At their weekly meeting on Thursday the Union Program Council nearly wiped-out their remaining funds on Matafest.
The UPC allocated $9,496 from their spontaneous funds account to Matafest. As of the prior meeting that account had $12,150.
In addition to the funds allocated by the UPC, the Matafest event also received $6,000 from the films committee.
Due to a canceled event the committee chair, Christina Lee, said that she thought the money from her committee would be better spent on Matafest.
Matafest is a new $54,000 event making its debut this semester.
It is going to be an all day event featuring major and local musical artists, vendors, food, and clubs and organizations.
It will be held in the University Student Union on May 12.
With the UPC’s co-sponsorship funds account already exhausted, the members decided to hear the four co-sponsorship requests of the day but to suspend any further allocations from that account through the rest of the semester.
The four groups requesting funds were allocated money from the council’s spontaneous funds account.
The Theatre Guild was allocated $383 for the student play, “Red is for Riding,” which will be performed at the Pub on April 24-26 at 7 p.m.
The Chicano Latino Graduation Committee also requested funding for the Chicano Latino Graduation. They were allocated $500.
Alpha Phi Alpha received $400 for their Miss Black and Gold Pageant; the Black Student Union received $550 for their Unity Fest event.
The council discussed ways of avoiding fund exhaustion in the coming semesters.
Christina Lee, a member of the UPC, said that they should take more interest in the events they co-sponsor because many times the council do not hear back from the organizations and do not know if the events went well or not.
“One thing I have noticed is that when (clubs and organizations) asks us to co-sponsor them they ask us for a majority of their funding needs. I think we need to get them in the habit of coming to us as a last resort,” said Stephanie Muyco, special events committee chair.
