Minutes GPSG meeting September 7, 2004 First Meeting
Attendance:
The organizations ACHE, GSWA, GPPA, and GPHA were not present at the senate meeting. These organizations have been warned by email, as per the bylaws, and the second absence of these organizations will result in a $50 fine.
Rules of attendance were restated and are as follows:
1st absence-Warning via email to the organization
2nd absence- $50 fine
3rd absence- $150 fine
4th absence- Move to revoke charter in the next senate meeting
Updates were given concerning the officers and assisting staff of GPSG for the 2004-2005 school year.
Upon the resignation of last year’s faculty advisor, Dr. Tom Reynolds will now be the faculty advisor for GPSG until a replacement can be found
Carol Luzon is the part time accounting representative for GPSG. She will be assisting April with the paperwork processing for the accounting of the GPSG budget as well as the budgets for all chartered organizations. Please feel free to contact Carol Luzon for help with any accounting concerns. Carol can be found in the SGA complex in the Cone center, just beside the candy shop to the left. Her office hours are found on the GPSG website.
President- Mary Frances Jiménez (English)
Vice President- Matt Paine (Chemistry)
Treasurer- April Cooke (Precision Engineering)
Secretary- Elizabeth Jablonski (Biology)
The email addresses of all officers are found on the GPSG website, www.uncc.edu/GPSG. Please feel free to contact any of the officers or Carol Luzon if you have any question or concerns. We will be happy to help you. The website should be almost completely updated with contact information and meeting schedules.
As Vice President, Matt is in charge of the special topics committee. The special topics committee is involved in the planning of the graduate research fair and also assists the officers in the budgeting and rechartering. Most of the business of the special topics committee is in the spring, but it's never too early to volunteer. Just let Matt know if you would like to be on this committee. It is a great way to get involved.
April, the treasurer, answered questions concerning the business of spending money appropriately. Although these topics were briefly covered in the senate meeting, they will be more extensively covered in the treasury meeting.
The signature process for all forms is as follows:
1. It must be signed by the treasurer your specific organization. Please be sure that the treasurer is only to put the money to be ALLOCATED to the individual on the form. For example, if you have a budget of 1000 dollars, and you give everyone traveling 100 dollars, make sure you fill out 100 not 1000, or in essence you are allowing that person traveling on the top of the form to have all $1000 dollars for their trip.
2. It now must go to either April Cooke or to Carol Luzon. This is very important. Do not under any circumstances try to send this form anywhere but the GPSG representative. In the case that your money is not sent to the appropriate channels, then your account will be frozen until the matter is cleared up, and if you do this a second time, your money will be reverted and you will no longer be able to have a charter with GPSG. This is very serious; we must be able to keep up with all money spent by GPSG.
3. From this point, the list of signatures is no longer your concern. Once it is given to the GPSG representative, it is now our job to make sure that the money goes through. Please be patient, like any government institution, it takes a act of congress to get anything done. We are working as hard as we can.
The senate was reminded that all forms must be filled out completely, or the forms will be returned to the organization. ASPE moved that “dummy” forms be put on the GPSG website as examples. Examples are available on the website, and the officers are reviewing them to ensure they are appropriate. Also, send your treasurers with questions to the treasury meeting and April can help you out.
In order to travel, you must have…
1. Liability form—basically states you will not sue the university should you have an unfortunate accident while on your trip.
2. Travel Form—This is the form that must be filled out before you go on the trip. You can also use this form to get airline and hotel pre-paid for you so the money never has to come out of your pocket. This form needs to be at the office by AT LEAST 2 weeks before you travel, but the sooner you get it in, the sooner it can be taken care of!!!
3. Travel Reimbursement form—this is the form that you fill out AFTER you come back from your trip. You must fill out this form in order to receive the reimbursement for your trip. If you don’t hand in this form, you get no money.
***Added as a new rule this year, because of problems last year, in order to get a trip approved before you go, you must turn in a travel itinerary. These trips are not designed for you to have a vacation on the expense of GPSG. The travel itinerary must include the dates of the meeting on it. If you have special sessions planned, that do not include meeting old friends at a bar the night before, then we need written documentation of this. You must turn this in before you go, to make sure that it is approved.
Also, please make sure that you are not traveling in the lap of luxury in your trips. You want to be traveling as cheaply as possibly so that we can help as many graduate students as possible, given the large amount of organizations and the lack of money.
The group budgets will be handed out at the next treasury meeting.
It was explained by April, that this year we have a set amount of revertment which is $3000 dollars. We will be allowing the organizations to apply for this revertment coming up soon, but it will be $1500 a semester. To apply for revertment, you must complete a Request For Revertment Form. So have a detailed list of your organizations need for the money and be prepared to defend it to the treasurers.
Meeting was adjourned.