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Well, I have posted a lot of the good stuff under other topics on this Forum, so I guess I will share a couple of the lessons (from unmitigated disasters) that I have learned. Our alumni club first started getting reorganized my senior year (1991-92). Our chapter was going to be celebrating its 65th anniversary of its founding that fall. So we thought it would be a great idea to have a banquet to celebrate this occassion and try to get all of the alumni back. We as undergrads, were all for this idea, and were given much of the responsibility for coordinating the event. At some point, we decided that since one of the brother's mothers owned a bridal shop and could get us tuxedos at cost, (which I might add is WAY cheaper than when you normally rent) all the brothers would go black-tie. For some reason this fact got mentioned in the newsletter that was sent to all of the alumni. Well...our alumni seemed to be really put off by this, because they thought it was actually a black-tie event, and they damned well weren't going to rent tuxedos for it! When we had the banquet (which was quite nice) we had a whopping three alumni there. Three out of 700+!!! Needless to say, black tie events are outlawed in our constitution!
The other big failure came a few years later in an effort to build a brand new chapter house. Our current house is about 130 years old, and until our current renovations, no major remodeling had been conducted in 30 years. Saying it was a bit run-down would have been kind. In years past undergrads did as much to the house as they could without having any significant $$$ to spend, but nearly every chapter on our campus was building new houses. The alumni club exec. at the time undertook a major fundraising campaign to try and build a new $600,000 house. Well, the initial response was good. We raised a little over $30,000, but still needed to raise over $100,000 to be able to make the project a go & secure financing. To make a long story short, a lot of people dropped the ball. The money raised went to pay for the architect's fees, the surveyor, the environmental consultants, etc,etc,. Left over?...Squat. Many of the alumni who donated large donations said never again! The undergrads, alumni, everyone was mad. It could have killed us, but subsequent boards scaled it back. I think we have finally learned what kind of stuff really works for us. For the most part, the mistakes we made were early in our learning curve. I am really looking forward to homecoming when everyone gets to see our newly remodeled chapter house, and then 2001 when we will actually have our 75th Anniversary. We are planning a banquet, but we the alumni are running the show, and believe me, we won't be telling anyone how to dress. Hmmm.. perhaps a theme..."Come As You Are.."