Mood:
blueNow Playing: "Here Comes The Flood" by Peter Gabriel on "Felicity"
Topic: Math Club
I found out on Thrusday from Eddie that some people were talking about not going anymore. So I sent out an e-mail saying that I heard a rumor of it and asked that if anyone was having second thoughts to please let me know. Tami replied that she was having second thoughts. Rena talked me Friday about her having second thoughts, not feeling welcome and the whole co-ed tent thing. I just got an e-mail from Dave saying he had to drop out due to midterms. That leaves 11 people, only 9 of which are, to my knowledge, committed to going. I guess I should actually drop that to 8 since even I don't want to go. Not only do I not want to go, I don't want the trip to happen. I mean deep, deep, deep down inside, I want more people to drop out. Enough to make me cancel the trip. Is that horrible of me? I mean, I'm a logical person and logically, Math Club should not take this trip. Quick math computations:
Starting balance for Spring: ~$1700
- ~$380 for jerseys: $1320
+ $908 from yard sale, car wash and booksale: $2228
- $1222.5 for sweatshirts and shirts: $1005.5
-~$140 for pies for Open House: $865.5
+ ~$500 from Open House: $1365.5
- ~$30 for SLO Brew event*: $1335.5
- $38 for mini golf event*: $1297.5
+ $250 from car wash*: $1547.5
- ~$60 for social*: $1487.5
-~$70 for drive-in event*: $1417.5
+ ~$400 from banquet ticket sales*: $1817.5
- ~$1000 for Yosemite trip*: $817.5
- ~$500 for our part of Banquet cateering*: 317.5
-~$50 for end of year BBQ*: $267.5
Okay, I had actually forgotten about money from ticket sales before I started going through it. But everything with an * is actually an unknown amount. I mean, I could be grossly over estimating how much we'll be depositing from Open House. Or with the rising gas prices, underestimating the cost of Yosemite. I mean there are a lot of factors here. But basically, the club will be left with very little money to work with for next year unless we again win the Pepsi Grant. I mean, I started at around $800 for this year and money is tight for us. Imagine how it will be for the next President. The only reason we took an end of the year trip two years ago was because there was an excess of funds. We could afford it then. We could just barely afford it last year (without the Pepsi Grant, I would have had only $300 some odd dollars to work with at the start of this year). And we can barely afford it this year. So logically speaking, we shouldn't take an end of the year trip. Something like an end of the year trip should be something more like a reward for some good fundraising, not a guarnteed event we start planning during the first few weeks of Fall quarter. I think it would be a better idea to try to make sure the Math Club becomes financially stable so it can have regular events and an annual end of the year Banquet. I mean, Rebecca was right about one thing last year: giving out scholorships and awards during UU hour in casual clothes over cookies sucks. It should be more of a ceremony to honor those receiving something. But it would suck more if we introduce this idea and then not be able to afford to make it an actual annual thing. As far as I can tell, there won't be a 3rd annual banquet.
All of Math Club has just become one huge headache. Previous years I looked forward to all things Math Club. Now I look at it as something I just have to do. A chore. Don't get me wrong, I still have fun at the events; Game Night was a blast. It's just the planning and making sure we can afford to do it and all that stuff. And my...my...I dunno, presence? Influence? Prestige? I can't find the word I'm looking for. No one has said it to my face, but I know there are quite a few people who feel that I'm a lousy President. Hell, I'm one of them. But I don't know how to make it better. It's too late now, but if only I knew what I did wrong aside from not being the overly ambitious and outgoing Rebecca.
When Rena talked to me, she said she felt like her ideas and values weren't being accepted. I'm not really sure how to put it since these are her feelings but that's about the best I can do to summerize. I guess I seemed not open to ideas. I thought I was being open to feasable ideas but I guess not. I absolutely had no intention of making anyone feel unwelcome and I feel terrible for making anyone feel that way.
You know how sometimes people ask "If you could change anything in your past, what would it be" or "Knowing what you know now, what in your life would you have done differently?" You know, something like that? Before this year, I had two things: 1) Running against Kate Cowen for Echad N'siah and 2) Leaving that one BBG event in anger which led to me going out with Chris. Perhaps had I run against Kate for N'siah and won, I would have been better prepared for this year or would have convinced myself to never be President of anything ever again. Or perhaps if I had lost (I like to think that that would have been unlikely), I wouldn't have had the delision that I could do this. But now I would amend my answer to those questions to include #3: becoming Math Club President. As in not doing it. But I do believe #1 and #3 to be intimately related. Actually, I might even back it up further to include not being a Math major. Really have to hate epiphanies for coming months, or even years later than when they could have been useful.