Publicity. As we are a new organization (founded 2/97), visibility and event publicity are a priority for the year. Currently all publicity costs have been personal funds of the officers. We intend to poster for our biweekly meetings ($30), advertise via LSC slide ($25) and other ad hoc publicity ($25).
Semi-annual retreat. We are going on a group retreat to the MITOC Intervale Cabin on the weekend of November 8th. Renting this cabin costs $100. Gasoline/transportation expenses are estimated at $50, though this may be higher if we need to rent a car to bring extra students. We hope to have a number of inexpensive group activities and food on the retreat ($75). We hope to have a similar retreat in the spring, but will likely not use the same cabin, if a cabin at all (est. $150).
Library. We maintain a small library of books available to the MIT community on Atheist, Agnostic and Humanist topics, focusing on books that are often otherwise hard to find. These books are available for borrowing. We would like to expand this library slightly each year ($30).
Lecturers. We are sponsoring a number of lectures, including Tom Ferrick, Valerie White, and hopefully one "big name" lecturer. Current possibilities we are pursuing include James Randi, Stephen Jay Gould, and Richard Dawkins. These lecturers are typically very expensive ($1,000 - $5,000), so we do not expect to be able to invite them to speak without jointly sponsoring a lecture with another group, which we are pursuing. We would like to be able to financially contribute to such a lecture and pursue other less expensive lecturers as well. We are asking for $250 to this end.
Miscellaneous. Outside of the above mentioned publicity costs, miscellaneous xeroxing, for meeting agendas, pamphlets, etc, is anticipated ($20). We would like to be able to serve minimal refreshments at lectures and meetings ($25).
This brings our total revised budget request to $780.