Alpha Phi moving it's office to Denver to be close to notorious Executive Director
 

This email announcement was circulated amongst volunteers yesterday / today. Much talk amongst disgruntled members that this announcement is less than authentic in its tone. The new Alpha Phi headquarters is being moved from its historic location in Evanston, IL (home to its Beta chapter) to Denver next to a very new chapter (relatively speaking). They fail to. mention it is also in the back yard of their notorious executive director who is very controversial amongst volunteers.

What's laughable is that they want you to "not share it". I guess that NDA doesn't hold even a dropper of water. That $hit was forwarded all around within 5 minutes of it being sent. :cool:

Text of the announcement here:

I have the privilege of writing to you to announce an exciting new chapter in the future of Alpha Phi, and one that involves a new home for our executive office. As fellow longtime volunteers, I am sharing this news with you first. Please do not share this information until the public announcement later this week.

As many of you know, the Alpha Phi Executive Office has moved various times. This has meant that we have called New York, Evanston, Detroit, and Chicago home throughout our history. In 2023, we will now add Denver to this list as our International Executive Office will relocate to 1985 Josephine near the University of Denver campus and co-locate with the Iota Xi Chapter of Alpha Phi.

In the past, several joint committees comprised of International Executive and Foundation Board Directors studied possible relocation as Alpha Phi continued to outgrow the Executive Office. Many past committees seriously considered Denver as the top relocation city but decided the timing was not right. Denver was always a choice for those groups based upon fraternal organizations being exempt from property tax in Colorado. During this biennium, a joint Fraternity and Foundation committee was convened to update research and discuss relocation scenarios. In considering options for a new Executive Office, the primary objectives were to identify a new home that equips our staff to serve our members best and meet our new and growing needs for collaborative space while being fiscally responsible.

In this new location near the University of Denver, we have found a space that positions our members, volunteers, and staff for success. This will mark the first time that our Executive Office has shared space with a chapter, which – while allowing for private spaces for staff and undergraduates– will allow for new and innovative opportunities for engagement with our collegiate women. The expanded footprint of the new space will also enable Alpha Phi to regularly showcase permanent artifacts from our archives and provide a museum-like space for members who visit the Executive Office. Crucially, this move will also result in operational savings for Alpha Phi, allowing us to dedicate a more significant percentage of our resources to our core mission of serving collegiate and alumnae members.

Of course, we are deeply grateful for the forty-eight years in Evanston, and we are particularly thankful for all who have visited and volunteered at our Evanston-based office over those years.*
*
On behalf of the IEB, thank you in advance for your support during this transitional period. We are thrilled to chart this new path with you, and the Fraternity and Foundation cannot wait to welcome you to our new space in just a few short years.

They are moving IN with an active chapter? That is like having your mother move in with you!

...or mother-in-law!

How does this one woman have so much power? To move your international headquarters to a different city and all the expense of the cost of a new building in a city with a higher cost of living. Especially when your current headquarters site is probably all paid off. Just so it’s convenient for basically one person there. I guess the flights from Denver to Evanston got to be too much.

Iota Xi chapter at U of Denver chartered May 2, 2010.

This is just nuts and yeah I heard about this from another page I follow. I just feel terrible for Alpha Phi that this person has wielded so much power its almost as though the checks and balances were thrown out the window.

Still not quite in the same class as the National Executive director of Tau Epsilon Phi who declared that all of the chapters had not met their financial obligations, therefore no one could vote for National Officers, and therefore there were no National Officers who had the right to replace him.

Aren’t there tax breaks to being in Indiana? Are they just throwing those all out the window?

I also thought that that was part of the reason there had been such a gathering of HQs in Indianapolis...

There are- but Alpha Phi is in Evanston, which is Illinois.

Executive HQ moving into an active chapter’s house? That seems like it would be an awkward arrangement! It would feel like your boss is now living with you! Does any organization have a similar arrangement?

Perhaps. I tried doing a search on fraternal tax breaks in Illinois a couple days ago when this was posted here on GC, and I couldn't find much. Maybe I need to dig more, but I will say that if you search "Colorado, tax, fraternal", you'll very quickly find the Fraternal Society Exemption information on the leg.colorado.gov website.

Oh geez, so it is. Don’t mind my menopausal brain.

My first thought is "where will all the national headquarters stuff go"? The archives, the records, etc. Even the square footage of the largest of chapter houses could not compare with the square footage of a national headquarters building. And that's not even including housing a collegiate chapter.

QFP.

Google view of house. Not immense. https://www.google.com/maps/@39.6804...7i16384!8i8192

Haha, I typed Indiana in my response to you, even though I did actually search for results in Illinois.
*edited*

The house initially appears VERY small, but it is actually bigger if you turn the corner and view it from the side.

But still, that does NOT look like enough space.

I just happen to work at DU on Josephine and heard about this over the weekend. As someone whose office is a former chapter house on the same street, it is absolutely going to be a tight squeeze for chapter and international operations in the same space. The houses barely sleep 20 as at is. But, welcome to the neighborhood, I guess!

Might their Big Idea, in moving to a smaller HQ, be to go high-tech and modern by going completely digital? This would include no physical, only digitized/computerized, displays of furnishings/flags/other historic APhi items in the new HQ building.

Digitization might mean one could view a lot more of the archived APhi historic items (tea sets, gavels, desks, etc) in one sitting.

Which might then mean all the historic, physical properties and records would end up in storage (but preferably NOT at the dreaded Exec Director's nearby home).

Zoom-type meetings may become permanent for all the APhi Boards, eliminating the necessity of large meeting and sleeping rooms in a new national APhi HQ building. Any necessary trainings for important groups of APhi collegians (such as Educational Leadership Consultants) would also be via a Zoom-type manner rather than at HQ.

APhi is also must be very careful how it divides, and uses, the space it will be sharing with a chapter. Taxmen will frown on incorrect usages/designations of that type of space.

I hope Alpha Gam never does this. Our historical display room is one of my favorite parts of visiting IHQ!

Do you really think this is the aim of our organizations? I'd be very surprised to find that historical items are reduced to a virtual archive. But perhaps I'm naive in believing those items will be preserved and displayed forever.

I will say, though, following the pandemic, I wouldn't be shocked to see some organizations downsizing. With work-from-home options becoming the norm, large amounts of office space may not be needed.