A message from the Clubs Oversight Commission:

Dear club leaders,

We on Clubs Oversight understand that this year has been challenging and stressful for clubs. The lack of certainty regarding certification, recertification, and funding has had strong negative impacts on the undergraduate student community. For this reason, we have made the following decisions regarding recertification:

  1. All RECERTIFICATION and early recertification applications are considered APPROVED, conditional that clubs run on their approved constitution from 2024-2025;
  2. All TEMPORARY RECERTIFICATIONS are now EXTENDED until April 30th, 2026 (i.e the rest of year), on the same condition;
  3. All clubs who have been approved or extended under the above will continue to have access to all CUSA services, including room booking privileges, bank accounts, insurance, and storage (if you currently have a locker);
  4. All clubs who have been approved or extended under the above are eligible for winter funding (Funding Phase 3), contingent on their successful completion of the required training course for CUSA club executives on brightspace. The training course will be up soon, so keep an eye out for the email! Please fill out the form linked here to enroll your two executives, if you haven’t already.

These measures will give clubs the security they need to continue their operations for this academic year.

For club leaders, this has been an especially difficult and confusing time: additional forms, uncertainty over whether you will be able to get reimbursement for events, and even if your club will be recertified, which is a requirement for room booking. The negative effects on student life resulting from this, including fewer and less resourced events, has formed the basis for our decision.

The new Clubs Oversight Commission, have been meeting 2-3 times a week to restore the normal flow of operations. Since the election of the new Club Representatives at the All-President’s meeting (held at the end of September), we have gone through the backlog of certification applications, as well as the entirety of Funding Phrase 1 applications, and are already underway in reviewing Funding Phase 2. Communication on these is pending, but the decisions have been made and will be released soon. Funding for Phase 1 is currently being deposited.

One issue that the new Clubs Oversight has faced is that this fall we have had two funding application phases, essentially doubling our workload, which is a departure from the previous norm. In winter, COC will only have one funding phase to process, which we will aim to process on a rolling basis. At the same time, we hope to embark on a comprehensive reform of the club governance structure, in order to prevent similar issues from re-occurring. We firmly believe that clubs are a core aspect of the Carleton student experience, and we want to ensure that club leaders have a structure that supports them and on which they can rely.

– The Clubs Oversight Commission