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Feb 08 Minutes
Amherst College Student Athlete Advisory Committee
Amherst College Student-Athlete Advisory Committee Meeting
February 10, 2008
- Getting SAAC t-shirts
- Benson has made a few designs, one will be chosen
- Suzanne Coffey is funding everything
- National Girls and Women in Sports Day
- Very successful
- Whitney passes on a huge thank you to everyone
- One girl said “best day of my life”...awwwww
- Teammates really enjoyed working with kids in the community
- Offered an opportunity to be a part of the community where athletes might otherwise not have the time
- NESCAC SAAC
- Meeting cancelled due to inclement weather
- NCAA Post graduate scholarships
- Cashing in against Cancer change drive
- All NESCAC schools competing
- One month period
- Twenty collection bins
- Team locker rooms, Val, Keefe
- Put tables up at basketball and hockey games to advertise
- Several members volunteered to campaign at games
- Penny war
- Penny’s are positive, silver coins are negative in others’ buckets
- Gudrun and Kelly taking charge
- Safety of buckets of change in locker rooms?
- Put a bucket at the front desk—there’s always a monitor there
- 1st seed in NESCAC men’s basketball, likely to host other sports as well
- We should do something as a SAAC at these games
- What we’re doing needs to be sportsmanlike, need to clear event with Dan Fisher
- We should form a committee
- Sarah Harper, Whitney, Sarah Johnston
- Spirit competition?
- 3-point contest during halftime of basketball games
- Half court shot
- Lord Jeff mascot tryout at one of the games to stage their skills
- National Student Athlete Day on 4/6/08
- Honoring students with a certain GPA
- Dinner for elite student-athletes
- Community Relations committee
- Funding options
- Discretionary funds through AAS (budget next semester)
- Program board, campus center, interdepartmental student funds can co-sponsor events
- CCE has community engagement funds
- National Sportsmanship Day on 3/4/08
- Sportsmanship Committee
- Funding options
- Discretionary funds through AAS (budget next semester)
- Program board, campus center, interdepartmental student funds can co-sponsor events
- CCE has community engagement funds
- ***Club budget for Fall 2008 due sometime in April
- CCE has a “Raising Our Voices” panel dealing with issues of intolerance across campus
- Coach Mills, President Marx will be on campus
- Athletes should attend
- Athletics liaisons from CCE
- Help bridge the gap between community engagement and athletics
- Help us with funding
- Help plan events
- Example: CCE paid for t-shirts we gave to girls at Girls and Women in Sports Day
- Sub-Committee Reports
- Community Service
- Athletes getting involved with pre-school kids at Woodside
- An hour or two working with kids in the mornings
- Very close to campus
- Sign-up for in advance
- Might require a CORI check
- Habitat for Humanity
- Women’s soccer went this weekend, got work done
- Men’s soccer went two(?) weeks ago
- Make sure you have ten people (minimum), pick up athletes from other teams
- Sportsmanship
- Trying to get t-shirts that incorporate “be loud, be proud, be positive”
- Trouble with funding, AAS would not give $$ until they first spoke with other funding sources
- Requested $2000 for about 300-400 shirts,
- Suzanne is going to help with this
- National Sportsmanship Day
- Publicity
- Buddied up all teams
- Benson has a list, read off during meeting
- Tickers
- Administration has talked about it in the past
- IT director is getting a group of students together to get on this, we will heckle him
- Competition for New Lord Jeff
- Two people will have the job
- Haven’t yet decided on what the competition will entail
- Event in Johnson Chapel?
- Debate, speech, dance off, craziest person we can find
- Important to do incognito
- Speech—why they should represent Amherst athletics
- We could incorporate this into halftime at a championship game
- Amherst athletes should have a lot of say in who gets chosen
- If we can’t make it available to every athlete, we could film it, make it available on website, people can have a window for voting
- Could be a core part of NESCAC finals
- Two chosen Jeffs need to go to at least one event of every sport each season, as many NESCAC and national events as possible
- Paid position?
- SAAC doesn’t think it should be
- But it’s an enormous time commitment, would be more of an incentive to get paid
- Want to talk to Suzanne about funding
- AAS has certain procedures for paid positions
- Accountability—how are we holding them to this contract
- We need a certain level of dedication from mascot
- Keep going on the weekly flyers
- Community Relations
- Haven’t met yet, need to reconvene and chat about stuff
- Professor Sarat’s meeting last semester
- Access from Back of Building during the winter
- Suzanne followed up
- Policy is not changing
- Difference between walking to front door/walking to back door is about 50 steps
- Would make custodian’s job much more difficult
- More expensive for campus police to alarm, keypad, etc.
- Why is it seasonal?
- 50 winter steps are way worse than 50 fall/spring steps
- In the winter non-Amherst students are more likely to want to be in the building, there are always more in the building if we leave those doors open
- Front door swipe allows us to know who is currently in the building
- Some accountability at the front door, helps with security
- Why does someone sit at the back door?
- So the back door doesn’t get propped
- Death path that goes across memorial hill
- Lighting, safety on wooden steps
- Maybe more of a physical plant problem, Stan Adams question?
- Spotlight and handrail on steps?
- Jim Brasser, head of Phys Plant, has been contacted
- Suzanne is going to follow up on this
- AAS involvement
- Forces individual organizations to go to other sources force to mitigate costs
- CCE has a lot more money than AAS
- Sentiment on the BC—what is really important to spend money on?
- Can’t go against written Constitution
- Wants to know what kind of ideas SAAC has, and what funding will be like from the athletic department
- Athletic department tighter on money than CCE?
- AAS sees the SAAC as a group created by the athletic department, regardless of the fact that we are recognized as a club, worries AAS
- Meeting end: 8:06