Regional advisors?
 

I am curious what your thoughts are . . .

I sometimes have contact with chapter advisors from other fraternities. Some of these fraternities have a regional structure.

Unlike our organization, where the High Pi reports to the GHZ, some of the other fraternities have a layer of regional "management" between their respective national board and the local chapter. Some appear to be quite proactive and others are more or less window dressing. In either case, however, it is a layer of management / micro-management / supervision / authority between the individual chapters and their respective general fraternities.

Not suggesting that we need to look at this but what are your thoughts, if any, regarding this?

Brother John G. I hope I am reading this right. Correct me if not.

One of My Reps. is a KS and was Regional Director for them in the State of Ks. While volunteery, He did get paid for travel and minor expenses.

He finally got burned out and said, No, I am done.

I am not really sure what you mean by Regional Structure.?

Having Our High Pi's report to IHQ is a more structured picture.

If these proactive or not dont do the job, then a lot happens that IHQ is unaware of and dont know if there is action to be taken.:(

Window dressing does no one any good. There needs to be a structured measurement of Aid somewhere in a point in time.

I cannot speak for any other Greek Organization, but feel that over all, We have the best steps in place.

How I think it work
 

As best I can tell, it gives the local chapter advisors someone to chat with at a more local level. Also provides some supervision for those chapters that are between advisors. It could also facilitate coordination at the regional level.

In one case at Fullerton we have a regional grand wazir who fancies himself the "dean" of the chapter advisors at Fullerton by virtue of his regional position. Goes out of his way to suggest to the University administration that we should ALL be organized like his house.

We're getting along just fine without the additional layer of management, but I was curious what other people thought of the idea.

I think its an interesting idea to discuss, but if there are not more immediate benefits then I doubt it would be worth whatever additional administrative costs would be involved.

Regional Advisors
 

When I joined Lambda Chi in the fall of '98 there were regional directors. Our regional director was based out of Dallas and his name was Bojak Barney from Oregon State. Being the farthest chapter away from the rest in Texas, and in a different time zone, we never really got any attention. Then Lambda Chi did away with Regional Directors to save money on cost of staff or something. But in 2003 they created Regional Coordinators, the Regions are as follows:the Western Region is Gold; the Central Region is Green; the Eastern Region is Purple. There are three people asigned to each region as Region Coordinators. It on the website.

One of the GLO's using this "regional" concept is Delta Chi. Speaking as a licensed vendor, this is incredibly frustrating for a couple of reasons.

Most of the GLO's work their marketing, conferences, etc. through their IHQ. Having a "one-stop shopping experience" is great; I know what phone number to call and can find out whom I need to speak to via their website.

DX is different, however, in that they decided to "decentralize" their operations a few years ago. This includes responsibility for their regional leadership conferences. For example, their Region V coordinator is an Illinois State alum who lives in Normal.

Since I'm A)an ISU alum who B)had a great relationship w/the DX's when I was in school in the olden times and am glad to see they've returned to ISU and C)am one of DX's licensed vendors, I thought it'd be a perfect opportunity for me when I learned they're holding the Region V conference @ ISU this month.

Not only would I get a chance to meet/greet DX's from ISU & the midwest, but I'd be able to check in on my home chapter & other GLO's I've been in contact with. On the outside, it looked like a great plan.

However, this plan went down the tubes when the previously mentioned Region V honcho decided he didn't want to converse w/me. I've left VM's...sent email...all to no avail.

DX's IHQ says the conferences are in the hands of their coordinators, so there's nothing they can say/do on this issue. That sound you hear in the background is me gnashing my teeth in frustration.

Bottom line: while "decentralization" may be a great way to economize on the international fraternity level, there's no accountability in instances like the one I've described. I'm personally delighted w/LCA's Regional Coordinator setup.

Leslie, Tina and Vicki are great resources...while they're not "one of us", these women are extremely professional and want to help you guys out.

For example, after about 18 months of wrangling they finally helped Beta-Omicron to get our initiate's numbering sequence fixed (we had 8 guys missing from their rolls because of various snafus on the chapter side). They're here for us...okay, that's enough of my ranting.

Yours in ZAX,
BF