Anticipation was building as Megan Small waited with other members of the Dalhousie Outdoors Society for a snorkeling trip to Terence Bay Beach. Small is one of many students who loves to participate in the society’s trips funded in part by a levy from the DSU.
“Snorkeling, you don’t get to do every day,” she said. “Having people that are willing to take you and teach you and [allow you] to learn is an amazing thing.”
The Dal Outdoors Society is the largest student society at Dal, with close to 1000 members registered this semester. The society is free for students to join and runs outdoor trips, lends free outdoor gear and offers member discounts to local outdoor stores.
The Outdoors Society is a levied society and doesn’t receive money from the university. Instead, it’s funded via student fees allocated by the DSU. The society currently receives $0.50 per full-time Dalhousie student each semester and $0.25 per part-time student.
Megan Cooper, president of the Outdoors Society, believes the funding and support they’re receiving from the union is not enough. They are petitioning the DSU to increase the levy to $1 per full-time student and $0.50 per part-time student.
“We are at capacity in terms of all of our trips being booked in a day, most of our gear is booked out for weekends a week before. We can’t provide more,” Cooper said. “And at the same time … there is so much demand.”
The levy from the DSU isn’t enough to subsidize the cost of many trips, with members having to pay additional fees to attend. Cooper is hoping a levy increase will make the cost of trips more accessible for students.
“Last semester we put out a member survey,” she said. “We put out a bunch of survey questions to a bunch of students and said ‘where are we failing you’ and a lot of people said trips were too expensive.”
Small is a trip leader for the society and became involved last year. She also emphasized the importance of making trips accessible for all students.
“We are all university students and some of the trips are more expensive,” Small said. “So, having them cheaper would be more accessible for more people. I think it would help get people out doing more things and make them more happy.”
During the long weekend at the end of September, most of the shelves in the society’s gear library sat empty. Almost all the gear had been rented out with nothing but an abundance of snowshoes and other winter gear left unclaimed on the warm September day.
“Students want to go outside and they want to explore outside of Halifax. It’s great for mental health and great for building community and we think that we are an important resource,” said Cooper.
As of Sept. 30, the petition has approximately 180 student signatures. This was before the petition was advertised on social media and support and signatures were generated solely through word of mouth. To get the levy request on the DSU’s agenda, the petition needs 1054 signatures. The Outdoors Society has been promoting the petition on social media and plans on encouraging members to sign it at their Annual General Meeting on Oct. 7.
Cooper said, “We are 40 students just like you, writing honour theses, going to five classes, working part-time jobs and we put in a lot of work on top of all of our other responsibilities. I think signing the petition is super easy and helps us to continue to provide all of these services.”
Small believes the society plays a key role in helping students explore what the province has to offer outside of Halifax.
“For me, it’s just about being able to get off the campus and see what Nova Scotia is really about,” she said. “It’s very different being on campus all the time versus actually going out,” she said. “I am from Ontario and I wanted to see Nova Scotia.”
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