A longtime cycle of lost and damaged items needing replacement due to clubs lacking proper storage space has prompted Central Connecticut’s Student Government Association to finally tackle the issue.

“There is no space. All of the space [in the Student Center] is being used up righteously,” SGA Vice President Dante Solano, who chairs the organization’s new ad hoc committee in charge of the problem, said. “Materials are being damaged. And then they need to be bought again a couple years later because they’ve been damaged.”

Getting clubs additional storage space to keep their supplies is a promise that, Solano explained, the SGA has been consistently putting on the back-burner due to a number of “complications.” But the ad hoc committee will now address the storage deficiency by sending a survey out to clubs to first assess what needs storage and then finding a temporary space that is secure “by the end of this semester.”

“These materials have been bought with Student Activity funds. They are a responsibility of the SGA that is buying them and of the campus that’s allowing them to buy them to make sure they don’t constantly go missing. We’re constantly paying for them or things happen to them because they’re poorly stored,” Solano stated.

Solano himself can attest to minimal storage, making keeping supplies safe difficult. When he was one of the Tabletop Club’s officers, he and the other e-board members “just put everything in a suitcase and it went under the bed.”

“I know how valuable that space is under the bed. [Dungeons and Dragons] suitcases take up a lot of room,” Solano said.

The SGA funded the Tabletop Club with money to buy a cart to move their supplies around, but current President Giovanna Paulus said that ensuring the safety of their “library of games and handbooks” without storage space is still hard, as e-board members take turns cramming the cart into their dorm rooms and bringing it to meetings.

“I live in Barrows so I can hide it under my bed, but the rest of the e-board lives up the hill with bunk beds, so it does take up space for them,” Paulus elaborated, adding that the constant back-and-forth has led to some sacrifices. “We try to cover the games with a tarp during transport, but hauling it between dorms and meeting spots, we’ve lost playing cards to the wind and had minor water damage from the rain.”

The E-Sports Club has to tough out no provided storage space as well. Though President Matt Warren said that the club is lucky enough to not have had any items lost or damaged, “sometimes it gets close, since they sometimes completely clutter the room.”

“There have been times where I had to store eight large boxes in my room for almost a week. We also have a game system or two that has been donated to the club that is sitting in my room, alongside a lot of tabling supplies,” Warren said. “We have also had to throw away many things, such as promotional items, since there just isn’t enough room for them in anyone’s rooms.”

Student Activities and Leadership Development will sometimes allow clubs to temporarily store items in its office, according to Director Scott Hazan, who added that clubs have the option to keep small materials like files in the Student Center’s rented lockers if the cost is not inhibiting. T

Expanding the Student Center and including storage space in that expansion, he furthered, is a possibility down-the-line as well.

“We definitely recognize that it’s an issue,” Hazan said. In terms of what temporary space the SGA could possibly locate, Hazan said he’s not sure what it could be, as the Student Center is “completely full” and providing storage outside of the Student Center would bring on new potential challenges like who would manage it to grant students accessibility.

“Storage space is interesting because you’re giving up programming space potentially. The building we renovate is only going to be so big. Are we willing to give up space for storage?” Hazan posed.

But for Solano, having a safe environment for materials bought by the SGA in a timely manner is imperative. He cited other colleges that provide their clubs with sufficient storage space, like one in New Mexico that has a common room with tables and lockers where students can work together while having their student government close by.

“All these other universities are doing it. We need to get on track with [them],” Solano said.