Club Sports Council Takes Off

The Club Sport Council’s approval of the Dickinson Fitness Club on Oct. 1 signaled the beginning of a new era in the management of club sports on campus. As of Fall 2013,the Sports Club Council is the new official governing body over club sports on campus after a long four to five year process of obtaining club recognition and Senate funding.

Senate conceived the idea for the Sport Club Council last year due to their desire to fund and work with club sports differently than other campus clubs. Last year, Senate worked with Director of Intramurals and Recreation Rob Simels to create a constitution and determine what clubs fell under the club sports categories.

By April 2013, Senate had determined an initial budget for the council and it was on its way to becoming official, said Simels.

Over the summer, members of the council remained on campus to work with Simels to create the constitution.

“Working with [Simels] on this really helped everything, because now the way the club sports are run is based [on student input, since] we really got to participate in the creation of this document,” said Simon Feeman ’14, chair of the Sport Club Council, who is one of the students who worked on the constitution.

The constitution was ratified on Sept. 3 and requires the council to have a four person executive board, which consists of an elected vice chair, treasurer, and communications manager, and a chair position appointed by Simels.

Simels’s goal for the council is to “allow sports clubs to govern with a body, have a body that’s respected, and have the best interest of everyone.”

He wants the council to create a better club sports program that reflects student voice and opinion. He hopes the council will help each sports club hold each other accountable.

Feeman also has goals for the council.

“We hope to provide a better way to deal with club sports on campus, we are the ones that know the specific needs of club sports and know they are different than clubs, so we hope to manage them better,” he said. “Specifically the council intends, as our major charges, to improve fundraising abilities for club sports, to better work with our field space and solve issue there and work towards receiving or understanding PE credit.”

The Sports Club Council is intended to spread information about club sports around the community. Because the council is made up of representatives from each club sport, “club sports working together is really starting to provide the clubs with more information on how other clubs are run and the various sports are becoming more linked,” added Feeman.

The council meets the first Tuesday of every month for an hour. According to Simels, if the meeting requires more than an hour, the members have to vote to extend it for fifteen minutes. The first meeting was in Sept. when they ratified the constitution and to elect the executive board.

On Oct. 1, the council met for the first time and approved the first club of the year, the Fitness Club, presented by Josh Singer ’16 and Dave Tambussi ’16. They will soon begin holding Crossfit classes. For more information, visit their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/events/468125406585087/?fref=ts.

Simels expects to have proposals from two more sports clubs in the Nov. and Dec. meetings.

The Sports Club Council is easily accessible for all students.

“…this is a student run organization working with the faculty so all the work being done here is really coming from the participants of the clubs,” said Feeman.

The council can be contacted at [email protected] with any questions.