The student council has approved a point-based system for allocating club budgets, ending a seniority-based model that newer clubs have criticised for years.
Under the new process, each registered club earns points for verified activity: meetings held, active membership, open events organised, and collaborations with other clubs. Budget requests are then ranked by points rather than by how long a club has existed.
“Under the old rules, a club founded ten years ago that meets twice a term outranked a one-year-old club running weekly events,” said treasurer Hana Yoshida, who drafted the proposal. “That was hard to defend with a straight face.”
How the points work
- Regular meetings with published minutes — up to 30 points per term
- Active membership, verified by attendance records — up to 30 points
- Open events accessible to all students — up to 25 points
- Collaboration with at least one other club — up to 15 points
Clubs submit their records at the end of each term through the council portal. The council’s audit group will spot-check a sample of submissions, and clubs found inflating records lose funding eligibility for a full year.
Mixed reception from older clubs
Some long-standing clubs argue the system rewards size over substance. “A chess club is never going to out-event a festival committee,” said chess club president Viktor Sala. “We’d like to see points weighted by club type.” Yoshida said the council will review the weightings after one full year of data.
The first allocations under the new system will be made for next term’s budgets. The council has published the full scoring rubric in its minutes.
Where the idea came from
The reform has been debated in some form for three council generations. The breakthrough, Yoshida said, came from studying how a school at last year’s leadership conference handled the same problem — and from finally having the data to make the case, after two years of clubs submitting digital activity reports. “The old system survived because nobody could prove it was unfair. Now we can put two clubs side by side and the numbers speak,” she said.
The council will run drop-in sessions during the first two weeks of term to help club treasurers understand the scoring, and a one-page guide has been sent to every registered club. Appeals against an allocation go to the council’s audit group, whose members must have no role in any club they review.
