Apologies for the website comment.
I was unaware of any meeting on Monday. I’m sure someone knew about it but I didn’t.
We need more information on our requests and we will do that in the future. I can see how ‘funds for event’ without anything detailed and no one present to answer questions at any point in time could cause confusion.
As far as I know, prizes are paid for by the sponsors. If the gaming club does fund any part of the prizes I want to make it clear that they are a very necessary part of our LAN event. Essentially our LAN event is for anyone to attend and a majority come to play in tournaments. The winners of these tournaments are the recipients of the prizes. The prizes give the people that attend our events a goal to achieve and a reason to get better so that next time they might win the prize. It adds a level of depth to the tournament that does not exist otherwise, it puts something at stake. I would say that prizes and community are two of the biggest reasons people attend our events. These LANs are an opportunity for currents students to ‘get away’ from the academic life and indulge themselves in a care free day of community, gaming, and a chance to win something. For me to say that these aren’t necessary would be a lie because I have experienced about 12 different LANs around the east coast and none would have been nearly as successful without the inclusion of prizes.
I believe that prizes are donated by sponsors but I could be mistaken and will find out.
I do not know the exact numbers of our expenses but since they are needed I am certain our club will gather the required information.
I am pretty sure one of our fund raisers, hosted on this forum, brought in quite a bit of money for upgrading our gaming server. Next to our LAN events the gaming server is the most expensive part of our organization. If most of our fund went into maintaining/upgrading that server then it would be safe to say that we are not spending our money on unnecessary goodies first. Other expenses include but are not limited to advertising, location to host LAN, website, food, drinks, power, game packages(For use at LAN events only), and cabling.
The big difference between our club and many others is that we allow anyone to join and invite anyone who wants to come to our events. Our LAN events are supported by sponsors from around the nation, some of which are really big names in the gaming industry. Our gaming server hosts several online games that completely and totally advertise our university in a gaming environment. I have personally made accommodation’s for gamers who don’t attend WCU but are interested to stay at my house and visit campus.
One thing that was pointed out earlier is that we do not have many alumni and for longer lived organizations alumni are a huge contributor to the overall success of an organization. I would even say that a strong alumni base enables organizations to do that which is otherwise impossible for an attending student. I ask that the age of our organization and our lack of alumni be taken into consideration.
Since the Grand Room and the Power were both School properties someone believed that it would be the best use of school money to spend on. School money spent on school items seemed to fit into our cost equation well. I believe the idea behind it was to avoid confusion and essentially lower the cost incurred by anyone. Campus money paying for campus items that aren’t disposable = little or no cost to the university beyond the use of the space. I for one still support it.
To compensate for costs incurred by the LAN event we charge a fee, $3 for those who just want to hang out and $5 for those actually competing in tournaments.
To actually raise money we rely on sponsorships and internal funding / donations. Our unofficial club base is much larger than the student base and funds are reliable in that regard. To a much lesser extent we rely on the SGA to help us out with the costs of the campus utilities. Essentially if we need money, we look to the club, and if we don’t get enough we have backup solutions that we rarely have to put into action. If we need to we can start a gaming club t-shirt sale, a custom gaming computer sale, or charge more money per LAN / provide less food and drinks. We are a very capable organization that has come a long way in four years. We do not completely ‘rely’ on the SGA and we saw no reason to suspect the SGA wouldn’t help fund our events. Apparently there has been miscommunication from both parties and we do need to work harder, all of us, to get this ball rolling again.
I personally think someone from the SGA should come out and experience the next LAN event. It seems a lot of the confusion stems from ‘what exactly does one do with the money provided at a LAN Party?’ Those questions will be better answered through experience but we will also put together something tangible to help the SGA better understand our costs incurred and our funds raised.
In response to your first post, I would like to point out that E3 is a business expo, and nothing like what we do at our LAN events. A better goal would be the addition of an exhibition much like the one Penny-Arcade hosts. However, we will need many more years and much more alumni in the IT field for this to become a reality. Just thought I’d throw that out there.
Ultimately, no one wants to have any problems with financial means. The gaming club wants the support of the SGA and much of our frustration has stemmed from what seemed to be a lack of interest on the SGA’s part. However I will concede that the gaming club has not provided enough information for the financial committee to make a logical decision. Hopefully the future endeavors of both parties roll out successfully.
