With the support of the 31- member teams of the Washington University Sports Club Federation, several club sports teams will now be able to afford to travel to national tournaments.

While the Sports Club Federation (SCF) had initially anticipated that the Student Union (SU) would fund the $13,000 necessary for the teams to travel to national tournaments, SU ran out of funds before the teams were able to make an appeal for funding.

After another SU group did not use its allocated funds in full, SU was able to give the SCF $1,000, leaving it $180.02 short of the required $13,000.

“I have no doubt that we’ll be able to take care of that in the next couple of days,” senior Zak Rosemore, treasurer of SCF, said.

Since the emergency fund was not enough to cover all of the expenses, the rest of the club sport teams pooled their remaining funds to support the qualifying teams.

Additionally, a change will be made in SCF’s budget plan to prevent funding problems in the future.

“Sports Club Federation sets aside a certain amount of money for emergencies and appeals,” Frank Beling, outgoing SCF president, said.

The money pledged by other teams, combined with the emergency fund, was enough for SCF to be able to meet their goal of $13,000.

“We’ll be able to fully fund all of the teams going to nationals,” Beling said.

Senior Brian Blosser, president of the club tennis team, said that originally his team was the only team that had applied to SCF to receive funding for nationals. At that point, he was told that his team would receive all the funding it requested.

However, the equestrian, roller hockey and women’s ultimate Frisbee club teams all requested additional funding to support their tournament participation, and club tennis became concerned about its ability to receive its funding.

“It looked like we wouldn’t get the funding we needed,” Blosser said. “But then the treasurer of SCF, Zak Rosemore, sent out an e-mail to all of the other teams to ask them to donate the surplus from their budgets to help us out. I found out yesterday that we’ll be getting all we need.”

Junior Carolyn Auchter, a member of the women’s ultimate Frisbee team, said that the team would know in a few weeks-after sectional and regional tournaments-whether or not it would be going to nationals.

Junior Heidi Weeks, ultimate Frisbee treasurer, said the donations from the other clubs would ensure that the ultimate Frisbee team would be able to participate if her team qualifies.

“If we need [the funding], it will be there,” Weeks said. “SCF’s really good about accommodating us.”

In future years, SCF will include a specific appeals account in its budget.

“The appeals account will be earmarked for teams going to nationals,” said Beling. “So there’ll be money in the future.”

This year, the problem arose because the appeals funding available in the SU Treasury was already allocated before the teams knew they would be going to national tournaments. Club sports teams cannot include money for nationals in their budget requests because SU cannot fund an event that is uncertain to happen.

Olivia Hassan, a freshman who is involved with funding allocations this year and who will serve on the Student Groups Activities Committee next year, said that with so many clubs appealing for funds, SU cannot allocate money for events that are not certain to occur.

“All of this year’s events have been appealed for and paid for. Groups often appeal for funding months in advance of their events, but SU cannot provide funding for events they don’t know will happen or not,” Hassan said. “We are trying to do our best to be fair to all student groups and be consistent with funding throughout the year, and we believe that first come, first served is the best policy [to ensure this].”

SU does not run out of funds at the same time each year, and teams do not know at the same time each year that they will be going to nationals. Beling called the situation “a disconnect in planning.”

SCF, in its first year as an SU executive committee, submits its budget to SU in the spring semester and receives all of the money in the fall, to be used for both the fall and spring semesters. The 31 club sports teams then submit budgets to SCF to receive individual funding.

“In a perfect world, the teams would submit budgets-they wouldn’t be allowed to budget for nationals-but then they would be able to appeal to SU for funds to support going to the tournaments,” Beling said.

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