FORCE requested funding for two conferences at the ASUA meeting on Wednesday.
Marisa Calegari, student director of the Women’s Resource Center’s Feminists Organized to Resist, Create and Empower, told the Associated Students of the University of Arizona Senate that FORCE is hoping to send two people to Feminist Camp in New York from Jan. 4-10, 2015. Calegari told the senate that the conference focuses specifically on educating college-aged individuals on feminism so they may bring their knowledge back to their campuses.
Calegari also asked for funding to send two students to South by Southwest’s Celebrate Digital Creatvity conference from March 13-17, 2015. The students would have the opportunity to learn more about marketing and programming, in addition to networking with other creative, forward-thinking individuals.
The senate was also informed that this marketing conference would allow FORCE to better reach the student body.
Calegari told the senate the budget for both conferences is $9,512, and that the WRC only has $3,300 for conferences and FORCE only has $1,000 allocated for conferences.
Based on these numbers, Calegari said $4,500 was still needed to send all four members to their respective conferences. FORCE requested $4,300, stating the extra $200 would be funded from miscellaneous budget that can be moved around.
The senate asked Calegari why the two separate conferences for two separate duos were necessary.
Calegari informed the senate this was due to the fact that not all of them being able to go to a single event at a certain time. She said she was sending the junior members to Feminist Camp so they could receive an intensive feminist training, whereas the senior members would be attending the marketing conference.
A major concern from the senate regarding South by Southwest was that it is also a music festival.
Lili Stoffen, marketing director for FORCE, said they would be going earlier in the week when the marketing portion would take place. She told the senate the music festival would take place later that week. This then led to the question of if registration was a different cost than what was on the proposed budget.
Stoffen said the registration listed on the proposed budget was the registration for only the marketing event.
The senate also said this was the first time this year the senate had received a request for funding for two conferences and asked which would be preferred if only one could be funded.
“The reason we split up is because we couldn’t both make it at the same time for each,” Calegari said. “It was mostly an issue of who could make what dates.”
Stoffen and Calegari were also asked if they had looked into other conferences that may be cheaper.
“We have looked extensively into our conferences,” Calegari said. “We have looked at them at our past meetings every month. A lot of them are either more expensive, or they don’t fit our times or they don’t fit our needs.”
When they were asked what they would bring back from the conferences, Calegari said it was a matter of their information and how they spread it.
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