OUT in debt, denied booth at involvement fair

Last year’s Miss Gay IU drew a crowd of around 700 people, but that number just wasn’t enough, OUT President Robert Clayton said.

The organization is the largest Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender student group on campus and is beginning the 2010-11 school year owing “a little more than $3,000” to the IU Auditorium, Clayton said.

“We still had a large turnout last year, but we just weren’t able to cover our costs,” he said. “Had we gotten closer to 1,000, we probably wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in.”  

Clayton said the main reason for the debt was some of last year’s board members overestimating the size of the event’s turnout.

“That being said, last year’s president, Joshua Sutton, a very cool, great, smart guy, had a lot of high hopes, and he did a really great job running things,” Clayton said.
“Things just didn’t quite work out the way that he and the rest of us had intended.”  

OUT members  remain optimistic about the problem and are reaching out to the community for help, Clayton said.

“OUT has a very long and successful history on the IUB campus,” he said. “We’ve been in debt before. We’re willing to work with anybody or any organization that’s willing to help out so we can get back on our feet and go back to being the great organization that we’ve always been.”

Clayton said after resolving the debt, OUT hopes to begin its main objective for the year — reaching out to other GLBT groups on campus.

“There are a lot of groups,” he said. “Our biggest goal is building bridges and working together to do something big for the IUB campus this year.”  

That plan hit an early snag Wednesday, however, when OUT was not allowed a table at the IU Student Involvement Fair. Before a student group is allowed to register for the fair, it must first be approved on myINvolvement, Assistant Director of Student Organizations and Civic Engagement Colleen Rose said.

“Registration submissions involve review and approval from an administrator to ensure that all requirements of registering or re-registering as a student organization are met,” Rose said. “This applies to not only new organizations, but also those that have been in existence for multiple years.”

Clayton, however, said that OUT did register in time.  

In order to register, the group needed a digital copy of its constitution, which, having a new executive board, it did not initially have, Clayton said.

“I was happy to create a new constitution, and we submitted our registration the night before the fair,” he said. “We tried to talk to Colleen Rose, and she essentially told us that OUT was not ‘responsible enough’ to register in time and therefore we would not be allowed to attend the fair. In the past, latecomers were allowed to attend the fair, so I’m not certain why Colleen gave us such a hard time.”

There are 400 student organizations that have completed the registration process and at least 200 student organizations that reserved a table for the fair on Wednesday, but OUT simply was not one of them, Rose said.

“They submitted their form after the end of the business day,” she said.

Despite its recent troubles, Clayton said OUT is looking forward to the new year and what the group can accomplish.

“When OUT’s successful, I feel like the GLBT community at large is successful,” he said.