The crew team requested 2,000 from Student Association to purchase a new boat that will fit eight rowers and a coxswain.
Its cost, 5,000 in total, according to Student Association Vice President sophomore Paul Michael, will take approximately two and a half years to pay off. The 2,000, which was approved at both SA readings, will be used for a down payment.
Sophomore captain Nicole Riggio explained that the original plan was to ask SA for ,000 and then divide the remaining amount into thirds. The crew team will pay a third of the cost and will fundraise and seek donations from alumni and family members for another third. They planned to ask SA for the final ,000 installment in fall 2016.
The crew team didn’t want to pressure SA to make commitments for future board members, so they changed their request and asked for the 2,000 in full at Wednesday’s general SA meeting. This move eliminated the need for ,000 in two and a half years.
“I think the main reason everyone thought this was a good plan is because this is a lot of money, probably more money than most other clubs are purchasing a single item for,” Riggio said. “So coming to SA and asking for the money for all of this is not really something we feel comfortable doing unless it is an emergency situation.”
Crew team President senior Marianne Macaluso said that the team attended a private SA executive board meeting and explained the idea prior to their readings at the general meetings because “it’s such a different thing that clubs don’t really usually ask for, so we wanted to discuss it with them before we just threw it on to an SA meeting.”
While the second reading was recently passed at the SA meeting on Wednesday Feb. 19, SA wasn’t initially excited about the plan.
“They were definitely tentative because it’s such a different idea; they had a lot of questions and clarifications about if this was going to be them making a commitment for a future e-board, which they really can’t do,” Macaluso said. “They also wanted to know how we would deal with any unforeseeable problems that might arise.”
Because the reading passed, Michael said that once the paperwork is finished, the 2,000 would be added to the crew budget for the down payment.
The team’s request has alarmed some because it is the second time in two years that crew has asked for a large sum of money to purchase a new boat. Riggio and Macaluso explained that boats were damaged during a storm last year, some to the point where they became unusable. Consequently, SA granted the crew team the money to buy a new four (a boat that fits four rowers and a coxswain) in full.
The new eight will not replace any boats, but will be used in competitions while older boats will be reserved for training. Because some of the boats are owned by the state, the team is unable to sell old boats.