloting for the MSU presidential election, and for the referendum, will take place from Jan. 29 to 31.
