Finance nonsense

Hi again everyone - it's my last frenzied post of the day, i promise!

I just had another helpful email from Sara, last year's chair, and she had this information to share:

"There is another thing that I need to let you know from the start, but that I forgot to mention in my previous email. Because we don't have our own student account, the conference committee needs to pay for EVERYTHING UPFRONT, and then apply to the various funding sources with receipts and proof of costs/payments for reimbursement. I found that to be the most stressful and tedious process of organizing the conference. The committee was wonderful last year and everyone pitched in to cover the costs, drawing from savings and credit, but the previous year, Paulina (the committee chair) fronted almost all of the conference expenses on her own, which neared $2,000. It is incredibly frustrating and somewhat daunting, I know, so I would suggest addressing the issue with the committee as soon as possible. I recall last year that the PGSS was talking about working on establishing accounts for student groups to streamline this process, but I don't know if they have gone ahead with it or not. Perhaps it is worth looking into or talking to the GSA about. "




Not going to lie, this freaks me out a fair deal. I definitely DO NOT WANT to run our finances this way, seems far too stressful for its own good, nor do I expect any of you to carry that kind of financial burden either (and do I even have $2,000 to my name at the moment? that's a whole other issue, haha). I'm happy to cover smaller costs upfront for the time being (like a CFP design honorarium or something) but anything large is an unreasonable request of any of us, really.

What I'm going to try to do, then, is meet with Jacinthe Deschenes, who is the PGSS Student Life Coordinator (she controls all the student association accounts) sometime this week. I sat in on a meeting between she and Alexandra last week re: the finances for our Graduate Student Association, just so we could meet and I could tell her that I would be organizing our conference. She's really lovely and if anyone would know how to establish an account for our committee, it would be her!

So - is anyone (1 or 2 people, tops) able to spare a bit of time this week or next come with me to meet her? It would be massively helpful, I could really use an extra set of ears on this.

I'll get some student-governmental-ish advice tomorrow at the GA as well, on how to proceed.

Let me know please and thank you!

Ugh.

D