August 18, 2005
Bryan Bardine and Zack and I met with Melissa this morning in her office. This
meeting was as a result of our meeting with Dr. Cummins-Collier last week.
After Melissa got done saying what a great guy Bart is and how she fondly remembers all the Alpha Nu's that worked over the years at Flannigan's (she is married to Pat Flannigan the owner for those of you who didn't get the connection), we got down to business. I fully expected this to be an appeasement meeting, i.e. they didn't have enough guts to say no to us last week so they would placate us with this meeting and give us so much t do that we could not attain their goals. However, I was very pleasantly surprised.
Melissa went over multiple issues in no particular order. These are areas that need to be addressed for us to even hope to get recognized again. Bryan attempted to ask the question of whether this was an exercise in futility, if after we jump through the hoops will be still be banished. She danced around it and said that was not what she took away from last weeks meeting. Taking last weeks meeting on face value, I agree with her, but I am still skeptical (we take a course in that in law school!!).
So here are the points we need to address, again in no order of importance:
The current brothers need to address how to take their minutes and how to post them and get them to all the Brothers. It is evident that none of them have yet familiarized themselves with Roberts Rules of Order, but they are going to buy the book now. I think this should be an easy one to work out.
It was recommended that we have one Alum and one current Brother assigned to this task. This will be a lot of work initially to gather all of our history again. Once we are caught up this should be something fairly easy to maintain. She suggested a scrapbook with pictures and text to capture each year for posterity. (My recollection is that we were almost captured for some of what we did in the past.)
This is a big one. We discussed things such as the need for two signatures
on checking account, which they do not currently have. Dues, the amount and
how they are to be paid (collect over summer and give a discount if paid by
August 20, etc.)
A true and accurate Budget is a big item. I think the Budget should be drafted
in the preceding semester and given to the Brothers to review. Between the semesters
comments and corrections can be made and it can then be approved at the first
meeting of the new semester for which the Budget will be in place, but that
is just my thoughts.
In checking with Ohio Secretary of State, Alpha Nu is not a legal entity in
this State and UD requires that we have our own tax ID, so we probably ought
to incorporate as a non-profit and get the tax ID.
Yearly audits of the books are also recommended, so we need some accountants
to step up and help with the budget planning and auditing.
Some of you had mentioned this in some of the e-mails earlier. All of the greeks on campus must have a house corporation, more lawyer work!!! This corporation is strictly an alumni function and does not deal with the active brothers. The funds are used to buy property or new furnishings for the frat house or upgrade of carpeting etc. The corp is funded by one time payments from pledges and from alumni gifts. Need some accounting help to make sure that donations into this fund can be write offs, for those of you making the big bucks.
The Brothers need to record their hours of service. They need to try and partner
with a service organization, such as the St. Vincent Homeless Shelter or Habitat
for Humanity or Special Olympics. They also need on campus service hours documented,
which they have been doing the last several years.
Believe it or not but there is a 'social concern' office on campus and they
are recommended to meet regularly with them for other service projects and ideas.
The Brothers need a service chairman who would meet and then report at a meeting
and have it reflected in the minutes. (DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT,
triplicate, sounds like the Army)
This would be in conjunction with Alumni and we have already started developing these types of programs.
A HUGE DEAL. This is a written plan on the conduct of the Brothers, i.e. Code of Conduct. This would include disciplinary policies and address underage drinking, criminal charges and consequences etc. Also to include alcohol and drug counseling and abuse awareness programs. Hopefully what Brother Ryan is working on will jump start us on this big issue.
This would entail a written policy for disciplinary action by a discipline committee. We need procedures and time frames for hearings and make up of the committee. Melissa suggested that Alumni should be involved as a member on the hearing panel.
MAYBE OUR BIGGEST HURDLE. Melissa indicated that ALL Greeks on campus had some type of insurance policy. I am presuming a type of umbrella or catastrophic insurance; we will need to do some research on this issue as to types of policies and costs. All you agents out there, step up.
With all the work and tasks assigned, Melissa said we still need to promote
'fun' activities for the brothers. Fun things like retreats and strategic planning.
We were thinking more like sports and canoeing trips, in any event we need to
have an agenda for brotherhood activities that don't fall into these other categories,
I guess.
I do think a five year strategic plan is a good idea, where do we want the Frat
to be in five years?
There are seminars and meetings about leadership to attend. Also, she thought we should try and identify future leaders in pledge classes and nurture and train them.
Apparently Diversity Education is big at UD now. They are required, and did
last year, to attend functions regarding diversity in society. They can go to
programs on religious, ethnic, gender or disability issues to fit this requirement.
I presume the functions should be chosen in advance and then attended and a
report for the minutes etc.
I am sure there is more under this category and we can flesh out many other
programs etc.
This would include meeting with other clubs that are not greek. Having a cook out or pizza party or some type of joint function to get to know and mingle with other non-greek organizations.
She would like a newsletter that the Brothers put out for the Alumni. The newsletter, in her opinion, should be about 40% of what the Frat is doing and 60% about the Alumni. So this means we should have someone on that committee for Alumni news and notes. This is something that will have to be snail mailed and not e-mailed according to her, more costs. (This will please Wild Bill our resident mail man)
She suggested an open house for the faculty - when we have a house. Maybe naming a Professor of the Year and giving him/her a plaque. Or make the Athletic Director an Honorary Brother, like we did, and get great seats for all sports events.
This should be a big item for us, rebuilding our IMAGE on campus. She suggested things like wearing our shirts on a certain day every week. They don't have pins and we need to get them back and develop a pin protocol, like can't wear with jeans or collarless shirt etc. We should be proud to wear our colors and represent the Frat and not show up to class hung over and smelling like a brewery and wearing an Alpha Nu shirt. This may take some work and planning and should be one of our main priorities, in my mind anyway.
The Brothers need a Scholarship chairman. All the brothers can fill out a grade
release form so the chair gets all their grades. We need to put in writing our
GPA requirements for pledging, retaining active status, for officers etc. The
Chair can also be responsible for researching scholarship money and availability
and passing that information onto the brothers to help pay the costs.
Also, need to explore study hours and study groups. If someone needs help we
should have tutors ready to help. She recommended that their be an Academic
Advisor and maybe an Alumni could take that post to monitor grades etc. In the
5 year strategic plan we should include a target GPA for the frat.
So, these are the issues she wants us to work on and present to her our reports and policies generated for these topics. I had the impression that there may be more after we do this, since I wasn't sure we ran out of time or paper today with her.
My suggestion is that pick a weekend in September and have a meeting on campus, I can book the room as Alpha Nu Omega National Alumni Association Annual Meeting. We can discuss the points outlined above and have discussion on how to go forward on each topic. I have asked Zack to work with the Brothers on the issues that are solely theirs and they can make a presentation to us at that meeting.
We need input and workers, time to step forward BROTHERS.
What Melissa didn't bring up is what we will do after our meeting, quarts and peanuts at Kramers and then out to see Teddy Bear at his bar, Harrigan's were they serve the same pizza we had at the Shed.
With Brotherly Love,
Marty