The Radical Beer Faction

Once upon a time, there was a UBC political party named the Radical Beer Faction. It was originally created in January 1991 to protest candidate slates and to drink and make a general mockery of the elections. Every year, the RBF tried to get the magical 10% required for the AMS to subsidize campaign expenses. Whatever money the RBF recieved, it gave back to the students as beer.

“UBC’s oldest joke party, the Radical Beer Faction (RBF), first participated in an AMS election in 1988 [see comments]. Until last year, when slates were banned in the AMS election, the RBF ran a full slate of candidates in the election, united by their zeal not only for subverting the student political machine but for the good fizzy stuff. Over those 16 happy (add “and very drunk”) years, candidates included Toby the Amazing Fighting Fish, a zombie overlord, an orange pylon and a fire hydrant."

--The Ubyssey, January 2006

The bottle dried up for RBF after 2005, though we did manage to give away hundreds of free beers that year in 30 glorious minutes at buck-a-beaker.

So this year, when the AMS, in their infinite wisdom, announced the Voter Funded Media initiative with $8,000 in the honey pot, we jumped the offer and re-christened ourselves the Radical Beer Tribune. Like a handful of the other media groups, we promise to take whatever money we win, and give it away at a beer garden.