Represent your fraternity well
 

Hey brothers,

I'm doing a presentation to the uMiami chapter on Sunday, and I was hoping to get some ideas. The purpose of the discussion is to remind them to represent their fraternity well. My goal is to get them to remember they are Lambda Chi's throughout this upcoming year, and keep that in the backs of their minds when they decide to drink in letters, bash another brother, be lazy on house duties, uninvolve themselves with recruitment, etc.

So, on the agenda, I'm introducing this idea by having them watch an interview that Jimmy Kimmel had with Brother Will Forte on his latenight talkshow (09/05/07). Here's a website that shows his appearance http://abc.go.com/latenight/jimmykimmel/index?pn=guests. Also, check out my other forum post HERE which discusses this actor. Anyway, the interview portrayed fraternity life (specifically LCA) in the, unfortunately, common stereotypical way...drinking and blacking out. So, I was going to show that video and lead the chapter members in a discussion on how much better it would have been if he talked about the positive aspects of our fraternity...our ideals...our brotherly bond...our mission (leadership, scholarship, community service, positive social experience)...our love for our fraternity and the members in it...etc. Now, I understand that wouldn't get as good ratings for the talkshow, but I'm hoping to guide the conversation to get the men to see how they represent our fraternity will affect our publics' perceptions of us.

So, that's the first part of the presentation. The second, I'm hoping, will be a discussion of portraying a positive image of Lambda Chi Alpha. I looked through Brother George Spasyk's "Reflections" and couldn't find anything, and gave up searching through Greekchat for it. I was thinking the High Theta manual or maybe some text describing "conduct becoming a gentleman". I don't know...it's getting late, and I really want this to be good. So, my question is, "Do you know of any additional resource (maybe a quote, guide, or passage) that could help me with this discussion?" Any ideas? Thanks!

Yours in Z A X ,

I hope he doesn't get upset with me for posting his email...contact Brother Ray Lutzky at ray.lutzky@gmail.com Ask him about the PowerPoint presentation he did at Leadership Seminar. It was primarily about recruitment, but he discussed a lot of things that we do as a fraternity that are funny to us on the inside, but make other people look at us like we are strange.

One of the things was T-shirts that seem funny to us, because we know we're joking. When other people see them, they might take them seriously.

Anyway, it's a great presentation, and I think you could use a lot of it.

Yes, Brother Ray helped us found a new GLO while we were in Memphis: Nu Beta Mu (No Beer Monkeys).

This topic brings up a few interesting thoughts:

Should this apply ONLY to undergraduate/active members?

When your picture is placed in the Paedagogus as "famous alumni" wouldn't that mean you are still a strong representative of your fraternity long after you're out of college?

The reason I bring this up is, of course, because of the recent embarrassing allegations involving Rick Pitino. He admits to having an extramarital affair that was consumated in public at a Louisville restaurant. Somehow this doesn't sound like the kind of behavior the fraternity would want from one of the alumni they brag about.

Honestly, even though I haven't been active for a decade, I find it a bit disheartening to hear a story like this about a guy I always read about in fraternity publications where his picture was often prominently posted.