The Dalhousie Outdoors Society wants students to vote in favour of increasing its levy from 50 cents to $1 per full-time student in the DSU election on March 6 and 7.
The society is managed by a team of 55 unpaid volunteers and is Dal’s largest student-run society, with 1,300 members. Last semester, they ran 60 trips to connect students with their peers and the outdoors.
“We offer services for all students, no matter your level of experience in the outdoors,” said Dalhousie Outdoors Society President Megan Cooper. “So we try to diversify the things that we offer to better serve the student community. I think that’s kind of at the heart of what we’re doing right now with our levy.”
The society’s current levy is 50 cents per semester for full-time students and 25 cents for part-time students. The levy has not increased since it went into effect in 2015 and is not adjusted for inflation.
“All of the trips that we offer are subsidized [by the levy],” Cooper said. “It makes it a lot more affordable for students to get out of the city. We find that the biggest barriers are transportation costs and equipment. So we offer all of those things so people can get outside of this 30-minute Halifax bubble and actually see Nova Scotia, which is a huge draw for people in coming to Halifax.”
The society also operates an outdoor gear library from which students can borrow equipment for free. Cooper said the gear library’s 200-piece inventory is fully booked during the summer months, and up to 400 people access it during the school year.
In the fall semester, the society collected over 1050 student signatures to get the levy increase on the DSU election ballot. The DSU approved the bid to go on the ballot but denied the society’s request to adjust the levy for inflation. Ten per cent of Dalhousie’s student body needs to vote in the DSU election for it to be valid, and over half of voters need to vote yes for the Outdoors Society’s levy increase to pass.
“Most of that money is going straight into our trip subsidy budget,” Cooper said. “With the increase in subsidy, most of our trips will basically be free. So it makes all of these activities way more accessible and just gets more people outdoors.”
Outdoors Society treasurer Tristan Seely has been handing out flyers and going into classes to campaign for the increase.
“[The levy increase is] super important for us so that we can run trips super cheaply for everyone. It would mean that students who can’t pay for the more expensive trips, like skiing or multi-day stuff, would be able to do that.”
Cooper wants students to know that even if they signed the petition to get the increase on the ballot, they still need to vote in the election on March 6 and 7.
“Even if you aren’t outdoorsy, increased resources for students that are organized by students are a benefit for everyone at Dalhousie,” Cooper said.
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