From the Editors:
Each week, The Bi-College News will be publishing the Students’ Council meeting minutes released in the Students’ Council Newsletter. These meeting minutes come directly to the inboxes of all Haverford students; in the interests of making the minutes and the activities of the College’s student government as accessible and transparent as possible, they are likewise published here, where the Bryn Mawr community, along with Bi-Co faculty, staff, alumni, and others can see the Council‘s discourse. The Haverford Clerk has been publishing these minutes in a series since 2019; head to their website to read past releases.
*Due to Fall Break, Students’ Council Executive Board did not meet this week.
General Body Meeting 10/15
Wednesday, October 15, 2025; 12:00 – 1:00 p.m., – Virtual Meeting
Members Present: Sarah Weill-Jones, Ben Fligelman, Zoe Hartmann, Ben Perez-Flesler, Sophia Goss, Chris O’Connor, Abigail Trapp, Jonathan Lee, Ian Trask, Elena Vol, Grant DeVries
Members Absent: Anjali Agarwal, Ben Fitzgerald, Caroline Yao, Victoria Haber, Coco Liu, Conner McWhan, Esme Dorsey, Oliver Wilson, Hannah Mattison, Hettie Van Dyke, Isaac Kemokai, Isabela Azumatan Aceituno, Jack Weinstein, Jackson Cannon, Julie Edelstein, Leo Ni, Pratyusha Katiyar, Vivian Ross, Zora Kuehne
Guests: N/A
Scribed by: Chris O’Connor
Next Meeting: Sunday, October 26; 2:00 – 3:00 p.m., – GEST 101
- Call to order
- Roll Call
- Ford’s Form
- Plenary Planning
- Plenary Planning updates
- Individual member reports
- Talk about what you’ve been doing and where you’re going from here!
- Art selection
- Finalize budget
- Pizza or boba?
- Choose day-of Plenary roles: Plenary Spreadsheet
- Ideas for methods of voting?
- Adjournment
Meeting Called: 12:05 p.m.
- Ideas for Budget and Plenary Food & Snacks:
- Budget still tentative and slightly over budget
- Sophia and Ben PF:
- thinking of raising not specific numbers
- Extra money from reg budget
- $250 for snacks
- Athletics said no to Pizza due to grease, spills, and extra food waste.
- Danielle reached out to Coop to see if they could open for Plenary
- Most likely back to Boba
- Coop food would make quorum much more difficult because people would be coming and going, and not accessible for everyone due to meal plan differences.
- Idea of moving food to the lobby out of the Gym
- Sophia and Ben PF are looking to reach back out to Danielle for improvement and clarification on her response
- Art and Stickers for Plenary:
- Review of Draft stickers and hope to approve for an order (4 designs)
- Review of Ian’s art designs for advertising
- Voting Methods Discussion
- Replacement ideas for Google Forms
- In-person polling stations in the GIAC (paper)
- Google Form turnout is hindered by the GIAC internet and Form failures
- Issue raised on controversial topics
- The idea of using a tablet to choose yes or no
- Would go through IT regarding the number and practicality from their side
- Recoding it for Plenary (yay, Nay)
- Idea of Pennies or coins that a money counter could very easily count
- What people Are Working On
- Grant: Continued work on Club sports resolution and meetings to achieve that
- Zoe: discussion of music choices for plenary (2000s club music)
- Sending google form to #general for music suggestions
- Sophia and Ben PF: Report on regular and early appeals and recap of the budgeting report
- Reminder to reach out to hc-engage and cc ciera on all emails about questions and concerns about plenary
- Chris: Meeting with Danielle and sending an email to coaches and emails about the close to required attendance of plenary
- Jonathan: physical logistics recap regarding contacting and emailing Max Champ, an email to ITS regarding ethernet and ticket for staff, and networking to minimize wifi congestion in the GIAC, asking for letterhead for Plenary voting
- Review of Day of Plenary Rolls
- Conclusion of Meeting
Meeting concluded: 12:45 p.m.
Executive Budgeting Committee Meeting 10/07
Tuesday, October 7, 2025; 8:30 – 10:00 p.m., – GEST 102
Members Present: Ben Fligelman, Sarah Weill-Jones, Oliver Wilson, Grant DeVries, Ben Perez-Flesler, Sophia Goss, Victoria Haber
Members Absent: Caroline Yao
Guests: Zoe Hartmann
Next Meeting: Thursday, October 23, 4 p.m. – 5 p.m., – GEST 102
- Call to order
- Roll Call
- Adoption of Agenda
- Regular Budget Request Appeals
Call to Order
Sophia: I call this meeting to order at 8:39pm.
Victoria: More than half of Exec board is in attendance. Quorum has been met.
Sophia: I move to adopt the agenda. I also move to approve the minutes. Any concerns? The agenda is adopted and the minutes are approved.
Regular Budget Request Appeals
Ben PF: Appeals are for requests that were denied or reduced by the Co-Treasurers in the first budgeting round. This often includes things that were not justified properly or did not include enough information, and gives people a second chance to make their case if there was additional information they want the Budgeting Committee to consider.
Alliance of Latin American Students
Ben PF: They updated their description for the historical event, and this works even though we typically want more justification.
Sarah: I motion to approve the frames for the ofrenda for the historical event.
Ben Flig: I second.
Consensus is achieved!
Ben PF: For the block party, they did not provide the expected attendance initially, but now we have it.
Sophia: They will need to move the event back, but we can approve this.
Victoria: I move to approve the block party budget.
Ben Flig: I second.
Consensus is achieved!
Ben PF: This is for Dia de las Velitas. They did not provide the expected attendance initially, but now we have it.
Sarah: I move to approve the budget for this event.
Ben Flig: I second.
Consensus is achieved!
American Cancer Society
Ben PF: They’re appealing for one event. We originally denied it because there was no rationale for having food at the event or for what the activity was. There were not specific line items to explain what they were doing, but just a lump sum, which is not how we approve items.
Ben Flig: Do we have any idea what the activity is?
Zoe: We don’t know what the activity or the food is.
Sophia: If they want to provide specific justifications they can still apply to rolling budgeting.
Sarah: Without proper description it’s hard to fund them. It’s not fair to other clubs.
Ben Flig: We wouldn’t do our due diligence where we approve a budget without knowing the purpose of the budget. I move to deny the budget.
Victoria: I second.
Consensus is achieved!
Bi-Co Ceramics Club
Sophia: They gave us exactly what we asked for, which was more detail. Thank you Julian and Hettie!!!
Victoria: This is so thoroughly written.
Sophia: We may use this as an example budget in the future.
Ben Flig: What is a pugmill?
Sophia: Long story short, it’s a machine that lets you recycle clay since they cannot fire their creations. It’s the cheapest on the market. In about 5 years it’s a cost that will start saving us money. Regardless, it’s a good sustainable tool for them to have.
Sarah: Sounds sustainable.
Sophia: We were comfortable approving for the pugmill, we just needed a more thorough justification.
Sarah: I move to approve the budget.
Oliver: I second.
Consensus is achieved!
Black Student League
Ben PF: Similarly to ALAS, we just needed an expected attendance number and a confirmation for a specific line item.
Sarah: I’d say the amount they asked for does not surprise me.
Sophia: We haven’t brought in musical guests for most clubs often before, so we’re mainly wondering if it’s setting a precedent.
Sarah: I think FUCs is setting a precedent though.
Ben PF: Yes, but this is for a talent show.
Sophia: And FUCs serves to put on musical shows.
Sarah: Do we know how they’d use the band?
Zoe: My assumption was in between acts the band would be on and off.
Victoria: I am confused based on the description where the band would be placed during the talent show. I don’t know if it’s enough justification.
Sophia: Yes, if we were a panel that may be fine. On one hand I’d like to approve it because it seems fun, but that’s not why we approve or deny requests.
Ben Flig: I’d want to approve it because it seems like something we should support. If you feel that it would be too out of line with our other requests, then we can deny it.
Sophia: I agree, it’s not out of line financially, but I am worried that we are setting a precedence. I’m not sure if this is enough justification.
Victoria: Did we tell them they needed more justification?
Ben PF: No, we did not explicitly say that.
Sophia: Then in that case, I’m comfortable approving the budget. We do have to cap their catering at $400 though, per $10/person non-dinner policy.
Sarah: I move to approve the budget with catering capped at $400.
Ben Flig: I second.
Consensus is achieved!
Bounce
Ben PF: We denied them because there was not enough justification or an anticipated attendance for the event. They did provide an anticipated attendance, which is what we explicitly asked for. I see this to be similar to a museum trip in that it’s educational and community building.
Ben Flig: I move to approve the budget.
Sarah: I second.
Consensus is achieved!
HaverCraft
Ben PF: We denied their budget originally due to a conflict of interest. They have sorted that out now and it actually came in at nearly one-third the cost of their original request.
Ben Flig: Why can’t they use Eternos? It’s free.
Sophia: It doesn’t work very well for lots of players. I find it to be laggy.
Ben PF: I think we can give them their Minecraft server. It’s only $70 a year and the justification is good.
Victoria: I move to approve the budget.
Sarah: I second.
Oliver thirds
Consensus is achieved!
Haverford Aikido Club
Sophia: How do we feel about the justification for the mats?
Sarah: I’d prefer if the request had better language to convey their ideas, but I understand where they’re coming from.
Sophia: We’ll confirm that they’re asking for four mats.
Ben Flig: I move to approve the budget.
Victoria: I second.
Consensus is achieved!
Ben PF: Now we can move onto the next event for the club. This is for an event that they’d like to hold but have not decided a date for, so it’s dated for the end of spring.
Victoria: That doesn’t make sense to me.
Sarah: They should request in the spring. The information in the appeal is contradictory and confusing. To be fair to every club I would not approve this.
Ben Flig: I motion to reject the budget.
Sophia: I second.
Consensus is achieved!
Haverford College Club Rugby
Ben PF: We reduced the amount of jerseys and jersey shorts they asked for originally to try to be conservative. They’ve now justified why they need the original amount they requested.
Zoe: To note, you do need 25 people on a team.
Ben PF: Yes, and their club numbers reflect that now, plus the minimum order is 12 so it wouldn’t make sense to split up the order.
Sarah: I move to approve the budget.
Sophia: I second.
Consensus is achieved!
Haverford Global Chinese Connection
Ben PF: They are requesting milk powder to replace milk that was denied under the food policy. Currently all requests for ingredients for clubs to prepare food/drink have to be vegan, this was set by Catering and Risk Management earlier this semester without any opportunity for feedback from the student body. Unfortunately we can’t really make a decision on this food request due to how up in the air and unclear the food policy is right now. This was an issue last year too, at least now there are some events that clubs can hold. We’re still working to clarify what is possible under the current policy, and to get it revised with input from the student body after Fall Break to hopefully better enable events with clubs making food together.
Sarah: This is the fault of College policy.
Victoria: I move to deny the budget, pending further clarifications about the policy.
Sarah: I second.
Consensus is achieved!
Haverford Mock Trial
Ben Flig exits the Villa!
Oliver: The registration fees that other teams pay for BSI…where does that money go?
Ben PF: It will come back to us. We’re fronting costs similar to the arrangement for Frisbee invitationals held at Haverford. Additionally, they got to book the original court house they wanted to in City Hall.
Sophia: We would be able to fund the Saturday date, but not the Sunday date due to it falling on plenary. We all had a conversation about this.
Grant: Yes, we met with them, and so I think we can approve the budget as long as we confirm other concerns.
More thorough conversation is had related to this budget, with the context of a meeting recently had with the club Co-Heads
Ben PF: If we fully fund this, the donation they’ve secured for sponsorship will be used to fund other things we did not approve. Either way we’re fronting costs.
Oliver: There needs to be a normal policy in place that gives room for flexibility. The team is essentially funding themselves, we’re just giving them a loan.
Ben PF: Right, to clarify, they are paying back everything for this event. This is similar to what we do for other teams. I think this is okay since we’re continuing to coordinate with them to allow as many team members as possible to attend plenary, so no one has to make a choice to miss plenary.
Grant: I move to approve the appeal.
Sarah: I second.
Consensus is achieved! Ben Flig re-enters the Villa!
Haverford Pole Team
Grant: We rejected this request last year.
Oliver: Yes, when the appeal was sent last year we received concerns from RESE due to the variety of student groups who use the space. It will affect other performing arts events that are held. They wanted to default to not changing the space.
Ben Flig: Do we have the kinds of lights they’re asking for in the club closet?
Sophia: We have similar ones that we provided to another club, and they should have returned them.
Victoria: I’m worried about making
Ben Flig: They can lobby to get that taken down.
Oliver: That’s hard to do. You can book that space, no matter who you are, so they’d have to get consent from every student that it’s fine to make a permanent change.
Ben Flig: They seem to be minimizing problems. In my mind we’d reject this request because the mirrors are not covered up. I feel like big enough curtains would be fine. Is there a problem with that?
Sophia: We are not capable of answering that question.
Ben PF: We do not have the authority to approve modifications to shared spaces.
Victoria: I move to reject the mirrors and accept the lights, as it does not fall under our purview.
Sarah: I second.
Consensus is achieved!
Haverford Survivor Collective
Ben PF: We rejected this because we weren’t sure if we could approve rideshares or not. We did not want to approve rideshares either if they could use the Haverford van for cheaper. They have now justified why they need to do rideshare. I’m convinced personally.
Sarah: I move to approve the budget. If it ends up costing more we’ll work with them.
Sophia: I second.
Pan-Asian Resource Center
Ben PF: The justifications for the rejected events were too generic and not sufficient. They have now been rewritten (very well!).
Grant: I move to approve the first event.
Sophia: I second.
Consensus is achieved!
Sarah: I move to approve the second event.
Ben Flig: I second.
Consensus is achieved!
Ben Flig: I think we need an iron to keep in club storage, since the one in MakerSpace is not the best.
Ben PF: They did not ask for one last year either.
Grant: I move to approve the third event.
Victoria: I second.
Consensus is achieved!
Ben PF: The catering is less than $10 per person.
Oliver: I move to approve the fourth event.
Sarah: I second.
Consensus is achieved!
Sophia: They are over with this catering budget. We can ask them to limit the catering to $1,200.
Victoria: I move to approve the budget including catering capped to $1,200.
Sarah: I second.
Puerto Rican Student Alliance
Ben PF: We needed an anticipated attendance. They have provided that. We will cap their catering based on this number like for every club.
Grant: I move to approve the budget including catering capped to $350.
Sarah: I second.
The Bi-College News
Sophia exits the Villa!
Sarah: I move to approve the budget.
Oliver: I second.
Sophia re-enters the Villa!
Sophia: I adjourn this meeting at 9:54pm.
Everyone exits the Villa!
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