The Western Martial Arts Society has withdrawn from the General Student Service Fund for the remainder of this fiscal year and has surrendered its funding for the next fiscal year, according to Student Services Finance Committee Chair David Vines.
The WMAS is a registered student organization that strives to practice and inform others on martial arts common to ancient Europe. The group was granted funding for this year of $95,177.24 for 2013-’14, a significant decrease from its proposed amount of $164,362.29.
In a letter from WMAS Finance Officer Matthew Manes to SSFC, Manes said that WMAS has not been able to succeed in the goals that it had outlined when requesting funding.
“Given the state of the organization … we are forced to conclude that we are unlikely to succeed or sustain reasonable levels of operation compared to our stated goals for the spring semester,” Manes said in the letter.
Though there are no rules binding the approved RSOs once they have been approved for grants, the groups must maintain the purpose of providing a direct service to students.
“Their contract is essentially that they have to provide direct services and if they aren’t doing that then they won’t get eligibility,” Vines said. “It’s been about a half year and they haven’t been able to provide any direct services.”
Vines said while he hopes to find a way to make the $87,017 left in WMAS’s budget available to other RSOs, the alternative is the money will be placed in GSSF reserves for next year’s allocation.
