This week’s MCSG meeting, the first of the spring semester, began with a recap of the fall semester’s initiatives and accomplishments and outlined the Legislative Body’s [LB] plans moving forward.

Program Board chair Michelle Buse ’18 presented on the Program Board (PB) budget from last semester. Program Board was allotted $68,000 for the semester – including $63,000 budget and $8,000 rollover from Fall 2016 – and spent just $52,000, meaning that it has an extra $14,000 to spend on events this semester.

Financial Affairs Committee chair Chris Pieper ‘18 then gave several general updates on MCSG’s finances. Pieper said that student orgs who fail to update Checkbook whenever making purchases using allotted money may lose funding for the upcoming semester.

Next, MCSG Vice President Ariana Hones ‘18 discussed an upcoming menstrual health project launched late last semester with a “period party”. The event collected feedback on a proposal for a pilot project to use the student activity fee to bring menstrual products to campus restrooms and other spaces.

The proposal received overwhelmingly positive feedback at the event, and organizers are looking to run the program from March until May of this semester.

The LB then discussed the results of a “newspaper-tracking” experiment run in December to determine who is benefitting from the New York Times subscription funded by the student activity fee.

The experiment found that roughly 50 percent of newspaper-takers were students, while around 20 percent were non-Macalester community members. The study also found that, out of the 75 newspapers purchased daily, an average of just 39.5 were taken in total.

The body discussed potential future changes to the newspaper’s funding based on the study’s results.

The meeting concluded with a discussion of the body’s Strategic Plan and a reminder from MCSG president Suveer Daswani ’18 about MCSG’s spring retreat, which will take place from Feb. 9-10.