Many students have complained about the absence of the Naut so far this year but there is no need to complain anymore. Thanks to efforts from the newly elected SBRA (Student Beach Resident Association) members, the Fairfield tradition is back up and running.
Matt Coolidge, Lauren Desteno, Mike Mould and Colleen McEvoy are the four seniors that were elected at the end of last month to the SBRA.
Normally the election is held at the end of each school year, so everything is in place come September. However last year’s election was ruled unfair by the school because not everyone had a chance to participate. According to Duane Melzer, Coordinator of Off-Campus Students, some students who wanted to be on the ballot were not, and the election was held during finals week after some people had already left for summer vacation.
Having to wait for the results of the second election has wasted some lost time. However, with the keg races last Saturday and the Naut officially starting yesterday, SBRA is starting to get organized.
“Since we had to have another election it delayed things a while. But now we are ready to go,” says Matt Coolidge ’04.
Officially the job of SBRA is to act as an intermediary between the beach residents and university administration, through Melzer. In addition, SBRA also coordinates social events like the Naut, keg races, 200 nights, and the mock wedding held in the spring.
SBRA is particularly excited about 200 nights, a senior semi-formal, this year. They have organized a “booze-cruise” for seniors through New York Harbor in early November. Mike Mould’04 said of the choice, “We wanted to do something a little different, and we thought the booze-cruise was a good idea.” Mould went on to add that the price of tickets this year will be less than in years past.
All four senior members of SBRA have the same goal, to give everyone a chance to have a good time, but as Mould points out the surrounding community needs to be respected.
“We want everyone to have a good time, but with everything that has happened lately, we need to be respectful of the community as well,” said Mould. “If students behave poorly we won’t be able to do as much as we would like.”
SBRA members want beachresidents to give them feedback and ideas so that they can improve events, or start new ones.
Some students think events organized by SBRA are often best times of the year. Tom Hansbury ’04 says, “In the past the SBRA events have been awesome.” Tom went on to say that he has faith in the newly elected members because “all four of them are just fun people.”
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