The AMS has made national headlines over the past couple of weeks, including stories in The Toronto Star, The Huffington Post and The Province. Considering the AMS’s recent history, this would normally mean I’d be writing a column that starts with a recap of a hilarious and embarrassing scandal that has swamped our student union.
But this time the buzz is good: the AMS is planning a microbrewery for the new SUB. According to President Jeremy McElroy and VP Finance Elin Tayyar, it would be the first brewery operated by a student union anywhere in the world.
If we are to believe the feasibility report that the AMS commissioned, the brewery will potentially make an annual profit of somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million. It would also provide students with a cheaper source of alcohol at the AMS’s bars, and possibly give beer gardens a local source for their kegs.
[Update: As AMS President Jeremy McElroy points out in the comments below, the $500,000-$1 million is what the brewery is slated to add to the budget of the new SUB, not make in profit. The projected profit is more modest.]
This all seems too good to be true, and to a certain extent, it probably is. I’ll be surprised if the brewery ever makes that much profit. But examined within the larger context of the AMS’s ambitions, it doesn’t really matter whether the brewery makes wads of cash, breaks even or is a modest money-loser.
At the February 8 AMS Council meeting, Tayyar laid out a plan to have the AMS form a company to manage all of the society’s business operations. That company would have a more stable and knowledgeable (but still student-controlled) board of directors, and would focus on making the AMS’s businesses as efficient and profitable as possible. Those profits would then flow back to the AMS to be put into student services.
The main reasons for this plan are practical. The AMS’s business profits have been falling for years, and they’ve also received unwelcome attention from the Canada Revenue Agency for being a non-profit society with high levels of business income.
But think for a moment about the path the AMS is embarking on. In a few years, it will have a brand new $103 million building—which brings along brand new facilities for all of its businesses. Its bars, which currently sit empty on most nights, will likely be much fuller and will now be selling pitcher after pitcher of AMS-produced beer. This is growing into quite the commercial empire.
A decade from now, when these business profits are combined with the interest produced from the AMS’s endowment fund, a substantial portion of the AMS budget will be independent from student fees. The AMS will be able to keep its student fees among the lowest in Canada while increasing student service levels. It’s brilliant.
The real question is: why are no other student unions doing this? For one thing, they tend to be suspicious of relinquishing control over their business operations; the result is that student politicians with little business sense maintain their food outlets as poorly-run money pits. The AMS has always been smartly focused on giving elected students the final word on business operations, but mostly letting professional staff take care of the details.
The other reason, though, is that other student unions simply haven’t dreamt as ambitiously about what they’re capable of with a bit of longterm planning. For this, the AMS deserves a lot of credit.
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