Bowling Trials and Travails
The Bowling Club at JMU is different from other sports clubs. We don't compete with other colleges, we don't "practice," and we don't make use of any on-campus facilities. We meet once a week to bowl as a league, and that's it.
We do, however, belong to the Sports Club Council, so we get a (relatively small) amount of money from the SGA. Between this money, club dues ($5/year), and absentee fees, we pay for bowling for our members for the last few weeks of bowling, as both a Thank You gift and relief for the Poor College Student who has been paying $8.75/week all year long.
The way we ran it last year was, we got a check for all of the money we had in our account, gave it to the bowling alley, and they kept the correct amount after each week. We didn't have a choice in this matter, because we don't know from week to week who will show up to bowling and who will not. At the end of the year, the bowling alley wrote the bowling club a check for the funds that remained, and we rolled that over to this year's account.
This year, it looks like that's not going to work. I spoke to the owner/operator of the bowling alley on the phone yesterday, and I was fuming by the time I hung up with him. I explained our situation, and our desire to do this year the same thing that we did last year.
Joe: That's fine, but there will be no refunds this year.
Me: Even if there's money left over from what we gave you when our league is done?
Joe: That is correct.
Me: Well, we don't know from week to week how many people will show up.
Joe: Then you can just pay from week to week, then.
Me: OK, what we'll need then is a bill for each week...
Joe: No, absolutely not. You write us a check the night that you bowl.
Me: That's impossible. The way that the University runs it, we need to submit a bill to our Treasurer and she needs to make out the check...
Joe: All our leagues pay the night that they bowl.
Me: There's no way that we can do that, because...
Joe: Well, that's your problem. I will not be bothered with this.
Me: Then there's nothing you'll do to help us out? We've been bowling there for years--
Joe: No, nothing.
Purchase orders normally take two weeks to come through. I now have to try to rush one through the system so that we can start free bowling a week earlier, to ensure that we exhaust all of our funds by the end. I hate people.
March 21, 2002 - 09:25 AM