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October 10th 2012 - Over the Edge

Volume 19, Issue 3 October 10, 2012

A&E EDITOR Jordan Tucker

COPY EDITOR Ben Filipkowski

NEWS EDITOR Hanna Petersen

SPORTS EDITOR Geoff Sargent

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Reza Akbari

FEATURES EDITOR Gala Munoz

MANAGING EDITOR Shelley Termuende

WEBSITE MANAGER Behrooz Dalvandi

STUDENT LIFE EDITOR Leila Maheiddinibonab

PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Randy Roy

CONTRIBUTORS Devon Flynn Jeff Hollett

Jordan Crosina Fraser Hayes Heather Ritchie Kelley Ware Rob Currie-Wood

The deadline for the next issue

is Monday, October 15th. Be

sure to get your articles in on time!

Over the Edge is the official independent publishing media of students at the University of Northern British Columbia.

As such, it is our mandate to report on issues of interest to students in the North- ern Region. We encourage all students, both on the main and regional campuses to submit to Over the Edge.

Over the Edge is part of the Canadian Uni- versity Press network of papers, otherwise known as CUP.

CUP is an organization that is entirely owned by member papers, and provides such services as a news wire and advertis- ing to Over the Edge.

Over the Edge is published every second week during the fall and winter semesters.

Office Location: 6-350

MAILING ADDRESS 3333 University Way Prince George, BCV2N 429

PHONE (250) 960-5633 FAX (250) 960-5407

E-mail ote-newspaper@unbc.ca

AN EARFUL FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

REZA AKBARI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

As Editor-in-Chief of Over the Edge and a member of the Board of Directors at CFUR Radio, | would like to inform all UNBC students that both organizations are facing major financial issues. These issues are negatively impacting the growth and improvement of these organizations, resulting in challenges with daily operations. Major funding for both organizations comes through student fees. All undergraduate students pay $5.00 for each organization every semester; this fee has not changed in 15 years, while operation costs have been increasing on a yearly basis. | have included the budget forecast for this year (September 2012 through to May 2013) in the issue you now hold in your hands.

Sales are membership fees collected from the UNBC finance department each semester. The budget was prepared on the 12th of September 2012. $12,500.00 was to be collected for the fall semester; however, the check received from UNBC was for $11,227.50. The total estimated available funds for Over the Edge (September 2012 — May 2013) is $45,424.00. A conservative estimate for operational costs is $48,480.00. This means, in a best-case scenario, we will be short $3000.00 by the end of our fiscal year. We cannot decrease our fixed costs, as some are legal fees and others are already the best available rates. Editorial board members receive $300.00 as honorarium pay monthly,

and each member commits somewhere between 15 and 20 hours per week, if not more. Our production days are usually on Saturday and can last up to 14 hours. The most recently published issue took 520 hours. The total available funds per issue are $3,242.85, and if you divide this amount by 520 hours, the available budget per hour is $6.23.

On September 26th, CFUR and Over the Edge held a board meeting to discuss these financial issues. We found that, on average, fees for Canadian university radio stations are $10. Based on this research and our current financial issues, board members voted in favour of proposing a $5.00 increase to student fees. This decision, however, must go through a referendum. As a former undergraduate student at UNBC, and based on my involvement with CFUR and Over the Edge directly and indirectly during past five years, | would like to draw attention to the financial crisis we are facing today. CFUR and Over the Edge are great places filled with opportunities for students. These places act as the voice of UNBC, and we are now calling upon to make sure this voice remains heard.

Members of the Over the Edge editorial board and CFUR radio are more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Please stop by our office, or stop us in the hallway and let us provide you with more information.

3 wee

FRASER HAYES

CFUR STATION MANAGER

Hello students, faculty, and staff. My name is Fraser Hayes and | am the Station Manager at CFUR. As mentioned by Reza, CFUR and Over The Edge are facing some financial challenges as of late. Our student fees have never gone up while operating costs have more than doubled. The average student fee for campus radio stations across Canada is $10 per semester; when you look only at campuses with under 10,000 students, not including UNBC, that average jumps to $14.25. In the upcoming referendum we will be asking students to approve a modest fee increase from $5 to $10. This increase will get us closer to the national average and this will allow us time to search out more funding opportunities to bridge the gap. This revenue increase will allow us to do much more for students. Some of the things we have planned are to build a music recording studio so students can have access to professional recording equipment to make their own album or EP. This service could be provided to students free of charge if we are successful in this referendum. We would also like to upgrade our broadcasting equipment; some of the hardware we use is over 10 years old and is no longer reliable. Being a radio station

Over the Edge Newspaper Budget Plan September 2012 - May 2013

Revenue Sales Advertising Revenue Dividend income Total Revenue Current available found

security found

Total available found

25500 (11,227.50 for Fall Semester +...)

3500 0

16424.91 Sep 14 2012

-5000

$40,424.91 August 28 2012 - May 27 - 2012

Expenses

Accounting and &Legal Dues, Fees & Licenses UNBC (phone & fees) Honorariums

Printing cost Production days (meals)

Promotion

Travel

CUP conference

CUP AGM

Office Supplies Editorial board support Equipment and repair Promotion (Prizes) Mail and Shipping

Total expenses (Forecast)

Meals & entertainment (board members)

Annual Exp Ratio $2,000.00 3.91% $2,700.00 5.28%

$600.00 1.17% $24,300.00 47.52% $9,100.00 17.79% $1,680.00 3.29% $1,400.00 2.74% $280.00 0.55% $200.00 0.39% $2,100.00 4.11% $500.00 0.98% $280.00 0.55% $800.00 1.56% $2,100.00 4.11% $280.00 0.55% $160.00 0.31% $48,480.00

Expenses per issue

$142.86 $192.86 $42.86 $1,735.71 $650.00 $120.00 $100.00) $20.00 $14.29 $150.00 $35.71 $20.00 $57.14 $150.00 $20.00 $11.43

$3,462.86

MESSAGE FR

OM CFUR

that broadcasts 24/7, we need to make sure that the on-air content is reliably delivered at high quality. With increased revenue, we will be able to bring in more bands, host more shows, and do this with minimal cost to you, the students. The extra revenue would also ensure that CFUR staff could be paid at least minimum wage; as of now, all three of us work hours well beyond what our honorarium covers, and we would all love to be able to spend even more time here building and programming quality content for all the UNBC students and Prince George citizens. | would also like to thank all of you for your support thus far. At last count, we have a whopping 28 original CFUR shows! This is content built and broadcasted by you, for you. We are very proud of the progress we have made over the last few months and we have a huge list of things we would like to do to make CFUR even better. Please help by supporting CFUR in this call to action.

We are very happy to answer any questions you might have about CFUR and the upcoming referendum. Feel free to stop by the station any time; we love visitors.

EDITOR'S NOTE

In our previous issue, we neglected to include information about Convocation with regards to regional campuses and regional students; in addition, "Application to Graduate" should have read "Application for Graduation.’ We apologize for the error and the inconvenience.

HOW TO SUBMIT TO OVER THE EDGE

Are you interested in writing for Over The Edge? We're interested in publishing your work!

If you'd like to submit an article to Over The Edge, type it up with a word count and save it as a .rtf file (available with most word processors) and attach it to an email to ote-copy@unbc.ca. In the email subject line, please include the issue in which you'd like to be published, as well as what section your article is meant for. Finally, include a title - and you're ready to go!

Our next submission deadline is Monday, the 15th of October - get your articles in early!