Who is attending the National Convention 2010 (Atlanta)
 

So who is going to be attending the Alpha Phi Omega National Convention this year? Are you all excited?:) I AM!

National Convention ?? Wait, what's that??


Yes, am going.

I will be there.

I'll be there. Zeta Kappa at Bowling Green State University is sending a delegation of fifteen or so. I was a voting delegate and on the National Organization reference committee for the Boston Convention in '08, so I'm excited to experience the other side of the Convention this year! :-)

Thinking about the national convention has anyone heard any rumors about legislation that might be proposed. There's always the common things but one and a while something interesting comes up, like that Big/ Little ceremony that was approved at the last meeting.

Non-ritual legislation is available as a PDF on the national website.

My commentary copied from facebook
 

What really stood out was there are 5 different proposals for the Program of Emphasis/NSW themes: Two on Cancer, one on AIDS, one on Poverty, and one on general health. I can remember quite a few conventions where there has only been one proposal.

There are three different proposals from National Board/National Committees that would have among their effects that all geographically based alumni associations accept all brothers in the area in accordance with Fraternity membership policies.

There are a couple of tweeks to membership types including adding suspended and inactive membership categories and banning honorary membership for those under 16.

There is a proposed change to the Purpose of the fraternity to include "and to support the alumni members of this Fraternity in lifelong brotherhood and pursuit of upholding its ideals." at the end.

Also, there is a proposal to move some of the more "technical" stuff into a Fraternity Operations and Policy Manual. For example, how a section chair can designate an alternate for Convention and which states are in which convention regions (To me this boils down to the question as to whether the National Board should have the ability to move Wyoming from West to North Convention regions. :) )

I expected the bids would come from California, we haven't been there since 1980. I was a little surprised to see three from there though, especially two from Northern California.

I'm obviously biased as I am the primary author of the HIV legislation :) but I thought the resolution on poverty had merit. I would like to see it in a trial mode first before rolling it out to the national fraternity though.

I was also surprised at the three bids from California. I hope it wasn't an acrimonious process which brought us to this point.

When I attended the Region X Conference in 2009, there were three different groups working on bids at that point: one in San Francisco, one in Oakland (perhaps it later became San Jose?) and one in Anaheim. They have all been aware of each other's efforts. I don't know much more than that.

Personally, I'm wary of having a convention in Orange County during Disneyland's highest attendance days of the year, but I'm waiting until after I hear their bid presentation to make up my mind. If they're planning on having it in Irvine or somewhere away from Anaheim resort traffic, it wouldn't be as big an issue. I suspect they've addressed those concerns, given that it shifted away from being an Anaheim-focused bid into a broader Orange County bid. But everyone will accuse me of being biased toward Section 4 anyway... :)

Responding to my own posting here....

These seem to be directly aimed at the "MOTRS-(City name here)" Alumni associations...

Also, because we have Regional based alumni voting, it does raise the question as to where APO-Dentists (for example) would send their voting delegate to. I'd actually prefer a setup where each AA gets a vote, but their votes put together comes to no more than 15% of the total vote, even if we have to break out the calculators. (Alumni votes get multiplied by a specific factor which is calculated when the number of delegates is known)

Randy

Or any other AA that excludes specific demographic groups, aside from limiting membership to single chapters.

I'm interested in hearing about how they intend to enforce the restriction. I mean, maybe it's just coincidence that the information about joining keeps getting lost in the mail when women request it.

Well, regardless of how it is written, we can have All-male AAs if they are for a chapter that went inactive while still all-male. (Such as the chapters at Oklahoma Baptist, Hendrix, Georgia Southwestern, Millsaps, Idaho State, Central State, Portland State, Grinnell, and Rice all of which have been inactive since before 1956)

I'll take suggestions for any AA that has been proposed limited to specific demographic groups other than by gender. I mean an "A Phi Que" AA in Atlanta (for example) that was willing to take brothers from any HBCU might actually pass muster. (as long as they were willing to take female alumni from Howard, for example)

For starters, my guess is that any AA application that is all one gender is going to get a special look through.

Randy

Well, that certainly isn't why this is being proposed - we may (as a Fraternity) find that the current rotation schedule doesn't work, or should be modified or whatever. Certainly, under the provisions of the proposed language for the Fraternity Operations and Policy Manual, the Board *could * amend that policy (assuming it's moved from the bylaws to the FOPM), but I don't know that anyone is actually suggesting that it be changed (I certainly am not._ And, of course, if by some chance the Board were to move or change the rotation schedule, the Convention (again, under the provisions of the proposed language) could simply change that policy.

It really is, to me, a technical issue, and of course, you'll note that the selection of the convention city is still the prerogrative of the National Convention. I only proposed this item to the Board because it seemed to be a technical issue and could use some flexibility if needed (that the bylaws don't allow.)

I'd hope it would pass but, honestly, the sun won't rise or set on the adoption/rejection of this particular portion of the larger amendment.

--Mark

The question in terms of the changes to the Manual is whether the convention can change them and have the effects occur before the end of convention. For example: The National Board moves everything out of the Western Convention region except for Elko, Nevada. Can the Convention change the region back to what it was prior to voting on whether it goes to Seattle or Portland?

The way that the section chairs can replace themselves at convention is probably a better example to use when explaining this, simply because it is even more obscure.

I doubt even the people who put the amendment together would be all that depressed if it didn't pass. The one that the sun will rise (and set) over is the Alumni Association membership policy amendment.*

(Putting it in singular because even though three are being sent to reference committee, my honest guess is that only one will come out, but the people who proposed the ones that don't come out will support the one that does).

Well, I certainly hope the larger amendment passes, even if this particular section doesn't! :-)

But, to your question, I think changes to the FOPM can take effect immediately upon adoption (just like amendments to the bylaws can.) There's no reason they can't.

Mark