Last week, the Club Support Committee of the Student Union's Senate continued their mandatory club renewal project first initiated last November. In the email to select club leaders, the committee members asked students for a second time to promptly fill out the club renewal form to avoid dechartering and de-recognition. While we commend the committee for continuing to weed out idle clubs, we also encourage club leaders to consider absorbing other smaller clubs with similar agendas into their own organization. By undertaking these steps, both club leaders and the Senate can work to effectively increase the overall productivity of clubs and funding allocations.

As this most recent email indicates, 83 clubs passed the Nov. 23 deadline from last semester without filling out the appropriate form. Among those included in the email were Women's Ultimate Frisbee, Voices of Soul and the Ski Team-clubs that routinely demonstrate their active club membership and role on campus.

Instead of dechartering these clubs, the committee took the extra step to allow leaders another chance to reiterate their interest and commitment to operating their club. Further, according to the chair of the committee, Shekeyla Caldwell '14 in an email to the Justice, the committee members are also personally emailing club leaders and only plan on dechartering non-existent clubs, "not clubs that are, even slightly, active." We appreciate their intentions to help club leaders rather than simply dechartering clubs that missed a deadline.

While the committee works to increase the productivity of the myBrandeis page, we urge club leaders to also consider the productivity of their own clubs and the benefit of incorporating their functions into a larger club that has a similar interest and purpose. For example, while currently two separate clubs, the Mountain Club and the Alpine Snow Sports Club are both chartered clubs that plan and execute trips specifically for snowboarding, rock climbing and hiking among other activities. Though both clubs have very similar functions, they each receive separate funding from the Finance Board and further deplete our resources. Aside from affecting funding, clubs whose purpose and level of activity change over time are then also hurting new prospective clubs that hope to become chartered as well.

As the committee moves forward with the club renewal process, we urge them to remember the purpose of the undertaking.

Clubs that do not fill out the form again-if the committee follows through with their second warning-should effectively be dechartered. While we appreciate the second attempt at eliciting responses, the committee should follow through with the initial purpose of the project to eliminate inactive clubs and help leaders fully maximize the value of their clubs by reducing redundancy.

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